Article January 25, 1947 Issue

The Second Mile

ISRAEL PICKENS

Coincident with the great healing ministry of Christ Jesus was his outstanding love for his fellow beings. Love was the secret of his power. Love constituted in the thought and actions of the lowly Nazarene a wondrous, irresistible desire to help and bless others. The spiritual love which Jesus expressed far transcended what we think of as human love.

Jesus always loved. He loved Zacchaeus, for instance, He must have known the sense of handicap and limitation that a man short in stature sometimes feels, so he singled Zacchaeus out for recognition from the crowd that was pressing to hear and to see the Master. Jesus loved Nicodemus, who because of some question in his own thought, came to Jesus not forthrightly in the daytime, but cautiously at night. Jesus' intuitive understanding of his problem could have come only through love. He was loving and kind to the woman at the well, and taught her great truths. He understood the repentant sinner in Simon's house, and defended her with his great love and sympathy. He was gentle and patient with Martha's troubled and critical thought.

The Master, in teaching his disciples the true meaning of patient, unselfed love, said (Matt. 5:41), "Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." It may not always be a person who is compelling us to take that first-mile walk, but some distressing situation, condition, or experience. The injunction indicates, however, that whether it come wholly impersonally or in the role of some personality, the error which drives or compels us may always be found to be a blessing in disguise.

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