viii. 14. _And He shall be for a sanctuary._
Not a few mourn, in the midst of a busy, bustling age, the loss of
sacredness in life. Not the false "sacred"--that which is merely
ascetic separation from life and duty; nor that which is merely
solemn "sacred"--the dull heavy monotony of gloominess.
We naturally say that if this is God's world, if civil and civic
duties, social responsibilities, are God-ordained, it is likely, at
least, that _here_ we may be able to secure a heavenly citizenship
amid earthly cares and customs. This is exactly what God reveals in
the text. Sanctuary, He says, is _not_ in mere place; _not_ in
separation from manly duty; I open up my very _nature_ to you. How
often this idea recurs in the Scriptures! God is our refuge and rest,
our hiding-place, our dwelling-place.
I. THE SACREDNESS THAT A REVERENT HEART DESIRES. Something within us
asserts its dignity when society is frivolous and gay, and when the
routine of life brings us into association with lives where the light
even of conscience burns low, when the reverent _wonder_ that filled
even pagan hearts has given place to scientific explanations of every
spiritual function. When we are brought into contact with all this,
then it is that we find how the high tides of the world cover the
little green knolls of devotion, and sweep away alike the altar of
prayer and the harp of praise. In all earnest natures there comes, at
times, resentment at all this. We believe the Divinity within us. We
believe the high call of seer and prophet to nobler ends; we believe,
above all, that Lord of life and light who tells us that the life is
more than meat, and who fed His own life by the mountain prayer and
the garden solitude. We should seek to secure the sacredness we feel
we need, not in morbid methods, but in ways that are human, and ways
that are Divine because they are human. Christ lived and worked
amongst men. We, too, may secure sacredness for our lives; we may
carry in our mien and breathe in our converse the springs of hope and
faith and love which flow still from Zion's sacred hill.
II. THE SACREDNESS THAT MAKES SANCTUARY IN GOD HIMSELF. "_He_ shall
be for a sanctuary." He whom wicked men dread and flee from; for, as
of old, darkness cannot dwell with light, nor irreverence with
reverence, nor mammon-worship with devotion to God. We may carry very
bad hearts into very beautiful places. Place is easily made unsacred,
but into fellowship with God there can enter nothing that is false,
or worldly, or vile. "Sanctuary in a person?" Yes; for even here, in
this dim sphere of earthly friendship, our best sanctuaries, apart
from Christ, have been men and women,--those who bear His likeness,
and who do His will. "Sanctuaries?" Yes; for with them we are ashamed
of unworthy motive, of impure thought, of unsacred aim. Take Christ
with you, and every place is sacred. This is our living sanctuary; we
abide in Him who says, "I am He that liveth, and was dead, and behold
I am alive for evermore." And if by His own Divine nature He is a
sanctuary, He is also by _experience_ too. How much the human
sanctuary of friendship is beautified when there is _oneness of
feeling_ about the battle and burden of life! It is nothing, then,
that when we speak of sanctuary in Christ we should mean "sympathy,"
all that belongs to a brother born for adversity--to Him who, as a
"Man of Sorrows," was "acquainted with grief" (liii. 9)? We know
indeed but little of the realities of religion unless we have found
such a living sanctuary in Christ Jesus the Lord (H. E. I. 968-975).
III. THE SACREDNESS OF ALL THE FUTURE DAYS. "He shall be." Names vary
in interpreting what God is to suit need and experience. We translate
the want, and then God's name is translated to meet it. I am
hungry--He is Bread; thirsty--He is Water, &c. The word "sanctuary"
meets special wants. Life is not always a seeking for a refuge, but
it is so especially at certain times and in strange and desolate
experiences. We are alone in a strange city. The child must leave
home to teach, to toil, to live; the weakness will come which
presaged decline and death; the soul does feel that some lights are
lost to faith and that others are going dim. He _shall_ be for a
sanctuary. Let the hours come; He will come too. Who can make retreat
into his own heart and find perfect sanctuary there? Christ alone
could do _that._ We cannot. Nature cannot afford us the sanctuary we
need; she has healthy anodynes of atmosphere that afford us deep and
quiet retreats, but sanctuary, in the highest sense, she has not.
Christ, and He alone, will be now and for ever a sanctuary (H. E. I.
2378-2387).
IV. THE SACREDNESS OF PERSONAL LIFE IN GOD. We can have no safety or
rest in Churches as such. They are helpful; they are houses of
fellowship and centres of usefulness. But we cannot say, as
Mediævalism said, "Enter the Church and be saved." The soul's
relation to God is personal and individual. Whether this relation of
faith is real, vital, each soul can attest for itself; and that
living relationship is all that can ever make life sacred to any man.
When the life is hid with Christ in God, all is well, for all is
sacred; and nothing that He has created us to do or to enjoy is
common or unclean. So may God help us to keep a sacred life which
finds sanctuary in the Saviour, until we find it where there is no
temple, but where there is sanctuary in God (Rev. xxi. 22,
23).--_W. M. Statham: Christian World Pulpit,_ vol. xvii. pp. 131-133.