From heaven's half-open'd portals play,
And from our scene of suffering night
Melts nigh its haunted gloom away;
Each doubt perchance some angel sees,
And hovers o'er our bended knees!
"And when at length this wearied life
Of toil and danger breathes its last,
Or ere the flesh, with parting strife,
Is down to clay and coldness cast;
The struggling soul can learn the story,
How angels waft the blest to glory."[47]
But, after all, can Angels really impart comfort? They cannot. They are
but servants and delegates of a Mightier than they. Like all ministers
and messengers, if they can dry a human tear and soothe a human sorrow,
it is by pointing, not to themselves, but to their glorious and
glorified Lord. What was their message now? Was it, "We are come to
supply the place of your Ascended Redeemer--we are henceforth to be your
appointed helpers--the objects of your faith, and hope, and confidence,
in the house of your pilgrimage?" No! The eyes of the disciples are
gazing upwards and heavenwards. The Angels tell them not in anywise to
alter the direction of their thoughts and affections. They are musing
(as in vain they still wistfully look for any relic of the
chariot-cloud) on "_Jesus only_." They are to think of "_Him only_"
still! The Celestial Visitants seem to say, "Ye men of Galilee, _we_
cannot comfort you;--_we_ would prove but poor solaces and compensations
for the Adorable Saviour who has left you. _We_ come not to take His
place--but to speak to you still regarding Him. He has left you! but it
is only for a season; and better than this, although He has left you, He
loves you as much as ever. Even in that distant glory to which He has
sped His way, His heart is unchanged and unchangeable--His name is
'Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.'"
Here then was their first theme of comfort. It was the NAME of _Jesus_.
That "name of their Lord" was still to be their "strong tower!" Oh,
there is something touchingly beautiful about this angelic address. What
a simple but sublime antidote for these stricken Spirits, "THAT SAME
JESUS." "That _same_ Jesus,"--He who laid His infant head on the manger
at Bethlehem--He who walked on the Sea of Tiberias, and hushed its angry
waves--He who spoke comfort to a stricken spirit at the well of Sychar,
and at the gate of Nain--He who, in yonder palm-clad village sleeping in
quiet loveliness at their feet, soothed the pangs of deeply afflicted
hearts, and made death itself yield its prey--He who had first
shed His tears and then His blood over the city He loved--He who
so freely forgave, so meekly suffered, so willingly died! "THAT
SAME JESUS" was still on High! The Brother's form was still there! The
Kinsman-Redeemer's sympathy was still there! Though all heaven was then
doing Him homage--though He had exchanged the chilling ingratitude of
earth for the glories of an unsullied world of purity and love--yet
nothing could blot out from His heart the names of those whom He had
still left for a little season behind, to be bearers of His cross before
they became sharers of His crown!
What a comfort, amid all earth's vicissitudes and changes, this
motto-verse! _Earth may_ change. Since the Lord ascended, earth _has_
changed! There are "Written rocks"--manifold more than those of
Sinai--that bear engraven on their furrowed brows, "The world passeth
away." Ocean's old shores have transgressed their boundaries--kingdoms
have risen and fallen--thronging cities have sprung up amid desert
wastes--and proud capitals have been levelled with the dust. _Friends_
may change; our very lot and circumstances, in spite of ourselves, may
change. Our fondly planned schemes and cherished hopes may vanish into
thin air, and the _place_ that now knows us know us no more! But there
is ONE that changeth not--a Rock which stands immutable amid all the
ceaseless heavings and commotions of this mortal life--and that Rock is
Christ!
Has he ever failed us? Ask the _tried_ Christian. Ask the _aged_
Christian. That gray-haired believer may be like a solitary oak in the
forest--all his compeers cut down--tempest after tempest has sighed and
swept amid the branches--tree by tree has succumbed to the blast--there
may be nothing but wreck and ruin and devastation all around. Friend
after friend has departed; some have _altered_ towards him; kindness may
have given way to alien looks and estranged affection; others are
removed by _distance_--old familiar faces and scenes have given place to
new ones;--others have been called away to the silent grave--sleeping
quiet and still in "the narrow house appointed for all living." That
aged lonely Christian can clasp his withered hands, and exclaim, through
his tears, "_But_ THOU art the same, and _Thy_ years shall have no end."
