JESUS' FRIENDSHIPS AFTER HE AROSE.
"Our own are our own forever--God taketh not back his gift;
They may pass beyond our vision, but our soul shall find them out
When the waiting is all accomplished, and the deathly shadows lift,
And the glory is given for grieving, and the surety of God for doubt."
We cannot but ask questions about the after life. What is its
character? What shall be the relations there of those who in the
present life have been united in friendship? What effect has dying on
the human affections? Does it dissolve the bonds which here have been
so strong? Or do friendships go on through death, interrupted for a
little time only, to be taken up again in the life beyond? Surely God
will not blame us for our eagerness to know all we can learn about the
world to which we are going.
True, we cannot learn much about this blessed life while we stay in
this world. Human eyes cannot penetrate into the deep mystery. We are
like men standing on the shore of a great sea, wondering what lies on
the other side. No one has come back to tell us what he found in that
far country. We bring our questions to the word of God, but it avails
little; even inspiration does not give us explicit revealings
concerning the life of the blessed. We know that the Son of God had
dwelt forever in heaven before his incarnation, and we expect that he
will shed light upon the subject of life within the gates of heaven.
But he is almost silent to our questions. Indeed, he seems to tell us
really nothing. He gives us no description of the place from which he
came, to which he returned, and to which he said his disciples shall be
gathered. He says nothing about the occupations of those who dwell
there. He satisfies no human yearnings to know the nature of
friendship after death. We are likely to turn away from our quest for
definite knowledge, feeling that even Jesus has told us nothing. Yet
he has told us a great deal.
There is one wonderful revelation of which perhaps too little has been
made. After Jesus had died, and lain in the grave for three days, he
rose again, and remained for forty days upon the earth. During that
time he did not resume the old relations. He was not with his
disciples as he had been during the three years of his public ministry,
journeying with them, speaking to them, working miracles; yet he showed
himself to them a number of times.
The remarkable thing in these appearances of Jesus during the forty
days is that we see in him one beyond death. Lazarus was brought back
to earth after having died, but it was only the old life to which he
returned. The human relations between him and his sisters and friends
were restored, but probably they were not different from what they had
been in the past. Lazarus was the same mortal being as before, with
human frailties and infirmities.
Jesus, however, after his return from the grave, was a man beyond
death. He was the same person who had lived and died, and yet he was
changed. He appeared and disappeared at will. He entered rooms
through closed and barred doors. At last his body ascended from the
earth, and passed up to heaven, subject no longer to the laws of
gravitation. We see in Jesus, therefore, during the forty days, one
who has passed into what we call the other life. What he was then his
people will be when they have emerged from death with their spiritual
bodies, for he was the first-fruits of them that are asleep.
As we study Jesus in the story of those days, we are surprised to see
how little he was changed. Death had left no strange marks upon him.
Nothing beautiful in his life had been lost in the grave. He came back
from the shadows as human as he was before he entered the valley.
Dying had robbed him of no human tenderness, no gentle grace of
disposition, no charm of manner. As we watch him in his intercourse
with his disciples, we recognize the familiar traits which belonged to
his personality during the three years of his active ministry.
We may rightly infer that in our new life we shall be as little changed
as Jesus was. We shall lose our sin, our frailties and infirmities,
all our blemishes and faults. The long-hindered and hampered powers of
our being shall be liberated. Hidden beauties shall shine out in our
character, as developed pictures in the photographer's sensitized
plate. There will be great changes in us in these and other regards,
but our personality will be the same. Jesus was easily recognized by
his friends; so shall we be by those who have known us. Whatever is
beautiful and good in us here,--the fruits of spiritual conquest, the
lessons learned in earth's experiences, the impressions made upon us by
the Word of God, the silver and golden threads woven in our life-web by
pure friendships, the effects of sorrow upon us, the work wrought in us
by the Holy Spirit,--all this shall appear in our new life. We shall
have incorruptible, spiritual, and glorious bodies, no longer mortal
and subject to the limitations of matter; death will rob us of nothing
that is worthy and true, and fit for the blessed life.
