S. D. Gordon

“ This pure loving pleading wooing suffering dying rising-again Jesus, this is the only begotten Son of the Father. All there is in a Father comes to, and is in, an only begotten son. This is God Himself coming to us in His Son.
Once let this sift into thought and heart, then who would not believe, and trust, and love, and fall on his face in the utter devotion of a voluntary slave before such a God!
And so believing, trusting, loving, touching, His life flows in and fills up and floods out. We have it now. That word eternal, used so often by John with the word life, is not a mere length word. ”

“ And yonder across the board sits the man so faithfully wooed, yet dead-set in his inner heart on a dark purpose, more evil in its outcome than he realizes. There must be more and tenderer wooing. He shall have yet another full opportunity. And under all is the heart-throb of love for these who are His own, being birthed into a new life by the giving of His very own life these months past. He loves His own, and will to the uttermost, the utterest, the mostest, limit of love and of time left Him before the great event. ”

“ Its real heart meaning lies much deeper. Brooding is the mother of all love. It is its warmth that draws out that fine feeling that makes and marks friendship. It is its tender warmth that draws out that finest degree of friendship which knits with unbreakable bonds two lives into one.
It reaches out most subtly to knit up again the ends that have ravelled out under the sore stress of life. It bends compassionately over those hurt in body, and hurt yet more in their spirit by the greedy rivalry of life, and nurses into newness of life the shivering shredded hurt parts. ”

“ You come to find that the warmth of that presence is as irresistible as the ideals and the insistence are unbending. And the warmth woos you. It warms you, till there come the intense admiration of the ideals, and then the eager reaching of the whole being up towards them.
This is John's picture of the brooding wooing Jesus. This is God, in human garb as He comes to us in John's pages. Jesus is God brooding over us to woo out of us the love and purity, the purity and love, that He woos into us by the touch of His own warm presence. ”

“ And then the earnest reverent cry "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe?" reveals the yearning purpose of his own heart. And then the great climax comes in the heart cry, "Lord, I believe, I believe Thee to be the very Son of God."
And the outcast of the rulers casts in his lot with Jesus and begins at once living the eternal quality of life which goes on endlessly. What a day for him from hopeless blindness of body and heart to eyesight that can see Jesus' face and know Him as his Saviour and Lord! Growth of faith clearly is not limited to the counting of hours. ”

“ The sun gives itself out in life and light and warmth. And out to greet it comes a bit of itself—the fine form and sweet fragrance of the rose, the tender blade of grass, the unfolding green of the leaf, the wealth of the soil, the song of the bird and the grateful answer of all nature.
The hen sits long patient days on her nest. And forth comes cheeping life in her own image, answering the call of her mothering spirit. The mother-bird in the nest in the crotch of the tree gives her life day by day in brooding love. ”

“ Or, that every man is lighted as he comes into the world, the chief thing being told is the same. Every man in the world is lighted by this Light.
Through nature, the nightly twinklers in the wondrous blue overhead, the unfailing freshness of the green out of the brown under foot; through the never-ceasing wonders of these bodies of ours, so awesomely and skilfully made, and kept going; through that clear quiet inner voice that does speak in every human heart amidst all the noises of earth and of passion; through these the light is shining, noiselessly, softly, endlessly, by day and night. ”

“ And the most grateful of all is the man. This is the Jesus-plan, John says, "full of grace and truth."
Grace is named first. It comes first. That is a bit of the graciousness of it. That's love's exquisite diplomacy. We feel the grateful warmth of the sun in the winter's air, and are drawn by it. We smell the fragrance of the roses and come eagerly nearer. We hear the winsomeness of a gentle wooing voice a-calling, and instinctively answer to it. And then we find the sun's power to heal and cleanse and its insistence on burning up what can't stand its heat. ”

“ Father and mother of our human kind give of their very life that new life may come. And under the overshadowing touch of an unseen Presence comes a new life made in their image, and in His who broods unseen over all three. And over the life wrecked by sin broods the Spirit of God. And out through the doorway of an opening will, comes a new creature of winsome life in the very image of that brooding Spirit of God.
This is the holy commonplace of all life. It is the touch of God. It is everywhere about us, and beneath and above. The father-mother Spirit of God broods over all our common life. ”

“ They meet together and listen to essays, in rarely polished English, on the exquisite lace-like tracery of the cobwebs on the glass of the human lantern. But look! Hold your heart still and look! There's the crowd in the road in the dark, struggling, jostling, stumbling, and falling into the ditch at the side of the road, ditched and badly mired, because the light hasn't gotten to them. The Light's there. It's burning itself out in passionate eagerness to help. But the human lanterns are in bad shape. ”