"Heart and flesh do faint and fail, but God is the strength of my heart,
and my portion for ever."
"My God, I thank thee, Thou dost care for me;
I am content rejoicing to go on,
Even when my home seems very far away;
And over grief, and aching emptiness,
And fading hopes a higher joy ariseth.
In nightliest hours one lonely spot is bright,
High over head, through folds and folds of space;
It is the earnest star of all my heavens,
And tremulous in the deep-well of my being,
Its image answers. * * * * I WILL THINK OF JESUS."[48]
But, in addition to the name and nature of Jesus--the Angels added a
promise of comfort regarding Him. "He shall _so come_ in like manner as
ye have seen Him go into heaven."[49] _Jesus shall come again!_
When a beloved brother or friend whom we love is taken from us by death,
how cheered we are by the thought of rejoining him in a brighter and
better world. Even in earthly separations, how cheering the prospect of
those severed by oceans and continents meeting once more in the
flesh--the associations of youth renewed and perpetuated--and the
long-severed links of friendship welded and cemented again! What must
be, to the bereft and lonely Christian, the thought of being restored,
and that _for ever_, to his long-absent Saviour? _Jesus shall come
again_!--it is the Church's "blessed hope"--the day when her weeds and
robes of ashen sorrow shall be laid for ever aside, and she shall "enter
into the joy of her Lord?" It is His return, too, in a glorified
manhood. That _same Jesus shall SO come_! Yes! "_so_ come," in the very
body with which He bade the sorrowing eleven that sad, farewell! He left
them with His hands extended, and with blessings on His lips. He will
return in the same attitude to greet His expectant Church, with the
words, "Come, _ye blessed_ of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world."
And if it be a comforting thought, "Jesus _still_ the _same_, now seated
on the Mediatorial throne,"--equally comforting surely is the prospect
that it will be in all the unchanging and undying sympathies of His
exalted humanity, that He will come again as Judge. "God hath appointed
a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by _that_ MAN
whom he hath ordained." He shall come, not arrayed in the stern
magnificence of Godhead! As we behold Him, we need not crouch in terror
at His approach. _Humanity_ will soften the awe which Deity would
inspire. We can rejoice with Job not only that our Kinsman Redeemer
"_liveth_," but that, _as_ our Kinsman Redeemer, "He shall stand at the
latter day upon the earth!"
_Would_ that we more constantly lived under the realising power of this
elevating thought--"Soon my Lord will come!" "Of the times and the
seasons ye need not that I write unto you." It is not for us to
dogmatize on the unrevealed period of the "glorious appearing." The
millennial trumpet may in all probability sound over our slumbering
dust--the millennial sun shine on the turf which may for centuries have
covered our graves!--But _who_, on the other hand, dare venture to
question the _possibility_ of the nearer alternative?--that the Judge
may be "standing before the door"--the shadow of the Advent Throne even
now projected on an unthinking and unbelieving world! "He that _shall_
come _will_ come, and will not tarry!"--Although it be true that
eighteen hundred years have elapsed since that utterance was made, and
still no gleam of the coming morning streaks the horizon--although the
calculations and longing expectations of the Church have hitherto only
issued in successive disappointments, yet the hour _is_ nearing! As
grain by grain drops in Time's sand-glass, it gives new significance and
truthfulness to the Divine monition--"Behold, I come quickly!"
Ah! if He _may_ come _soon_--if He MUST come at some time, how shall I
meet Him? Will it be with joy? Am I shaping my course in life--my
plans--my schemes--my wishes with what I feel would be in accordance
with His will? Am I conscious of doing nothing that would lead me to be
ashamed before Him at His coming? It would save many a perplexity--it
would soothe many a heart-ache, and dry many a tear--if we were to make
this great culminating event in the world's history, with all its
elevating motives, more our guide and regulator than we do;--living each
day, and _all_ our days, as if _possibly_ the very next hour might
disclose "the sign of the Son of Man in the midst of the Heavens!" Not
building our nests too fondly here--not too anxious to nestle in
creature comforts, but occupying faithfully the talents to be traded on
which He has committed to our stewardship; straining the eye of faith,
like the mother of Sisera, for His approaching chariot; and amid our
griefs, and separations, and sorrows, listening to the sublime inspired
antidote--"Stablish your hearts, FOR _the coming of the Lord draweth
nigh_."
