WE stand at the northern end of the lake and witness a strange phenomenon. The waters of the upper Jordan have journeyed down mountainside and through morass and past modern village and ancient ruin to gather to themselves the impurities and muddiness of a fast-running, unattractive stream. Now the miracle is on. Those yellow waters plunge into this pure water of Galilee, which reflects in its bosom the sapphire glory of the upper world, and immediately the stream is lost, and becomes at once purified. Where it pours itself into the lake, you can look down twenty feet and see the bright pebbles and shining fish. In no other place in the world does this seem to be paralleled. The great streams like the Ganges push their colored waters eighty miles and more into the sea, a distinct current. Smaller rivers sometimes make their yellow track across the entire lake; but the marvelous purity of Galilee makes every other drop of water instantly clear and clean.
The ordinance of feet-washing was instituted by our Lord as recorded in John 13. It was celebrated in the early church in connection with the Lord's Supper. See note on last page.
This is the striking parable of the heart of Christ. The moment another life touches His life, the result is inevitable and miraculous. Nature has no phenomena to surprise us and no reality to change us like this. To come into contact with the purity of Christ, is to become pure. We have named it something else and harder to be understood, but this is the great change. This is the supreme wonder. This is the glorious possibility in human life—the muddy stream made pure enough to reflect heaven, by touching Christ. This is the power of Christianity and the demand upon every Christian life. The Christian life is the Christ life, and that is the purity of the upper world. Character, and nothing less than His character, is the result in any life which pours itself into the divine life. —Cortland Myers.