“ She broods over the baby-talk days; over the struggling days when the child would tell its awakening thoughts out in words, but doesn't know how yet; over the wilful days which come so early when the first battles come that decide the whole future.
With a warmth of tenderness and patience, and a strength of gentle wise insistence, more than human, she broods. It takes the very strength of her life, far far more than in prenatal days. So there comes, slowly, but as she keeps true to the brooding spirit, surely, the strong gentle self-controlled life out of the warm womb of her brooding life. ”

“ But true love discerns the possible lily in the black slime bulb at the pond's bottom and woos it into blossoming flower, till its purity and beauty greet our delighted eyes. Under the simple tact of love's true touch, out of such surroundings grows a faith, through the successive stages of gossipy curiosity, cynical remark, interest, eagerness, guilty self-consciousness that would avoid any such personal conversation, out and out comes a faith that means a changed life, and then earnest bringing of others till the whole village acclaims Jesus a Saviour, the Saviour. ”

“ When we dig a bit into that word believe in the usage of common life it means three distinct things, each leading straight into the other,—knowledge, belief, trust. That is, facts, facts accepted, facts trusted in regard to something that takes hold of your life. You hear something. You believe it's true. But there must be the third thing, risking something valuable. There's no belief in the heart-meaning without this thing of risking. The trust that risks is the life blood of faith. The rest is only the bony skeleton with tendons and sinews and flesh. There's no life without the blood. ”

“ This reveals the meaning of that good-cheer and overcome with which the roadway talk closed. With the clouds of hate at their blackest, and the storm just about to break in uncontrolled wild fury, He speaks of "My joy." He is singing. In the thick of hatred and plotting here's the bit of music, in the major key, rippling out. Such a spirit cannot be defeated. Joy is faith singing in the storm because it sees already the clearing light beyond.
And so He prays on, touching the same keys of the musical instrument of His heart, back and forth, yet ever advancing in the theme. ”

“ And He keeps the tryst. We may count on Him, And as we do we shall cast nets into hopeless waters and get a great haul. We shall find His presence anticipating all our personal needs. We shall rejoice to serve and—if so it prove to be—to suffer for the One we love with tenderest devotion.
And we shall look eagerly forward to seeing Him who is always in touch with us, here and now, to seeing Him with these outer eyes of ours, coming in glory with His resistless power, to make some blessed changes. ”

“ The love looks out the window of the life and then comes out and walks down the street on an errand. Love doesn't simply love: it loves some one. Love that simply loves isn't love. Love comes to life only in the personal touch.
And love keeps in perfect rhythm of action with the one loved. That is the other way of saying obey. Obedience is the music of two wills acting together. Believe me, love me, obey me,—this is the three-noted music of the upper room; three notes but one music; a fourth note to be added later. This is the wondrous closer wooing. ”

“ And only the power of the blood of Christ can ever break that bondage.
There was the real thing of light. Here is the real thing of light. There's a distinct tingeing of red in it. It's the only light. It only is the light. Every other is a make-pretend light, however subtle its imitations and reflections: it will lead only into swamp and bog and ditch and worse.
And then John goes on to add a very simple bit that has not always been quite understood in its simplicity. There was the real thing of light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. ”

“ This is peculiarly and distinctively the picture of John's Gospel. There is a Man walking towards you in these pages. Turn where you will there He is, and always facing you, with a gentle eagerness in His face and in the bend-forward of His body.
There is always a warmth, a gentle radiating comforting drawing warmth in His presence. This is the thing you feel most, the warmth. But it isn't the only thing. There's the purity. There are ideals that seem out of reach in their great height. There's the insistence on these ideals, rigid stern absolutely unbending insistence. ”

“ There only does it reach finest fruitage. Some day we shall recognize the meaning of that modest but tremendous little sentence,—God is love. This warm brooding something that comes, gentle as the dawning light in the grey east, fragrant as the dew of the new morning, irresistible in its pervasive persuasive presence as the rays of the growing sun, giving to us warmth, and life, and drawing out from within us warmth and life and beauty and strength, all in its own image, this is the thing called love. ”

“ And a struggle begins between conscience and cowardice, between right action with an ugly fight for it, and yielding to wrong with an easy time of it. Clearly he feels the purity and the personal power of this unusual prisoner. The motive of envy and hate under their action is as plain to his trained eyes.
Twice the two men, Pilate and Jesus, are alone together. Did ever man have such an opportunity, personally, and historically? With rare touch and winsomeness Jesus woos. And Pilate feels it to the marrow under all his rough speech. His repeated attempts with the leaders make that clear. ”