Reflections on The Saviour of the World Volume 6

“But, now, Hope rose transcendent as a god,
Compelling and fulfilling. But what art
Could show that radiant form or who portray;
Or shape in words the Resurrection joy?”

For Charlotte Mason, the raising of Lazarus was a foreshadowing of the greater miracle that was yet to come, the miracle we celebrate today. For on Resurrection day, “Hope was revealed … Shadow of Death withdrawn.”

Today we begin our journey through Mason’s sixth volume of poems, entitled “The Training of the Disciples.” Read or listen to the first poem of the volume, which fittingly points to the Resurrection of Christ. (You can find it here.) And may you have a blessed time with family and friends celebrating and remembering our Lord on this most special day.

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“We say some things on our own, by ourselves, where there is no power that inspires us to speak,” wrote Origen of Alexandria in the 3rd century. “But there are other things that we say when some power prompts us (as it were), dictating what we say, even if we do not fall completely into a trance and lose full possession of our own faculties, but seem to understand what we say. Now, it is possible for us, while we understand what we say on our own, not to understand the meaning of the words that are spoken.”

How could a person not understand the meaning of the words that he speaks? When could such a thing happen?

According to St. Augustine, it can happen when one holds a sacred office. He cites the Apostle John as his authority, who “attributes this power to the divine sacramental fact [of being] the high priest.”

And so Origen continues: “This is what happened in the case of Caiaphas the high priest. He did not speak on his own, by himself, nor did he understand the meaning of what he said, since it was a prophecy that was spoken.”

The prophecy was recorded in John 11:51–52. The high priest did not understand its meaning, but Charlotte Mason did. Read or hear her convicting and inspiring poem “What do We?” here.

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“Let them grow up, too, with the shout of a King in their midst,” writes Charlotte Mason in Parents and Children. “There are, in this poor stuff we call human nature, founts of loyalty, worship, passionate devotion, glad service, which have, alas! to be unsealed in the earth-laden older heart, but only ask place to flow from the child’s. There is no safeguard and no joy like that of being under orders, being possessed, controlled, continually in the service of One whom it is gladness to obey.”

What of those who had the King physically in their midst? In John 11:54 we read that Jesus went to a city called Ephraim. “Blest men of Ephraim who saw the Light!” reflects Miss Mason. She imagines how they would have greeted the King and His twelve peers. Pennons, broideries, and costly carpets? Surely that is what founts of loyalty and passionate devotion would set out.

But no. “No blazonry of heralds, trumpets’ blare, proclaim the news that a Great One has arrived. Scarce any turned to watch the meek procession of the Lamb.” Read or hear Mason’s poem “He tarried at Ephraim” which brings fresh light to a single verse, and unseals the earth-laden heart. Find it here.

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I will never forget the first time I entered the hall of the seven virtues in the Uffizi Gallery. I looked intently at the first painting, and then the second. “Paintings,” I thought. Another, and another. Until finally I reached the end of the hall, and then I gasped. I could not simply say to myself, “Painting.” For I was standing before something that was more than a painting.

“Everybody else’s Fortitudes announce themselves clearly and proudly,” writes John Ruskin. “They have tower-like shields, and lion-like helmets—and stand firm astride on their legs,—and are confidently ready for all comers.”

Not so the Fortitude of Sandro Botticelli. “Botticelli’s Fortitude is no match, it may be, for any that are coming. Worn, somewhat; and not a little weary, instead of standing ready for all comers, she is sitting,—apparently in reverie, her fingers playing restlessly and idly—nay, I think—even nervously, about the hilt of her sword. For her battle is not to begin to-day; nor did it begin yesterday. Many a morn and eve have passed since it began—and now—is this to be the ending day of it? And if this—by what manner of end?”

Charlotte Mason read these words of John Ruskin in Mornings in Florence. She alluded to them in Ourselves Book II in her chapter on Fortitude.

When speaking of humility, Mason quoted William Law: “There never was nor ever will be, but one humility in the whole world, and that is the one humility of Christ.” Perhaps there is only one fortitude also. When Mason wrote of the fortitude of Christ, she cited Ruskin again. And she cited Botticelli again. And I know why. Because it is really more than a painting. Read or listen to Mason’s poem on the fortitude of Christ here.

