The Lord Jesus had told His disciples, “Let us go over unto the other side,” and they launched a little sailing vessel on the lake. When they started it was calm; but the wind rose and the waves became rough, and they were filled with fear. So they ran to the Lord Jesus, and said, Carest Thou not that we perish? “He arose, and rebuked the wind, and the raging of the water, and they ceased, and there was a calm,” So surprised were the disciples that they said: “What manner of Man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” We may well pause and ask that! “What manner of Man is THIS?”
He was, as we know, the Creator of the Universe. He held the waters in the hollow of His hand, and grasped the wind in His fist; His fingers made the heavens, and by the word of His power He upholds the worlds. That One from everlasting to everlasting is GOD. That One was with God from all eternity, daily His delight; and His holiness is such that the living creatures continually cry, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts! That One Who is beyond finite expression, Whose power is unlimited, that One we see sleeping in a boat! The Christ of God, the Creator of the universe, the Eternal Son of the Eternal God, asleep in a boat! Why did He leave those heights of glory? Why was He seen here, walking up and down this world? Why was He seen among the rebellious, ruined children of Adam? Why! Because “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”! What a gift!
If we value a gift by its cost, we cannot count the cost of that Gift! That He should love us, who were sinners without a fraction of good in us, and love us to such an extent that He gave that blessed One to come down here as a Man, a Man asleep in a boat! Wonderful! What manner of Man is this, that when the boat rocked up and down, can rebuke the wind and the raging of the water, and make all calm? He was here, Emmanuel, God manifest in flesh. His presence here was for one purpose to glorify the One Who sent Him; and at the close He could say: “I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work that Thou gavest Me to do.” But we need not only to dwell on His life but His death.
“O come, my soul, and gaze
On that great grief!”
As we see that One crowned with thorns, and those hands that were ever doing good, nailed to the cross; as we gaze on Him we say, “Behold, what manner of Man is this!” And as we do so, our hearts go up in thankfulness and praise. We “know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor!” Why did the Saviour hang on that cross? Why, in the righteous wrath of a sin-hating God, did He bear my sins on that tree? He was “the Lamb of God, that beareth away the sin of the world.” Have you ever gazed on that sacrifice, and accepted the salvation God offers you without money, and without price? If not, come now: there is no time like the present. Come to Him, and “Behold what manner of Man is this!”
There was a woman who thought there was plenty of happiness in the world, and she would have her fling. She would say, “A short life and a merry one!” She drank of the pleasures of this world; she drank of its dregs, she was a woman of the city, and a sinner. She heard of the Friend of publicans and sinners, and she came with all her ruin, with all her past history, came as a sinner. She “stood at His feet behind Him weeping.” She was conscious of her condition, conscious of her sin; and “she washed His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head; and she kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment.”
She came as a sinner, owing five hundred pence. The Lord quotes the case of two debtors, one owing five hundred pence, the other fifty; but both in debt, and both bankrupt. God can never, put a receipt stamp on for your payment. “But when they had nothing to pay, He frankly forgave them both.” And He says, “Her sins which are many are forgiven!” What, the sins of her life, sins she had been piling up in all the paths of wickedness she had trodden? Oh, what wondrous grace! Have you great sins? Have you a conscience about them? The Lord says, through what He did on Calvary’s Cross, “Thy sins are forgiven!” They say, “Who is this that forgiveth sins also?” But it does not matter what they say; it matters what the Lord says! “Thy sins are forgiven. Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”
What manner of Man is this? Behold, what manner of love!
QUARTITS.