Part 2 (1/2)
This must be our path also. We must descend with Christ, if we would ascend to sit at His side. We must submit to the laying of our pride in the very dust. We must accept humiliations and mortifications, the humblings of perpetual failure and shortcoming, the friction and fret of infirmity and pain; and when we have come to an end of ourselves, we shall begin to know Christ in a new and deeper fas.h.i.+on. He will pa.s.s by and say, ”Live!” The spirit of His life will enter into us; the valley of Achor will become a door of hope, and we shall sing G.o.d's glad new song of Hope. The ideal which had long haunted us, in our blood, but unable to express itself, will burst into a perfect flower of exquisite scent and hue.
III. THE CERTAINTY OF THE ULTIMATE GRATIFICATION OF EVERY DESIRE G.o.d HAS IMPLANTED.--This is an absolute certainty, that G.o.d inserts no desire or craving in our nature, for which there is no appropriate gratification. The birds do not seek for food which is not ready for them. The young lions do not ask for prey that is not awaiting them somewhere in the forest glade. Hence the absoluteness of that _shall_--”Thou _shalt_ follow Me afterward.” It is as if Jesus said, ”I have taught you to love Me, and long after Me; and I will certainly gratify the appet.i.te which I have created.”
Pentecost was the Divine fulfillment of all those conditions of which we have been speaking. It was not enough that Peter should be an emptied and broken man; he must become also a G.o.d-possessed, a Spirit-filled man. Thus only could he be fitted to know Christ after a spiritual sort, and to partic.i.p.ate in His Resurrection Life. It was surely to the Advent of the Holy Ghost that our Lord referred in that significant _afterward_.
We too must seek our share in Pentecost. Do not be content with ”Not I”; go on to say, ”but Christ.” Do not be satisfied with the emptying of the proud self-life; seek the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Do not stop at the cross, or the grave; hasten to the upper room, where the disciples are baptized in fire and glory. The Holy Spirit will enable you to abide in Christ, because He will bring Christ to abide in you; and life, through His dear grace, shall be so utterly imbued with fellows.h.i.+p with the blessed Lord, that, whether present or absent, you will live together with Him. It is the man who is really filled with the Spirit of G.o.d who can follow Jesus, as Peter afterward did, to prison and to death, who can drink of the cup of which He drank, and be baptized with the baptism with which He was baptized.
”Why should I fear?” asked Basil, of the Roman prefect. ”Nothing you have spoken of has any effect upon me. He that hath nothing to lose is not afraid of _confiscation_. You cannot banish me, for the earth is the Lord's. As to _torture_, the first stroke would kill me, and _to kill me is to send me to glory_.”
IV
”Many Mansions”
”I go to prepare a place for you.”--JOHN xiv. 2.
The cure for heart-trouble, when the future is full of dread, is faith--faith directed to Jesus; and just such faith as we give G.o.d, for He is G.o.d. He has shown Himself well worthy of that trust; all His paths toward us have been mercy and truth; and we may therefore safely rest upon His disclosures of that blessed life, of which the present is the vestibule. ”Let not your heart be troubled,” He says, ”ye believe in G.o.d, believe also in Me.” Or it might be rendered, ”Believe in G.o.d, believe also in Me.”
Let us listen to Him, as He discourses of the Father's house and its many mansions.
_Heaven is a home._--”My Father's house.” What magic power lies in that word! It will draw the wanderer from the ends of the earth; will nerve the sailor, soldier, and explorer with indomitable endurance; will bring a mist of tears to the eyes of the hardened criminal, and soften the heart of stone. One night in the trenches of the Crimea the bands played ”Home, sweet Home,” and a great sob went through the army.
But what makes home home? Not the mere locality or building; but the dear ones that lived there once, now scattered never to be reunited, only one or two of whom are still spared. It was father's house, though it was only a shepherd's s.h.i.+eling; he dwelt there, and mother, and our brothers and sisters. And where they dwell, or where wife and child dwell, there is home.