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“There is no sin, no vice that gives one such a foretaste of hell in this life as anger and impatience,” wrote Catherine of Siena. “[The impatient] are unwilling to bear or tolerate their neighbors’ shortcomings; they don’t even know how to! Anything that is done or said to them sets them flying, their emotions stirred to anger and impatience like a leaf in the wind!”

In recent years, Dr. S. M. Davis has spoken at length about the destructive impact of anger within families. “Rebellion in youth seldom goes away until parents deal, not just with anger, but with their spirit of anger,” he explains. He points to the moment in Luke 9 when James and John ask if they should “command fire to come down from heaven, and consume” the Samaritans. Jesus rebuked not only their anger, but also their spirit of anger: “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of” (Luke 9:55).

Many justify anger when it is expressed as righteous indignation. And when is indignation ever more righteous than when the honor of Christ is at stake? Charlotte Mason explores this question in her poem entitled “The Samaritan Village.” What is the root of anger, and what is its fruit? Examine your spirit as you read or hear Mason’s poem here.

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In her book Restless Devices, Felicia Wu Song describes her emotions after reading these words of Tish Harrison Warren:

In church each week, we repent together… Confession reminds us … our failures or successes in the Christian life are not what define us or determine our worth before God or God’s people. Instead, we are defined by Christ’s life and work on our behalf. We kneel. We humble ourselves together. We admit the truth.… And then—what a wonder!—the word of absolution: “Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life.”

Felicia Wu Song recalls that these words made her “slam on the brakes.” She explains: “To run across such an account of Christian confession and absolution is to come up against what feels so stunningly like an alternate universe. This description brings into sharp relief the vast distance between the posture we practice when we are steeped in the social imaginary of our permanent connectivity and the posture that Christian spirituality encourages. Our typical digital practices of keeping up, grasping for attention, and seeking the reward of affirmation begin to feel paltry and thin against the sheer magnificence of what is promised in the ritual of confession: to be invited to freely admit our failures and discover that we are still loved and welcomed.”

Sometimes our words of confession are impromptu and extemporaneous. And sometimes our words follow a form, and ancient or modern prayer. Charlotte Mason’s poem “I have transgressed” might well be one such form. Her beautiful verses give us the words we need “freely admit our failures.” Read or hear them here, and then delight in the knowledge that we are still loved.

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The Gospels of Matthew and Luke describe a man who says, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” To this profession of faith, our Lord responds, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

How does this man respond? Leon Morris notes that “The scribe’s reaction is not given, but certainly the cost of discipleship is brought clearly before him.”

Morris goes on to explain that “John uses the verb for lay when he is speaking of Jesus bowing his head on the cross (John 19:30); there the Master found the resting place that he did not have throughout his ministry.”

The cost of discipleship is brought before us too. How will we respond? Consider with Charlotte Mason in her poem on this verses here.

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The past 80 years have seen a growing interest among believers and scholars to better understand the relationship between Jesus Christ and the Judaism of His day. It has become increasingly clear to many that Christ was an observant Jew who held the Torah in the highest regard. One verse in particular, however, has proven especially difficult to reconcile with this view: Matthew 8:22, which reads, “But Jesus said to him, ‘Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’”

In 1968, German scholar Martin Hengel made his bold declaration about this verse. He claimed that it represented “not only an attack on the respect for parents that is demanded in the fourth commandment but also at the same time it disregarded … works of love, which … had their basis in the Torah.” Christ, he insisted, could not have loved the Torah if He could strike so deeply at the heart of its commands.

In 2000, however, British scholar Markus Bockmuehl questioned Hengel and the consensus that had formed around his view. Bockmuehl pointed to prophetic examples, such as Ezekiel, who was not allowed to mourn for his wife (24:15–27). And he noted the provision in the Torah for the Nazirite, who could not “not make himself unclean even for his father or his mother … because his separation to God is on his head.”

When Jesus was disputing with the Pharisees about the Sabbath, He said, “Have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple.” In the same way, prophets and Nazirites left the dead to bury their own dead, and yet were blameless. And now there is One greater than prophecy or separation.

Charlotte Mason’s poem “Follow Me!” explores the tension of conflicting loyalties raised by this verse. Read or hear her words here.

