Part 7 (1/2)
_Christ is always present, yet He comes._--The Creator had been always immanent in His universe, but He came in each creative act; the Lawgiver had been ever-present in the Church in the wilderness, but He came down on Sinai, and His glory lit up the peaks of sandstone rock; the Deliverer was never for a moment absent from the side of the Shepherd-King, but in answer to His cry for help He came down riding upon a cherub, flying on the wings Of wind; the Holy Spirit had been in the world from the earliest days of prayer and inspired speech, but He came down from the throne to sit on each bowed head in lambent flame.
So Christ is with us all the days, yet He comes. He will come at last to receive His own to Himself, and to judge the world; but He comes in dark and lonely hours that we may not be desolate.
”For warm, sweet, tender, even yet A present help is He; And faith has yet its Olivet And love its Galilee.
The heeling of His seamless dress Is by our beds of pain; We touch Him in life's throng and press, And we are whole again.”
_He comes when we need Him most._--When the storm is high, and the water is pouring into the boat; when the house is empty because the life that made it home has fled; when Jericho has to be attacked on the morrow, and the Jordan crossed; when lover and friend stand aloof; when light is fading before dimming eyes, and names and faces elude the grasp of the aged mind; when the last coal is turning to grey ash; when the rush of the river is heard in the valley below--Jesus says, I come.
It is in the hour of desolation, when Lazarus has been in the grave four days already, that the glad tidings are whispered in the ear of the mourner, ”The Master is come.” ”I will not leave you orphans,” He said, ”I come unto you.” Oh, blessed orphanhood, it were well to be bereaved, to have such comforting!
_He pays surprise visits._--He does not always wait to be invited; but sometimes, when we lie sleeping with wakeful hearts, we hear His gentle voice calling to us, ”Arise, My love, and come away.” Then as we lift the door-latch, our hand drops with the sweet-smelling myrrh which betrays His presence. How often when we have been losing ground, getting lukewarm and worldly, we have suddenly been made aware of His reviving presence, and He has said, I come. He comes, as the wood-anemones and snowdrops (the most fragile and tender flowerets of spring) penetrate the hard ground to announce that the winter is over and gone, and that the time of the singing of birds is come.
_It is well to put ourselves in His way._--There are certain beaten tracks well-worn by His feet, and if we would meet Him we must frequent their neighborhood. Olivet, where He used to pray; Calvary, where He died; Joseph's garden, where He rose, are dear to Him yet. When we pray or meditate; when we commemorate His dying love at the memorial feast; when we realize our union with Him in death and resurrection; when we open our hearts to the breathing of the Holy Spirit--we put ourselves in His way, and are more likely to encounter Him when He comes. ”To them that look for Him shall He appear.” ”Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him”--but take the path by which He is sure to travel. Be in the upper room, with the rest of the disciples, so that you may not, like Thomas, miss Him when He comes.
_His footsteps are noiseless._--It is said of old, ”Thy footsteps are not known,” therefore we need not be surprised if He steal in upon us as a thief in the night, or as spring over the wolds. There is no blare of trumpet or voice of herald; we cannot say, Lo here, or Lo there; when the King comes there is no outward show; ”He does not strive, nor cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.”
”He entered not by the eyes,” says St. Bernard, ”for His presence was not marked by color; nor by the ears, for there was no sound; nor by the touch, for He was impalpable. How then did I know that He was present? Because He was a quickening power. As soon as He entered He awoke my slumbering soul. He moved and pierced my heart, which before was stony, hard, and sick. He began also to pluck up and destroy, to build and plant, to freshen the inner drought, to enlighten the darkness, to open the prison-house, to make the crooked straight and the rough smooth; so that my heart could bless the Lord with all that was within me.”
Oh, lonely, desolate soul, open thy door to Him; wait not on the alert to detect His entrance, only believe that He is there; and presently, and before ever thou art aware, thou wilt find a new fragrance distilling through the heart-chamber, a new power throbbing in thy pulse.
II. WE MAY ENJOY THE PERPETUAL RECOGNITION OF THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST.--”The world beholdeth Me no more, but ye behold Me.” Nothing makes men so humble and yet so strong as the vision of Christ.
_It induces humility._--When Isaiah beheld His glory more resplendent than the sheen of the sapphire throne, he cried that he was undone; when Peter caught the first flash of His miraculous power gleaming across the waves of Galilee, just when the fish were struggling in the full net, he besought Him to depart, because he felt himself a sinful man; and when John saw Him on the Isle of Patmos, he fell at His feet as dead, though, surely, if any of the apostles could have faced Him unabashed, it had been he.
This is specially noticeable in the Book of Job. Few books are so misunderstood. It is supposed to contain the description of the victory of Job's patience; in reality it delineates its testing and failure. It shows how he who was perfect, according to the measure of his light, broke down in the fiery ordeal to which he was exposed; and finally was forced to cry, ”I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself and repent, in dust and ashes.”
