John 7:24

Look Beneath The Surface

Judge not according to appearance. John 7:24.

Late one evening a traveler came to an American inn. “I can't let you in here,” said the innkeeper. “You are suffering from some disease and I don't want my family to catch it. Your face is very badly marked.” “My face!” exclaimed the traveler. “I see how it is your mistake has arisen. I am a botanist, and I have been gathering rare plants all day long in the swamp yonder, and the mosquitoes have bitten me, and caused my skin to turn red and swollen.”

The innkeeper begged pardon, and invited the great botanist, who presented his card, into the house.

Not very long ago, a handsome well-dressed lady with large brown eyes was walking along a street pavement in London. She walked arm-in-arm with a friend. A milkman on his rounds had left one of his pitchers on the pavement. The friend stepped aside, but the lady stumbled over the pitcher, with the result that it was upset and the milk was spilt. The milkman was very angry. The fact that the culprit was well- dressed seemed to make him all the angrier. “What do you mean kicking over my pitcher?” he shouted. “I'm sorry,” she answered. “I did not mean it. I am blind.” “Blind,” said he, looking at her eyes, “tell that to the first fool you meet; pay my milk.” She did pay it.

The man could not have told that she was blind, for her eyes seemed as bright as yours are this morning; but don't you think it was a pity that he judged so hastily, and that he did not give even a moment's consideration to what the lady said?

The innkeeper and the milkman both made the same mistake. They judged by appearance, and appearance led them astray.

Appearance is just the outside of anything, or how things look to our eyes. With boys and girls at school, life itself is often pretty much a surface thing “rare fun,” as some of you would describe it. All the same, most of you feel that it is a good thing to get below the surface occasionally. Take a rather common case. A boy in your class one who, you say, is “ripping good fun” often walks home with you, and you feel rather proud of this. He asks you to go fishing with him one Saturday. You get a shock as he reveals himself to you. He says things you wish to forget, but cannot. Had your mother known everything she would have said, “Don't walk any more with that boy.” And girls, there is one old lady who, when she looks back on her school life, remembers with thankfulness that she had as a friend a quaint, plainly-dressed girl whom all the “smart” pupils seemed to avoid. To that girl she now feels that she owes the greater part of her education.

Once a girl got a present of a box containing what seemed a number of common stones. They had been gathered on the Rocky Mountains by a friend interested in geology. She would not believe that they were worth anything, so the little box and its contents were just pitched aside. Many years afterwards it appeared in a saleroom among other odds and ends. A specialist in geology noticed it, spent nearly a whole forenoon examining the stones, and gave a big price for it when it was put up to auction. The girl judged by appearances, and lost by doing so.

So it was when Jesus Christ was on earth. When He spoke His wonderful words there were people who said, “How has this man learning?” “Is not this the carpenter?” Others looked deeper, and found in Him a Friend far above any they had ever known. He could sympathize with them in everything, their joys and sorrows alike. More than that, they recognized in Him a Savior from their sins.

You may think that you cannot know Jesus as His disciples knew Him. His bodily presence is certainly gone from this world; but your New Testament tells you about Him, and the more often and more thoughtfully you read that wonderful book, the more living do its words become. Jesus Himself lives in its pages. But if in your reading of it you make no effort to get below the surface but just make up your mind that it is dull, you will miss having the comfort of His friendship when you are in difficulty. His disciples saw in their Friend the Christ, the Son of the Living God. What a friend to have!