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“Every Christian is called to a life of renunciation,” writes Fr. Vassilios Papavassiliou in his commentary on the Ladder of Divine Ascent. “It is clear, then, that renunciation is not exclusive to monasticism but is an intrinsic part of being a Christian… Christians renounce the world by living for something other than the world. By living thus, we become the light of the world.”

But there is another step in the ladder after renunciation, a step called detachment. “In monastic life,” he explains, “detachment naturally follows renunciation. Having abandoned the world, the monk must guard his heart against yearning for what he has forsaken; he must look not back, but forward. Otherwise, grief and regret will overcome his spirit. Eventually he will come to resent his vocation and see it as an imprisonment and a wasted life, because he has not yet let go of his worldly desires.

“For others, too, detachment is integral to Christian living. I have heard married men and women complain that they married too young, that they did not have the opportunity to do the things they dreamed of, that they have missed out on something because they had to sacrifice their will and desires for the sake of their children or spouse. If the monk, having vowed to live a life of utter dedication, is not to look back, should not married couples observe the same rule? ‘No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God’ (Luke 9:62).”

Charlotte Mason offered her own reflections on this powerful verse in the Gospel of Luke. I invite you to consider the place of detachment in your life as you read or listen to her poem “Fit for the Kingdom” here.

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“The mission of the Twelve is recorded in three Synoptics,” explains Ralph Earle, but “the sending of the Seventy only in Luke. This is in keeping with the point of view of this Evangelist. [Alfred] Plummer puts it this way: ‘This incident would have special interest for the writer of the Universal Gospel, who sympathetically records both the sending of the Twelve to the tribes of Israel (11:1–6), and the sending of the Seventy to the nations of the earth.’”

“In Perea,” he continues, “where these servants of Christ were sent, the population was more Gentile than in Judea. Yet it was predominantly Jewish. While nothing is said about the Gentiles in the instructions to the Seventy, neither is there any prohibition against preaching to them, as there was in the case of the Twelve (Matt. 10:5–6).”

In his volume The Gospel History, C. C. James places this sending of the Seventy shortly after the raising of Lazarus. Charlotte Mason follows James’s chronology and explores the expending mission of our Lord in her poem “The Seventy are sent forth.” Find it here.

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Some poems have a musical quality that is better sensed, I think, when heard rather than read. Something about sound of the words when they are carefully spoken adds a new dimension to the meaning. Charlotte Mason’s poem “The Charge” is one such poem.

Our Lord had said, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Then He answered His own prayer. Seventy laborers were sent out to the field in a most unusual manner. That mystery is illuminated in verse. Why not listen to it today, read by Antonella Greco. Hear it here.

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“Doom to you, Chorazin! Doom, Bethsaida! If Tyre and Sidon had seen half of the powerful miracles you have seen, they would have been on their knees in a minute.” With these words, Eugene Peterson captured the sense of Christ’s words in Matthew 11:21 and Luke 10:13.

Today, “the exact location of Chorazin is unknown, but it clearly was near the northwest corner of the Lake of Galilee,” explains Ralph Earle. “Its very disappearance is a testimony to Christ’s judgment on it. The same can be said for Bethsaida, which was located on the east bank of the Jordan River where it flows into the Lake.”

In her poem on this passage, Charlotte Mason wrestles with the implications of this passage. Does the Lord judge cities as well as individuals? History seems to provide our answer. Read or hear Mason’s thought-provoking poem here.

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In True to Our Native Land, Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder points to truths in the Gospel of Luke that we are likely to miss. She explains the sending of the seventy as follows:

At 10:3–16, Jesus gives instructions regarding a ministry that was also dependent on hospitality. His directives to the seventy provide a harsh window into the life of a disciple. It is an underground life whose journey toward God did not allow for familial or professional attachments or many private possessions. A person who risks her life in following Jesus must rely on the mercy of others, just as she surely had to rely in every circumstance on the mercy of God. It is a chance slaves were willing to take for freedom. It is a chance believers must take in order to be free and set the captive free.

Why would believers take such a risk? Charlotte Mason explains in her poem on the return of the seventy: “Whose name is writ in heaven meets no annoy.” Read or hear Mason’s poem here.

