Consider how much is involved in the bare fact that Christ came into the world the son of a poor mother, and lived in it a poor man.  “A man’s life,” He said, “consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”  And the best commentary on the saying is just His own life; for He had nothing.  There is something very suggestive in Christ’s use of the little possessive pronoun “My.”  We know how we use the word.  Listen to the rich man in the parable:  “My fruits,” “my barns,” “my corn,” “my goods.”  Now listen to Christ.  He says:  “My Father,” “My Church,” “My friends,” “My disciples”; but He never says “My house,” “My lands,” “My books.”  The one perfect life this earth has seen was the life of One who owned nothing, and left behind Him nothing but the clothes He wore.  And not only was Christ poor Himself, He spent His life among the poor.  “To believe that a man with L60 a year,” Canon Liddon once said, “is just as much worthy of respect as a man with L6000, you must be seriously a Christian.”  You must indeed.  Yet that which is for us so hard never seems to have cost Christ a struggle.  We cannot so much as think of mere money, more or less, counting for anything in His sight.  The little artificial distinctions of society were to Him nothing, and less than nothing.  He went to be guest with a man that was a sinner.  A woman that was a harlot He suffered to wash His feet with her tears, and to wipe them with her hair.  “This man,” said His enemies, with scorn vibrant in every word, “receiveth sinners and eateth with them.”  And they were right; but what they counted His deepest shame was in reality His chiefest glory.

Now, what does all this mean but simply this, that it was for man as man that Christ cared?  Observe the difference in the point at which He and we become interested in men.  We are interested in them, for the most part, when, by their work, or their wealth, or their fame, they have added something to themselves; in other words, we become interested when they become interesting.  But that which gave worth to man in Christ’s eyes lay beneath all these merely adventitious circumstances of his life, in his naked humanity, in what he was, or might be, in himself.  This is why to Him all souls were dear.  We love them that love us, the loving and the lovable; Christ loved the unloving and the unlovable.  He was named, and rightly named, “Friend of publicans and sinners.”  Then were bad men of worth to Christ?  They were; for, as Tennyson says, “If there be a devil in man, there is an angel too.”  Christ saw the possible angel in the actual devil.  He knew that the lost might be found, and the bad become good, and the prodigal return home; and He loved men, not only for what they were, but for what they might be.