Blessed--glorious--happy day! And as His _first_ coming was terminated
by His Ascension, so will there be a second Ascension at His _second_
Advent, with this important difference, however, that, as in the former,
He left His Church behind Him, orphaned and forlorn, to battle in a
world of sorrow and sin; in the other, not one unit among the rejoicing
myriads, bought with His blood, will He debar from sharing in the
splendour of His final entrance within the celestial gates. "The Lord
Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout--with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise
first. Then they who are alive and remain, shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we
ever be with the Lord."
"We must not stand to gaze too long,
Though on unfolding heaven our gaze we bend;
When lost behind the bright angelic throng,
We see Christ's entering triumph slow ascend.
"No fear but we shall soon behold,
Faster than now it fades, that gleam revive,
When issuing from his cloud of fiery gold,
Our wasted frames feel the true Sun and live.
"Then shall we see Thee as Thou art,
For ever fix'd in no unfruitful gaze,
But such as lifts the new created heart
Age after age in worthier love and praise."
XXIII.
THE DISCIPLES' RETURN.
The time has come when the disciples must leave the crest of Olivet and
bend their steps once more to Jerusalem. Ah! most sorrowful
thought--most sorrowful pilgrimage! Often, often had it been trodden
before with their Lord's voice of love and power sounding in their ears.
Often had it proved an Emmaus journey, when their hearts "burned within
them as He talked to them by the way and opened unto them the
Scriptures." But He is gone!--that voice is now hushed--the well-loved
path, worn by His blessed footsteps, and consecrated by His midnight
prayers, must be trodden by them alone! Willingly, perhaps, like Peter,
on Tabor, would they have tarried on the spot where they last saw His
human form, and listened to the music of His voice, just as we still
love to revisit some haunt of hallowed friendship and associate it with
the name and words and features of the departed. But they dare not
linger. As the disciples of this great and good Master, they dare not
remain to indulge in mere sentimental grief, or in vain hopes and
expectations of a speedy return. Life is too short--their Apostolic work
too solemn and momentous, to suffer them to consume their hours in
unavailing sorrow. We may imagine them taking their last look upwards to
heaven, and then bending a tearful eye down upon Bethany--its hallowed
remembrances all the _more_ hallowed, that the vision is now about to
pass away for ever! The Angels, too, have sped away, and the eleven
pilgrims begin their solitary return back to the city and temple from
which the _true_ Glory had indeed departed!
_And how did they return?_ What were their feelings as they rose to
pursue their way? Had we not been told far otherwise, we should have
imagined them to have been those of deep dejection. We should have
pictured to ourselves a weary, weeping, troubled band; their
countenances shaded with a sorrow too profound for words;--the joyous
melodies of that morning hour, all in sad contrast with those hearts
which were bowed down with a bereavement unparalleled in its nature
since a weeping world was bedewed with tears! They were going too, as
"lambs in the midst of wolves," to the very city where, a few weeks
before, their Lord had been crucified,--the disciples of a hated Master,
"not knowing the things that might befall _them_ there." Could we
wonder, if for the moment these aching spirits should have surrendered
themselves to mingled feelings of disconsolate grief and terror. But
_how different_! Sorrow indeed they _must_ have had; but if so, it was
counterbalanced and overborne by far other emotions; for of the
_sorrow_, the Evangelist says _nothing_; the simple record of this
mournful journey is in these words, "They returned to Jerusalem WITH
GREAT JOY." Most wonderful, and yet most true! Never did mourner return
from a funeral scene--(from laying in the grave his nearest and
dearest)--with a heavier sense of an overwhelming loss than did that
widowed orphaned band. And yet, lo! they are _joyful_! A sunshine is
lighting up their faces. The "Sun of their souls" has set behind the
world's horizon. But though vanished from the eye of sense, His glory
and radiance seem still to linger on their spirits, just as the orb of
day gilds the lofty mountain-peaks long after his descent. They tread
the old footway with elastic step! As Gethsemane, and Kedron, and the
Temple-path, are in succession skirted, while "_sorrowful_, they are
alway REJOICING." Why is this? It was God Himself fulfilling in their
experience His own promise, "_As thy day is, so shall thy strength be._"
He metes out strength IN the day of trial, and FOR the day of trial.