"We are quite sure
That he will give them back--
Bright, pure, and beautiful.
* * *
He does not mean--though heaven be fair--
To change the spirits entering there
That they forget
The eyes upraised and wet,
The lips too still for prayer,
The mute despair.
He will not take
The spirits which he gave, and make
The glorified so new
That they are lost to me and you.
* * *
I do believe that just the same sweet face,
But glorified, is waiting in the place
Where we shall meet.
* * *
God never made
Spirit for spirit, answering shade for shade,
And placed them side by side--
So wrought in one, though separate, mystified,
And meant to break
The quivering threads between."
It is interesting, too, to study the friendships of Jesus after he came
from the grave. He did not take up again the public life of the days
before his death. He made no more journeys through the country. He
spoke no more to throngs in the temple courts or by the Seaside. He no
more went about healing, teaching, casting out demons, and raising the
dead. He made no appearances in public. Only his disciples saw him.
We have but few details of his intercourse with individuals, but such
glimpses as we have are exceedingly interesting. They show us that no
tender tie of friendship had been hurt by his experience of dying. The
love of his heart lived on through death, and reappeared during the
forty days in undiminished gentleness and kindness. He did not meet
his old friends as strangers, but as one who had been away for a few
days, and had come again.
The first of his friends to whom he showed himself after he arose was
Mary Magdalene. Her story is pathetic in its interest. The traditions
of the centuries have blotted her name, but there is not the slightest
evidence in the New Testament that she was ever a woman of blemished
character. There is no reason whatever for identifying her with the
woman that was a sinner, who came to Jesus in Simon's house. All that
is said of Mary's former condition is that she was possessed of seven
demons, and that Jesus freed her from this terrible bondage. In
gratitude for this unspeakable deliverance Mary followed Jesus, leaving
her home, and going with him until the day of his death. She was one
of several women friends who accompanied him and ministered to him of
their substance.
Mary's devotion to Jesus was wonderful. When the tomb was closed she
was one of the watchers who lingered, loath to leave it. Then, at the
dawn of the first day morning she was again one of those who hurried
through the darkness to the tomb, with spices for the anointing of the
body--last at his cross, and earliest at his tomb. Mary's devotion was
rewarded; for to her first of all his friends did Jesus appear, as she
stood weeping by the empty grave. She did not recognize him at once.
She was not expecting to see him risen. Then, her eyes were blinded
with her tears. But the moment he spoke her name, "Mary," she knew
him, and answered, "Rabboni." He was not changed to her. He had not
forgotten her. The love in his heart had lost none of its tenderness.
He was as accessible as ever. Dying had made him no less a friend, and
no less sympathetic, than he was before he died.
Soon after Mary had met Jesus, and rejoiced to find him her friend just
as of old, he appeared to the other women of the company who had
followed him with their grateful ministries. They also knew him, and
he knew them; and their hearts suffered no wrench at the meeting, for
they found the same sweet friendship they thought they had lost, just
as warm and tender as ever.
That same day Jesus appeared to Peter. A veil is drawn by the
evangelists over the circumstances of this meeting. The friendship of
Jesus and Peter had continued for three years. He had often given his
Master pain and trouble through his impulsive ways. But the
culmination of it all came on the night of the betrayal, when, in the
hall of the high priest's palace, Peter denied being a disciple of
Jesus, denied even knowing him. While for the third time the base and
cowardly words were on his lips, Jesus turned and looked upon his
faithless disciple with a look of grieved love, and then Peter
remembered the forewarning the Master had given him. His heart was
broken with penitence, and he went out and wept bitterly. But he had
no opportunity to seek forgiveness; for the next morning Jesus was on
his cross, and in the evening was in his grave. Peter's sorrow was
very deep, for his love for his Master was very strong.
