Christ's Life a Poem
Stopford A. Brooke, D. D. Isaiah 33:17 Your eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off. There are human lives which are poems, as there are lives which are prose. They give pleasure, as poetry gives it by the expression of the beautiful. Such a life, at its very highest range, was the life of Christ. We seek its poetry to-day, and we weave our thoughts of it round that profound phrase of Milton's, that poetry must be simple, sensuous, and passionate. I. That which is SIMPLICITY in art is purity in a perfect character. The beauty of Christ's purity was in this — 1. That those who saw it saw in it the glory of moral victory. 2. From this purity, so tried and so victorious, arose two other elements of moral beauty — perfect justice and perfect mercy. II. The word "SENSUOUSNESS," in Milton's sense of it, was entirely noble in meaning. As the poet produces beautiful work out of the multitudinous world of images and things which he has received, so the exquisiteness of the parables and of the words of Christ, both in form and expression, was the direct result of the knowledge He had gained from the quality of sensibility. III. The third element of great poetry is PASSION. We may transfer it directly to a character as an element of beauty. It is best defined as the power of intense feeling capable of perfect expression. It was intense feeling of the weakness and sin of man, and intense joy in His Father's power to redeem, which produced the story of the "Prodigal Son," where every word is on fire with tender passion. See how it comes home, even now, to men; see how its profound humanity has made it universal! "Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." How that goes home to the deepest want of the race; how deep the passion which generalised that want into a single sentence; how intense, yet how pathetic, the expression of it; how noble the temperance which stayed at the single sentence and felt that it was enough! (Stopford A. Brooke, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off. WEB: Your eyes will see the king in his beauty. They will see a distant land.