Ezra 9

The Color Of Virtue

I am ashamed and blush. Ezra 9:6.

Neither could they blush. Jeremiah 6:15.

Did you ever hear the story of how the Virginian creeper got its blush? The story is only a legend, but it is very beautiful and worth repeating. It tells that when the plants and flowers were first created they were all green; but God sent down to earth one of His angels, and told him to give each flower a color of its own. So the angel flew busily over the earth, and each flower he touched turned some lovely hue. He gave the crocus its gold, and the violet its purple, and the rose its red, and the poppy its scarlet, the forget-me-not its blue and the snowdrop its white. He was a very busy angel, I assure you, as he flew over hill and dale and wood and field, painting all the flowers he saw.

But alas! he missed a very small creeper lying hidden in the shadow of a great wall. It felt really sad to think that the angel had passed it over, and for a little while it lay on the ground and wept. But after a time it cheered up and said to itself, “Well, though I may not be beautiful I can always be useful. I'll set to work and cover this great bare wall.” So it climbed and spread, and climbed and spread, till the wall had a magnificent covering of green.

In autumn the angel returned to earth to see how his flowers were looking, and, as he flew, his eye lit upon this wonderful green thing spreading all over the wall. Though it had no color but green it looked so glad and busy that the angel stopped to admire it and praise it for all it had so bravely done. And when the angel spoke, the Virginian creeper felt so pleased to think that what it had done was good in the angel's sight that it blushed a glorious crimson. And when autumn comes and flowers decay, the Virginian creeper still blushes crimson, remembering how the angel praised it long ago.

That is a pretty legend, isn't it? “Yes,” I hear some of you sigh, “but I'd rather the Virginian creeper blushed than me. It's so horribly awkward. I just can't keep from blushing, and the more I want not to do it the more I do it I'm so ashamed of myself sometimes:”

Boys and girls, you should never be ashamed of blushing. What you should be ashamed of is not being able to blush. A blush is a really good thing, and it is only right that your rosy cheeks should sometimes grow a few shades rosier. Why! we blush for pleasure, we blush because of praise, we blush with honest indignation, and I hope we blush for shame or guilt.

Of course I know there's a sort of blush that really is most annoying the unnecessary blush. It is the blush that you feel when you walk into a room or a public building, and you are certain that every eye is upon you. It is the blush that comes when you and a few others are accused of some fault, and you, who are not guilty, and know nothing about it, flush a brilliant scarlet. Well that blue, comes from shyness or self-consciousness; and the cure for it is just to forget yourself. A hundred chances to one nobody is thinking of you or taking special notice of you. At such times try hard to think of some other thing or some other person, and you will be astonished how that will help to keep the blush away.

So much for the unnecessary blush! But there are times when a blush is necessary, and if we don't blush then we are in a sad case indeed.

You will notice we have two texts today, and the first says, “I am ashamed and blush.” That was the prophet Ezra speaking to God. Why was he blushing? He was blushing because he loved the people of Israel so much that he was ashamed of their faults. The second text is from the prophet Jeremiah. He also loved the people of Israel, but what grieved him was that they were so hardened in their sins that they couldn't even blush for them.

Boys and girls, it is a dangerous thing if we can't blush. It means that we are no longer ashamed, that we no longer feel guilty when we do wrong, that we have grown absolutely brazen.

“Courage, my boy!” said Diogenes of old, when he saw a youth flushing. “That is the color of virtue.” Diogenes was a Greek philosopher, and he must have known the explanation which the Greeks gave of shame. The Greeks said that Jupiter was so sorry for the miseries that men brought on themselves by their sins that he sent Mercury to implant in their hearts justice and shame, that these two virtues might save the world from ruin.

We are wiser than the wise old Greeks, for we know that it was God who implanted in man's heart the senses both of shame and of justice; but the Greeks were quite right in their idea that justice and shame help men to be good. If we are ashamed to do wrong deeds, if we are ashamed to listen to evil words and horrid stories, if we are ashamed of meanness, or covetousness, or untruthfulness, if we can blush for all these things, and blush also the hot blush of anger at wrong done to others, then there is some hope for us. People will think none the less of us for such blushes; and God, who sees the faintest tinge of red, will rejoice that His child can fly the flag of virtue.