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In his 1983 book The second Christianity, John Hick describes the faith of the Old Testament prophets:

God was known to them as a dynamic will interacting with their own wills; a sheer given reality, as inescapably to be reckoned with as destructive storm and life-giving sunshine or the fixed features of the land or the hatred of their enemies and the friendship of their neighbours. He was not to them an inferred reality but an experienced reality.

Dr. William Lane Craig points to these words as an explanation of the idea that we “can know that God exists wholly apart from arguments simply by experiencing him.” In fact, warns Craig, “there’s the danger that arguments for God could actually distract our attention from God himself.”

Perhaps this is part of what Jesus had in mind when He said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes.” And so Dr. Craig invites us: “If you’re sincerely seeking God then God will make his existence evident to you.” Charlotte Mason invites too, in her poem “I Thank Thee, O Father!” Read or hear it here.

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Charlotte Mason had many ways emphasize the knowledge of God. She called it “the chief part of education,” and said it is “first in importance, is indispensable, and most happy-making.”

Charlotte Mason said the knowledge of God is the “principal knowledge,” the “fundamental knowledge,” which is “before all and including all,” and is to be “put first.” In terms of method, it is “to be got first-hand through the sacred writings.”

In her poems, however, she assigns a new superlative to the knowledge of God. She called it “The ultimate Knowledge.” And while the sacred writings are indeed our primary means of receiving this grace, we also need a light. Two lights, in fact. “That they are One, is our eternal gain.” Read more here.

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The first chapter of Essex Cholmondeley’s biography of Charlotte Mason is entitled “Preparation.” The most poignant paragraph of this chapter occurs on page 5:

The strain of poverty told upon the health of Charlotte’s beautiful mother and in 1858 she died. Mr Mason never recovered from this loss. He died soon afterwards, leaving Charlotte at the age of sixteen alone in the world. A friend gave her a home for a time; she was entirely without relations and without means, and she passed through a period of great desolation. In her mind remained one idea: she knew that ‘teaching was a thing to do, and above all the teaching of poor children.’ When she was eighteen she took the first step towards her life’s work.

It is hard to imagine what the young Miss Mason experienced during this time of desolation. While her future was hanging in the balance, she made a choice that would eventually touch the hearts of families and educators all over the world for generations to come. What gave this young sixteen year old the power to move forward?

On page 180, Cholmondeley describes a poem Miss Mason wrote called “Rest.” According to Cholmondeley, the poem was “the outcome of the bereavement caused by the loss of [Mason’s] parents.” The poem has a mystical quality and may even be describing a mystical experience from Mason’s youth. The last stanza of the poem includes these words in quotation marks (italicized by Cholmondeley):

As one is comforted, Whom comforteth his mother!

The words seem to be adapted from Isaiah 66:13. The implication is clear. God took the place of mother and father for this young girl, so that our lives and families could one day be blessed. Read or hear the full poem “Rest” here.

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In the Gospel of Matthew we read these words of Christ: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

The saying presupposes that we need rest; but why are we weary? And the saying indicates that we receive a yoke; but what is it?

The answer to these questions are prayerfully explored by Charlotte Mason in her poem “Come unto Me.” Read or listen today and consider a new vision of rest. The poem may be found here.

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Six years ago I invited readers of Charlotte Mason’s poetry to consider and reflect on a small set of poems I selected for Lent. I shared my own reflections on a poem each week. Now in our journey through the sixth volume of Mason’s poetry, we have reached her piece entitled “Restlessness.” Here’s how I described it those years ago:

The haunting way this poem brings out the feeling of restlessness is made all the more powerful to me by how clearly it rings true in my experience. “We wake in the night watches, And fear and shame wake too”—what a sad state when one awakens in the dark and feels palpable fear and shame in that same darkness? One fear, two fears are tolerable. But “A thousand little fears”? Of course we then shake like the leaves of an aspen tree. So many fears we could never control them. Indeed nothing under the sun could answer us.

And yet this poem indicates that amidst fear and shame, there is a place of peace. But not just any kind of peace. The final image of the poem—that of a child falling asleep—gives me a pang each time I read it. Could such peace be possible for me? Really?

As I read my words from six years ago, the questions still resonate with me. But again and again I have been pointed to the answer Mason provided. After all, it is the answer Jesus provided. “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Can I have the faith and trust of a child? Poems like this one from Miss Mason point the way. Read or hear it here.

