The Winsomeness of Jesus by George Morisson - excerpt
Now if you ask me what were the sources of this unequalled winsomeness of His (Christ’s) character, I think I should answer that they were chiefly two, and the first was the influence of the home. We do not know much about the home in Nazareth - God in His wisdom has hung a veil on that - but we know enough from the gospel’s message to assure us that it was a home of happiness and peace. Martin Luther could never think of home without a certain shuddering of the heart.. There was no gladness for him in his Pater Noster, so loveless were his memories of his father. But Jesus, all through his stormy years, turned to his home with infinite delight, and clothed his deepest thoughts of God and man in the tender and sweet memories of Nazareth. There had he seen the woman sweep the house. There had he watched the hands that used the leaven. There had he learned, with innocent childish lips, to run to the workshop and cry Abba Father. Out in the battle with evil eyes upon him, his though went flashing back to happy Nazareth , and at the darkest he never lost his winsomeness, because he never lost the influence of home. There are homes where it is well-nigh impossible that the children ever should be winsome. There is so much bitterness in them, so much worldliness, so much unkindly and unguarded talk. There is so little of that gracious reverence that ought to encircle the great years of childhood, when the foot of the angel is still upon the ladder, and every bush is burning with its God. Out of such homes may come successful men, or smart and clever and fashionable women; but never, from such a barren childhood, is there build up the temper that is winsome. It takes a Mary to make a winsome son. It takes a home of reverence and of love. It takes a depth of fatherhood and motherhood that has never lost the hallowing of prayer. Men marveled at the grace with which he spake, and they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” That was their difficulty, and, as often happens, at the heart of the difficulty was the explanation. They would have marveled less had they but known how quietly beautiful was that home in Nazareth, where those lips which were to draw the world stammered the first syllables of speech.
- “The Winsomeness of Jesus” by George Morisson -