Such is Heaven. Think of a large family of n.o.ble children, of all ages, from the little child to the young man beginning his business career, returning after long severance to spend a season together in the old ancestral home, situated in its far-reaching grounds, and you can form some idea of what it will be, when the whole Family of the Redeemed gather in the Father's house. All reserve, all shyness, all restraint gone forever. G.o.d has given us all the memory of what home was, that we may guess at what awaits us, and be smitten with homesickness. As the German proverb puts it: ”Blessed are the homesick, for they shall reach home.”
_Heaven is very s.p.a.cious._--There are ”_many_ mansions.” There is no stint in its accommodation. In the olden Temple there were s.p.a.cious courts, long corridors, and innumerable chambers, in which a vast mult.i.tude could find a home day and night. The children trooped about and sang around their favorite teacher. The blind and lame sheltered themselves from heat or storm. The priests and Levites in great numbers lived there. All of this probably suggested the Master's words.
Heaven too will contain immense throngs, without being crowded. It will teem with innumerable hosts of angels, and mult.i.tudes of the redeemed which no man can number. Its children will be as the grains of sand that bar the ocean's waves, or the stars that begem the vault of night. But it can easily hold these, and myriads more. Yet there is room! As age after age has poured in its crowds, still the cry has gone forth, There is still room! The many mansions are not all tenanted. The orchestra is not full. The complement of priests is not complete.
Do not believe those little souls, who would make you believe that Heaven is a little place for a select few. If they come to you with that story, tell them to begone! tell them that they do not know your Father's heart; tell them that all He does must be worthy of Himself.
Jesus shall see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied.
_Heaven is full of variety._--It is not like one great hall; there are myriads of adjacent rooms, ”mansions,” which will be fitted up, so to speak, differently. One for the sweet singer, another for the little ones and their teachers, another for the student of the deep mysteries of the Kingdom, another for those who may need further instruction in the mysteries of G.o.d.
Heaven's life and scenery are as various as the apt.i.tudes and capacities of souls. Its music is not a monotone, but a chorale. It is as a home, where the parents delight to develop the special tastes of their children. This is surely what Jesus meant when He said, ”I go to prepare a place for you.” He is ever studying our special idiosyncrasies--what we need most, and can do best; and when He has ascertained it, He suits our mansion accordingly.
When a gardener is about to receive some rare exotic, he prepares a place where it will flower and fruit to the best advantage. The naturalist who is notified of the s.h.i.+pment of some new specimen, prepares a habitat as suited as possible to its peculiarities. The mother, whose son is returning from sea, prepares a room in which his favorite books and pictures are carefully placed, and all else that her pondering heart can devise to give him pleasure. So our Lord is anxious to give what is best in us its most suitable nourishment and training. And He will keep our place against our coming. It will not suit another, and will not be given to another.
That all this will be so, is witnessed by the instincts of our hearts, and if it had not been so, He would have told us. That little clause is inimitably beautiful; it seems to teach that where He permits His children to cherish some natural presentiment of the blessed future--its solemn troops and sweet societies; its friends.h.i.+ps, recognitions, and fellows.h.i.+ps; its holy service, and special opportunities--that He really a.s.sents to our deepest and most cherished thoughts. If it had not been so, He would have told us.
_The charm of Heaven will be the Lord's presence._--”Where I am, ye shall be also.” We shall see His face, and be forever with Him. What would not men give, if some old ma.n.u.scripts might turn up with new stories of His wondrous life, new parables as charming as those of the Good Shepherd and the Prodigal Son; new beat.i.tudes; new discourses like that on the Vine. G.o.d might have permitted this. But what would it be in comparison with all that lies before! The past has lost much; but the future holds infinitely more. We shall see new Gospels enacted before our eyes, behold Christ as a real visible person in the glory of Divine manhood, hear Him speak to us as His friends, and shall know what He meant when He promised to gird Himself, and come forth to serve His servants.
If you are in doubt as to what Heaven is like, is it not enough to know that it will be in accord with the nature and presence and choice of Jesus Christ?
After His resurrection, He spent forty days among His disciples, that men might see what the risen life was like. As He was, and is, so shall we be. His body is the pattern in accordance to which this shall be fas.h.i.+oned. What He was to His friends after His resurrection, we shall be to ours, and they to us. We shall hear the familiar voices and the dear old names, shall resume the dear relations.h.i.+ps which death severed, and shall speak again of the holy secrets of our hearts with those who were our twin-spirits.