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“Then I saw in my dream, that when they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity; and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair. It is kept all the year long.”

So begins one of my favorite sections of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. The story haunts me.

“And moreover, at this fair there is at all times to be seen jugglings, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of every kind.”

The pilgrims had to pass through this fair, otherwise they ”must needs go out of the world.” But they were not welcome there. They did not fit in. Their raiment, their speech, their values set them apart.

“One chanced, mockingly, beholding the carriage of the men, to say unto them, ‘What will ye buy?’ But they, looking gravely upon him, said, ‘We buy the truth.’”

Charlotte Mason also passed through this fair. She found what the pilgrims were looking for. This poem will stay with me forever. Read or hear “At the Fair” here.

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In Luke 10:21, we read that “Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit.” According to James R. Edwards, “Jesus allowed such apertures into his self-consciousness only rarely and on guarded occasions, and only then within the confines of his closest confidants.”

In this moment of joy, Jesus “turned to His disciples and said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see.’” N. T. Wright explains this moment:

In the same moment of vision and delight, Jesus celebrates what he realizes as God’s strange purpose. If you needed to have privilege, learning and intelligence in order to enter the kingdom of God, it would simply be another elite organization run for the benefit of the top people. At every stage the gospel overturns this idea. Jesus sees that the intimate knowledge which he has of the Father is not shared by Israel’s rulers, leaders and self-appointed teachers; but he can and does share it with his followers, the diverse and motley group he has chosen as his associates. God, says St Paul, chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, the weak to shame the strong.

Charlotte Mason reflected on this moment of joy shared between Christ and His child-like disciples. Read or hear “Happy Ye!” here.

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When John Wesley wanted to describe the state of Adam before the Fall, his meditation led him to one word: love. “Love filled the whole expansion of [man’s] soul; it possessed him without a rival. Every movement of his heart was love.”

We were created to love. So when Jesus asked a lawyer, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” His answer was similar: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’”

But Adam fell. And so, explained Wesley, “Love itself, that ray of the Godhead, that balm of life, now became a torment.”

The lawyer knew that love was the ray of the Godhead. But he was fallen. And so to justify himself, he asked, “And who is my neighbor?”

Read or listen to Charlotte Mason’s poem as she explores the prologue to one of the greatest parables ever told. Find it here.

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Charlotte Mason’s advice on time management is profound. At the heart is the idea expressed in Home Education: “there is no right time left for what is not done in its own time.” Only when every action has its time can we feel the peace of the pendulum described in Ourselves: “you are only required to give one tick at once, and there is always a second of time to tick in.”

Armed with this wisdom we can put down inclination and instead do our duty. As she explains at length, again in Ourselves:

Now, the eager soul who gives attention and zeal to his work often spoils its completeness by chasing after many things when he should be doing the next thing in order… It is well to make up our mind that there is always a next thing to be done, whether in work or play; and that the next thing, be it ever so trifling, is the right thing; not so much for its own sake, perhaps, as because, each time we insist upon ourselves doing the next thing, we gain power in the management of that unruly filly, Inclination.

The one who has mastered that unruly filly, Inclination, may have to travel from point A to point B. There is only one right time for the journey and that time is today. There is no other right time to complete the errand. So this one insists on doing only the next thing.

And then he passes a man by the side of the road in desperate need. Is this man my neighbor? Read or hear Charlotte Mason’s pastorally profound poem on the Good Samaritan, and see the other side of her beautiful advice on managing our time. Find it here.

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“We are all susceptible to putting God second and ministry first,” wrote Shane Idleman. “If we’re too busy to cultivate a prayer life that places God first—we’re too busy. Men would live better if they prayed better. We’re often too busy because we’re doing too much.”

I wonder sometimes if Mary of Bethany felt a little guilty while her sister was doing all the work. Did she get that unsettled feeling that she should be helping out? Could she sense the resentment that was brewing in Martha’s heart?

In the Gospel of Luke, we find that Mary was vindicated by the audible voice of our Lord. But we aren’t shown Martha’s response. Charlotte Mason gives voice to her prayerful imagination in today’s poem. Read or hear what Martha may have thought when she heard that only one thing is needful. Find it here.

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