We can imagine that when the truth of the resurrection began to be
believed that morning, Peter wondered how Jesus would receive him. But
he was not long kept in suspense. The women who came first to the
tomb, to find it empty, received a message for "the disciples _and_
Peter." This singling out of his name for special mention must have
given unspeakable joy to Peter. It told him that the love of Jesus was
not only stronger than death, but also stronger than sin. Then,
sometime during the day, Jesus appeared to Peter alone. No doubt then,
in the sacredness of love, the disciple made confession, and the Master
granted forgiveness. Several times during the forty days Jesus and
Peter met again. The friendship had not been marred by death. The
risen Lord loved just as he had loved in the days of common human
intercourse.
One of the most interesting of the after resurrection incidents is that
of the walk to Emmaus. Cleophas and his friend were journeying
homeward with sad hearts, when a stranger joined them. His
conversation was wonderfully tender as he walked with them and
explained the Scriptures. Then followed the evening meal, and the
revealing of the risen Jesus in the breaking of bread. Again it was
the same sweet friendship which had so warmed their hearts in the past,
resumed by the Master on the other side of death.
It was the same with all the recorded appearances of Jesus. Those who
had been his friends previous to his death found him the same friend as
before. He took up with each of them the threads of affection just
where they had been dropped when the betrayal and arrest wrought such
panic among his disciples, scattering them away, and went on with the
weaving.
May we not conclude that it will be with us even as it was with Jesus?
His resurrection was not only a pledge of what that of believers will
be, carrying within itself the seed and potency of a blessed
immortality, but it was also a sample of what ours will be. Death will
produce far less change in us than we imagine it will do. We shall go
on with living very much as if nothing had happened. Dying is an
experience we need not trouble ourselves about very much if we are
believers in Christ. There is a mystery in it; but when we have passed
through it we shall probably find that it is a very simple and natural
event--perhaps little more serious than sleeping over night and waking
in the morning. It will not hurt us in any way. It will blot no
lovely thing from our life. It will end nothing that is worth while.
Death is only a process in life, a phase of development, analogous to
that which takes place when a seed is dropped in the earth and comes up
a beautiful plant, adorned with foliage and blossoms. Life would be
incomplete without dying. The greatest misfortune that could befall
any one would be that he should not die. This would be an arresting of
development which would be death indeed.
"Death is the crown of life;
Were death denied, poor man would live in vain;
Were death denied, to live would not be life;
Were death denied, e'en fools would wish to die.
Death wounds to cure: we fall; we rise; we reign;
Spring from our fetters; hasten to the skies,
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight.
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost;
The king of terrors is the prince of peace."
There is need for a reconstruction of the prevalent thoughts and
conceptions of heaven. We have trained ourselves to think of life
beyond the grave as something altogether different from what life is in
this world. It has always been pictured thus to us. We have been
taught that heaven is a place of rest, a place of fellowship with God,
a place of ceaseless praise. The human element has been largely left
out of our usual conceptions of the blessed life. Not much is made of
the relations of believers to one another. That which is emphasized in
Christian hymns and in most books about heaven is the Godward side.
Much is made of the glory of the place as suggested by the visions of
St. John in the Apocalypse. In many of these conceptions the chief
thought of heavenly blessedness is that it is a release from earth and
from earthly conditions. There is no sorrow, no trouble, no pain, no
struggle, no toil, in the home to which we are going. We shall sit on
the green banks of beautiful rivers, amid unfading flowers, and sing
forever. We shall lie prostrate before the throne, and gaze and gaze
on the face of God.
But this is not the kind of heaven and heavenly life which the
teachings of Jesus Would lead us to imagine. True, he speaks of the
place to which he is going, and where, by and by, he would gather all
his disciples, as "my Father's house." This suggests home and love;
and the thought is in harmony with what we have seen in the life of
Jesus during the forty days,--the continuance of the friendships formed
and knit in earthly fellowships. But the vision of home life thus
suggested need not imply a heaven of inaction. Indeed, no life could
be more natural and beautiful than that which the thought of home
suggests. We have no perfect homes on earth; but every true home has
in it fragments of heaven's meaning, and always the idea is of love's
service rather than of blissful indolence.
