Moses dies alone, with no hand to clasp his, none to close his eyes;
but God's finger does it. The outward form of his death is but putting
into symbol and visibility the awful characteristics of that last
moment for us all. However closely we have been twined with others,
each of us has to unclasp dear hands, and make that journey through the
narrow, dark tunnel by himself. We live alone in a very real sense, but
we each have to die as if there were not another human being in the
whole universe but only ourselves. But the solitude may be a solitude
with God. Up there, alone with the stars and the sky and the
everlasting rocks and menacing death, Moses had for companion the
supporting God. That awful path is not too desolate and lonely to be
trodden if we tread it with Him.
Moses' lonely death leads to a society yonder. If you refer to the
thirty-second chapter you will find that, when he was summoned to the
mountain, God said to him, 'Die in the mount whither thou goest up, and
be gathered to thy people.' He was to be buried there, up amongst the
rocks of Moab, and no man was ever to visit his sepulchre to drop a
tear over it. How, then, was he 'gathered to his people'? Surely only
thus, that, dying in the desert alone, he opened his eyes in 'the
City,' surrounded by 'solemn troops and sweet societies' of those to
whom he was kindred. So the solitude of a moment leads on to blessed
and eternal companionship.
So far the death of Moses carries us. What does the other death say?
Moses had none but God with him when he died. There is a drearier
desolation than that, and Jesus Christ proved it when He cried, 'My
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' That was solitude indeed, and
in that hour of mysterious, and to us unfathomable, desertion and
misery, the lonely Christ sounded a depth, of which the lawgiver in His
death but skimmed the surface. Christ was parted from God in His death,
because He bore on Him the sins that separate us from our Father, and
in order that none of us may ever need to tread that dark passage
alone, but may be able to say, 'I will fear no evil, for Thou art with
me'--Thou, who hast trodden every step in its rough and dreary path,
uncheered by the presence which cheers us and millions more. Christ
died that we might live. He died alone that, when we come to die, we
may hold His hand and the solitude may vanish.
Then, again, our incident teaches us the mystery that wrapped death to
that ancient world, of which we may regard that unknown and forgotten
sepulchre as the visible symbol. Deep darkness lies over the Old
Testament in reference to what is beyond the grave, broken by gleams of
light, when the religious consciousness asserted its indestructibility,
in spite of all appearance to the contrary; but never growing to the
brightness of serene and continuous assurance of immortal life and
resurrection. We may conceive that mysteriousness as set forth for us
by that grave that was hidden away in the defiles of Moab, unvisited
and uncared for by any.
We turn to the other grave, and there, as the stone is rolled away, and
the rising sunshine of the Easter morning pours into it, we have a
visible symbol of the life and immortality which Jesus Christ then
brought to light by His Gospel. The buried grave speaks of the
inscrutable mystery that wrapped the future: the open sepulchre
proclaims the risen Lord of life, and the sunlight certainty of future
blessedness which we owe to Him. Death is solitary no more, though it
be lonely as far as human companionship is concerned; and a mystery no
more, though what is beyond is hidden from our view, and none but
Christ has ever returned to tell the tale, and He has told us little
but the fact that we shall live with Him.
We rejoice that we have not to turn to a grave hid amongst the hills
where our dead Leader lies, but to an open sepulchre by the city wall
in the sunshine, from whence has come forth the ever-living 'Captain of
our salvation.'
IV. The last lesson is the uselessness of a dead leader to a generation
with new conflicts.
Commentators have spent a great deal of ingenuity in trying to assign
reasons why God concealed the grave of Moses. The text does not say
that God concealed it at all. The ignorance of the place of his
sepulchre does not seem to have been part of the divine design, but
simply a consequence of the circumstances of his death, and of the fact
that he lay in an enemy's land, and that they had had something else to
do than go to look for the grave of a dead commander. They had to
conquer the land, and a living Joshua was what they wanted, not a dead
Moses.
So we may learn from this how easily the gaps fill. 'Thirty days'
mourning,' and says my text, with almost a bitter touch,' so the days
of mourning for Moses were ended.' A month of it, that was all; and
then everybody turned to the new man that was appointed for the new
work. God has many tools in His tool-chest, and He needs them all
before the work is done. Joshua could no more have wielded Moses' rod
than Moses could have wielded Joshua's sword. The one did his work, and
was laid aside. New circumstances required a new type of character--the
smaller man better fitted for the rougher work. And so it always is.
Each generation, each period, has its own men that do some little part
of the work which has to be done, and then drop it and hand over the
task to others. The division of labour is the multiplication of joy at
the end, and 'he that soweth and he that reapeth rejoice together.' But
whilst the one grave tells us, 'This man served his generation by the
will of God, and was laid asleep and saw corruption,' the other grave
proclaims One whom all generations need, whose work is comprehensive
and complete, who dies never. 'He liveth and was dead, and is alive for
evermore.' Christ, and Christ alone, can never be antiquated. This day
requires Him, and has in Him as complete an answer to all its
necessities as if no other generation had ever possessed Him. He liveth
for ever, and for ever is the Shepherd of men.
So Aaron dies and is buried on Hor, and Moses dies and is buried on
Pisgah, and Joshua steps into his place, and, in turn, he disappears.
The one eternal Word of God worked through them all, and came at last
Himself in human flesh to be the Everlasting Deliverer, Redeemer,
Founder of the Covenant, Lawgiver, Guide through the wilderness,
Captain of the warfare, and all that the world or a single soul can
need until the last generation has crossed the flood, and the wandering
pilgrims are gathered in the land of their inheritance. The dead Moses
pre-supposes and points to the living Christ. Let us take Him for our
all-sufficing and eternal Guide.