When _we_ expect nothing but fainting and trembling, sadness and
despondency, He whispers His own promise, and makes it good, "My grace
is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness."
Who so faint as these disciples? Think of them in their by-past history,
tossed on Gennesaret, cowering with dread in their vessel! Think of them
in the Judgment-Hall of Pilate; think of them at the cross! Nothing
there but pusillanimity and cowardice. Nay, when our Lord had spoken to
them on a former occasion of this same departure, we read that "_sorrow
had filled their hearts_." They could not bear the thought of so cruel
a severance from all they held dear: But see them now--when the sad hour
has come--lonely--unbefriended--their Lord hopelessly removed from the
_eye of sense_; though but a few days before, they were traitors to
their trust--unfaithful in their allegiance--bending, like bruised
reeds, before the storm--behold them now, retraversing their way to
Jerusalem, not with sorrow, as we might expect, but _with joy_. The
Evangelist even notes the extent and measure of the emotion. It was not
a mere effort to overbear their sorrow--an outward semblance of
reconciliation to their hard fate--but it was a deep fountain of real
gladness, welling up from their riven spirits. They returned, he tells
us, with "GREAT JOY!"
Oh! the wonders of the _grace of God_. What grace _has_ done--what grace
_can_ do! We speak not of it now under its manifold other and
diversified phases,--_converting_ grace, and _restraining_ grace, and
_sanctifying_ grace, and _dying_ grace. Here we have to do only with
_sustaining_ and _supporting_ grace. But how many Christian disciples,
in their Olivets of sorrow, have been able to tell the same experience?
How often, when a believer is stricken down with sore affliction--when
the hand of death enters his family--when the treasured life of the
dwelling is taken, and he feels in the anticipation of such a blow as if
it would smite _him_, too, to the dust, and it were impossible to
survive the prostration of all that links him to life--when the
tremendous blow _comes_, lo! sustaining grace he never could have
_dreamed_ of comes along with it. He rises _above_ his trial. Underneath
him are the Everlasting arms. "The joy of the Lord is his strength!" He
treads along life's lonely way _sorrowful_, yet with a "song in the
night." Amid earth's separations and sadness, he hears the voice of
Jesus, saying, "Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world."
Oh, trust that Grace still! It is the secret of your spiritual strength.
"Not I, not I, but the grace of God that is with me!" You may have to
confront "a great fight of afflictions;" but that grace sustaining you,
you will be made "more than conquerors." "All men forsook me," said the
great Apostle, "_nevertheless_, the LORD stood with me, and strengthened
me, and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion." "And God is able
to make _all_ grace abound toward YOU; that ye, always having
_all-sufficiency_ in _all things_, may abound to every good work." You
have found Him faithful in the past;--trust Him in the future. Cast all
your cares, and each care, as it arises, on Him, saying, in childlike
faith, "Undertake Thou for me!" Then, then, in your very night-seasons,
"His song will be with you." The Mount of your trial--the mournful,
desolate, solitary, rugged path you tread, will be carpeted with love,
fringed with mercy, and earth's darkest future will grow bright as you
listen to a voice stealing from the upper sanctuary, "I will come again
and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."
In this scene of the disciples returning to Jerusalem, we are presented
with the last picture of the Home of BETHANY. Here the earthly vision is
sealed, and we are only left to imagine Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus,
when the joyous footfall that had cheered their dwelling could be heard
no more, living together in sacred harmony, exulting in "the blessed
hope, even the glorious appearing of the Great God their Saviour."[50]
Did they live to survive the destruction of Jerusalem? Did they live to
hear the tramp of the Roman legions resounding through their quiet
hamlet, and "the abomination of desolation," the imperial eagles
desecrating the hallowed ridges of Olivet? Did they often repair to the
meetings of the infant Church in Jerusalem, and delight to mingle with
the _under_ shepherds, when the "_Chief_ Shepherd" had gone? Or did the
venerable company of Apostles love to resort, as their Lord before them,
to the old village of palm-trees, whose every memory was fragrant with
their Master's name? All these, and similar questions, we cannot answer.
This we know and feel assured of--they are now gathered a holy and happy
family in the true Bethany above--_there_ never more to listen to the
voice of weeping, or hear the tread of the funeral crowd, or the wail of
the Mourner!