We may get many thoughts of the heavenly life from other teachings of
Jesus. Life is continuous. Whosoever liveth and believeth shall never
die. There is no break, no interruption of life, in what we call
dying. We think of eternal life as the life of heaven, the glorified
life. So it is; but we have its beginnings here. The moment we
believe, we have everlasting life. The Christian graces we are
enjoined, to cultivate are heavenly lessons set for us to learn. If we
would conceive of the life of heaven, we have but to think of ideal
Christian life in this world, and then lift it up to its perfect
realization. Heaven is but earth's lessons of grace better learned,
earth's best spiritual life glorified. Therefore we get our truest
thoughts of it from a study of Christ's ideal for the life of his
followers, for it will simply be this life fully realized and
infinitely extended.
For example, the one great lesson set for us, the one which includes
all others, is love. God is love, and we are to learn to love if we
would be like him. All relationships are relationships of love. All
graces are graces of love. All duties are parts of one great duty--to
love one another. All worthy and noble character is love wrought out
in life. All life here is a school, with its tasks, its struggles, its
conflicts, its minglings with men, its friendships, its experiences of
joy and sorrow, its burdens, its disappointments and hopes, and the
final education to be attained is love. Browning puts it thus in
"Rabbi Ben Ezra":--
Our life, with all it yields of joy or woe,
And hope and fear,--believe the aged friend,
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,
How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is.
What is this love which it is the one great lesson of life to learn?
Toward God, it may express itself in devotion, worship, praise,
obedience, fellowship. This seems to be the chief thought of love in
the common conception of heaven. It is all adoration, glorifying. But
love has a manward as well as a Godward development. St. John, the
disciple of love, teaches very plainly that he who says he loves God
must prove it by also loving man. If the whole of our training here is
to be in loving and in living out our love, we certainly have the clew
to the heavenly life. We shall continue in the doing of the things we
have here learned to do. Life in glory will be earth's Christian life
intensified and perfected. Heaven will not be a place of idle repose.
Inaction can never be a condition of blessedness for a life made and
trained for action. The essential quality of love is service--"not to
be ministered unto, but to minister;" and for one who has learned
love's lesson, happiness never can be found in a state in which there
is no opportunity for ministering. In heaven it will still be more
blessed to give than to receive; and those who are first will be those
who with lowly spirit serve most deeply. Heaven will be a place of
boundless activity. "His servants shall serve him." The powers
trained here for the work of Christ will find ample opportunity there
for doing their best service. Said Victor Hugo in his old age, "When I
go down to the grave, I can say, like so many others, 'I have finished
my day's work;' but I cannot say, 'I have finished my life.' My day's
work will begin again next morning. My tomb is not a blind alley, it
is a thoroughfare; it closes with the twilight to open with the dawn."
Whatever mystery there may be concerning the life that believers in
Christ shall live in heaven, we may be sure at least that they will
carry with them all that is true and divine of their earthly life. The
character formed here they will retain through death. The capacity
they have gained by the use of their powers they will have for the
beginning of their activity in the new life. There can be no doubt
that they shall find work commensurate with and fitted to their trained
powers.
So heaven will be a far more natural place than we imagine it will be.
It will not be greatly unlike the ideal life of earth. We probably
shall be surprised when we meet each other to find how little we have
changed. The old tenderness will not be missing. We shall recognize
our friends by some little gentle ways they used to have here, or by
some familiar thoughtfulness that was never wanting in them. The
friendships we began here, and had not time to cultivate, we shall have
opportunity there to renew, and carry on through immortal years.
Even at the best, human friendships only begin in this life; in heaven
they will reach their best and holiest possibilities. There are lives
which only touch each other in this world and then separate, going
their different ways--like ships that pass in the night. There will be
time enough in heaven for any such faintest beginnings of friendship to
be wrought out in beauty. Friendships with Jesus here touch but the
shore of an infinite ocean; in heaven, unhindered, in uninterrupted
fellowship, we shall be forever learning more of this love of Christ
which passeth knowledge.