Wouldst thou be humble, wouldst thou know thyself a worm and no man, wouldst thou see that thou art verily undone, defiled, and helpless?
Then ask the blessed Spirit to reveal Jesus in all His matchless beauty and holiness, eliciting the confession that thou are the least of saints and the chief of sinners. This is no forced estimate, when we take into account the opportunities we have missed, the gifts we have misused, the time we have wasted, the light which we have resisted, the love which we have requited with neglect.
_It produces strength._--See that man of G.o.d p.r.o.ne on the floor of his chamber, shedding bitter tears of G.o.dly sorrow, not forgiving himself, albeit that he knows himself forgiven; bowing his head as a bulrush, crying that he is helpless, broken, and at the end of himself--Will he be able to stand as a rock against the beat of temptation, and the a.s.sault of the foe? Yes, verily, for the same presence which is a source of humility in private, will inspire to great deeds of faith and heroism when he is called to stand in the breach or lead the a.s.sault.
It is this vision of the present Lord that, in every age of the Church, has made sufferers strong. ”The Lord is on my right hand, I shall not be moved,” said one. ”The Lord stood by me, and strengthened me,” said another. In many a dark day of suffering and persecution; in the catacombs; in the dens and caves where Waldenses hid; on the hillsides where the Covenanters met to pray; in the beleaguered cities of the Netherlands; in prison and at the stake--G.o.d's saints have looked to Him, and been lightened, and their faces have not been ashamed.
”Behold,” said the first martyr, ”I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of G.o.d.”
Oh for more of the open vision of Jesus, ministered to us by the gracious Spirit! Would that His words were oftener verified in our experience: ”Ye behold Me!” He is always with us; and if only our eyes were not holden, we should behold Him with the quick perception of the heart. Indeed, the race can only be rightly run by those who have learned the blessed secret of looking off unto Him. ”We see Jesus.”
It is a most salutary habit to say often, when one is alone, ”Thou art near, O Lord.” ”Behold, the Lord is in this place.” We may not at first realize the truth of what we are saying. His presence may be veiled, as the forms of mountains swathed in morning cloud. But as we persist in our quest, putting away from us all that would grieve Him, and cultivating the att.i.tude of pure devotion, we shall become aware of a Divine presence which shall be more to us than a voice speaking from out the Infinite.
III. WE MAY ENJOY THE PERPETUAL RECOGNITION OF THE LIVING CHRIST.--”Because I live, ye shall live also.” There are many life-verses in this Gospel which s.h.i.+ne like stars in the firmament of Scripture. Amongst them, in the first chapter, that, in the Word as manifested to men, was _life_; and in the fifth chapter, that, ”as the Father had life in Himself He gave to the Son to have life also in Himself.” The Father is the fountain of life. Eternal life is ever rising up in His infinite Being with perennial vigor; and all things living, from the tiny humming-birds in the tropical forest to the strongest archangel beside the sapphire throne, derive their being from Him. Thus we have seen ferns around a fountain, nouris.h.i.+ng their fronds on its spray. All things owe their existence and continued being to the unmeasured life, which has been from all eternity treasured up in G.o.d, and is ever flowing out from G.o.d.
This life was Christ's, in the mystery of the eternal Trinity, before the worlds were made; but it was necessary that He should receive it into His human nature, so as to become the reservoir and storehouse from which all who were one with Him might receive grace on grace. ”I am come,” He said, ”that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” This life dwelt in Him during His earthly ministry, though comparatively few availed themselves of it; His death set it abroach for all the world; the smitten rock yielded streams of living water; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit; from His throne He proclaimed Himself as He that liveth, though He became dead, and is alive forevermore.
_We live by His life._--Our life is as dependent upon Him as a babe's on its mother. Could ought happen to Him, we should instantly feel the effect. Long before He succ.u.mbed, we must. We have no independent, self-derived, or self-sustained life. Apart from Him we wither.
_We live in His life._--The tiny streamlet of our being has joined His, is merged in it, and flows on together with it, to the great ocean of eternity. To us to live is Christ, both here and hereafter. Our aims and purposes are merged in His; we are enriched in all that enriches Him; gladdened by all that promotes His happiness and glory; made more than conquerors through our oneness with Him, in the victory that has overcome the world.
_We live because He lives in us._--At the moment of regeneration He came to indwell. He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath life hath the Son. It has pleased G.o.d to reveal His Son in us. We have found Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, and we have found Him in our hearts. Where dwellest Thou? we asked Him; and He replied, Come and see; and He manifested Himself as having become to us the inward principle of an endless life. Christ dwells deep in our heart, and we are beginning to comprehend the immensity of the Divine love of which He is the exponent.
Let us draw on this life more confidently, availing ourselves of it perpetually in all our time of need--in all time of our sickness and of our wealth, in adversity and prosperity, in the hour of mortal anguish and the day of judgment; and finding what we could not do or bear or encounter, Jesus can do and bear and meet in and through us, to the Father's eternal glory.
”Lord Jesus Christ, grow Thou in me, And all things else recede.”