And soon, too, shall many of us (let us trust) be _there_, to meet them!
BETHANY, we have seen, had alike its tears and its joys; so will it be
with every spot and every scene in this mingled world. But where the
Family of Bethany _now_ are, the motto is--"NEVER _sorrowful_, ALWAY
_rejoicing_!" And, better than all, while they never can be severed
from one another, they never can be separated from their Lord. He is no
longer now, as formerly at their earthly home, like "a wayfaring man
that turneth aside to tarry for a night." No Olivet now to remind of
farewells. They are "_with Him_," "seeing Him as He is," and that "for
ever and ever!"
And if, meanwhile, regarding ourselves, the journey of life has for a
little still to be traversed, and the battle of life still to be fought;
blessed be God, "we go not a warfare on our own charges." The same grace
vouchsafed to the disciples is promised to _us_. _That grace_ will
enable us to rise superior to all the vicissitudes and changes of the
journey. Let us rise from our Olivet-ridge and be going; and though
traversing different footpaths to the same Home--be it ours, like the
disciples, to reach at last--a holy and happy company--the true Heavenly
Jerusalem--"WITH GREAT JOY."
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] _Bethany_ signifies literally "_The house of dates_."
[2] "The _figs_ of Bethany" are mentioned specially by the Rabbins as
being subject to tithing.
[3] Stanley's "Sinai and Palestine."
[4] Anderson.
[5] Bartlett's "Walks about Jerusalem."
[6] Neander's "Life of Christ."
[7] "What Mary fell short in words she made up in tears. She said less
than Martha, but wept more; and tears of devout affection have a voice,
a loud prevailing voice--no rhetoric like that."--MATTHEW HENRY.
[8] _Note_.--See p. 173.
[9] "Within and Without."
[10] John xi. 11.
[11] John xi. 20.
[12] John xi. 21.
[13] John xi. 26.
[14] John xi. 27.
[15] John xi. 39.
[16] John xi. 39.
[17] John xi. 41.
[18] Rev. iii. 5.
[19] Rom. viii. 34.
[20] John v. 29.
[21] As the Jewish sabbath began at six o'clock on Friday evening, and
lasted till six on Saturday evening, we may infer it was after the close
of its sacred hours (at "eventide") He reached Bethany.
[22] It is supposed to have been equivalent to L10 of our money.
[23] Tennyson.
[24] An excellent Christian poet has thus amplified this thought:--
"Thou hast thy record in the monarch's hall,
And on the waters of the far mid sea;
And where the mighty mountain shadows fall,
The Alpine hamlet keeps a thought of thee.
Where'er, beneath some Oriental tree,
The Christian traveller rests--where'er the child
Looks upward from the English mother's knee,
With earnest eyes, in wond'ring reverence mild,
There art thou known. Where'er the Book of Light
Bears hope and healing, there, beyond all blight,
Is borne thy memory--and all praise above.
Oh! say what deed so lifted thy sweet name,
Mary! to that pure, silent place of fame?--
One lowly offering of exceeding love."
[25] This was a common opinion among the Fathers of the Church.
[26] Mark xi. 1-12.
[27] Stanley's "Sinai and Palestine," p. 188-191. A work of rare
interest, which condenses in one volume the literature of the Holy Land.
[28] "Christian Year."
[29] Bethphage, _lit._ "the house of figs."
[30] Stanley, p. 418.
[31] "If the miracles generally have a symbolical import, we have in
this case one that is _entirely_ symbolical."--NEANDER.
[32] "Trench on the Miracles," p. 444. See a full exposition of the
design and import of this miracle in this exhaustive and admirable
dissertation.
[33] "The fig-tree, rich in foliage, but destitute of fruit, represents
the Jewish people, so abundant in outward shows of piety, but destitute
of its reality. Their vital sap was squandered upon leaves. And as the
fruitless tree, failing to realise the aim of its being, was destroyed,
so the theocratic nation, for the same reason, was to be overtaken,
after long forbearance, by the judgments of God, and shut out from His
kingdom."--NEANDER.
[34] Psalm i. 3.
[35] "In that of the devils in the swine there was no punishment, but
only a permitting of the thing."--See "Stier's Words of the Lord Jesus,"
vol. iii. p. 100.
[36] Mark xi. 19.
[37] "Sinai and Palestine," p. 165.