Memories of Bethany Part 7

that for _thee_, JESUS WEPT!

"And doth the Saviour weep Over His people's sin, Because we will not let Him keep The souls He died to win?

Ye hearts that love the Lord, If at this sight ye burn, See that in thought, in deed, in word, Ye hate what made Him mourn."

XIII.

THE GRAVE STONE.

They have now reached the grave. It was a rocky sepulchre. A flat stone (possibly with some Hebrew inscription) lay upon the mouth of it.

In wondering amazement the sorrowing group follow the footsteps of the Saviour. "Behold how He loved him," whisper the Jews to one another as they witness His fast falling tears. Can His repairing thus to the tomb be anything more than to pay a mournful tribute to an honoured friends.h.i.+p, and behold the silent home of the loved dead? Nay; He is about, as the Lord of Life, to wrench away the swaddling-bands of corruption, to vindicate His name and prerogative as the "Abolisher of death"--to have the first-fruits of that vast triumph which, ages before the birth of time, He had antic.i.p.ated with longing earnestness--"I will ransom them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death.

O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction."

Does He proceed forthwith to speak the word, and to accomplish the giant deed? He breaks silence. But we listen, in the first instance, not to the omnipotent summons, but to an address to the bystanders--"_Jesus said, Take ye away the stone!_"[15]

What need of this parenthesis in His mighty work? Why this summoning in any feeble human agency when His own independent fiat could have effected the whole? Would it not have been a more startling manifestation of Omnipotence, by a mandate similar to that which chained the tempests of Tiberias, or the demoniac of Gadara, to have hurled the inc.u.mbent stone into fragments? Might not He who has "the keys of the grave and of death" have Himself unlocked the portals preparatory to the vaster prodigy that was to follow?

Nay, there was a mighty lesson to be read in thus delegating human hands to remove the intervening barrier. The Church of the living G.o.d may, in every age, gather from it instruction!

What, then, does the Saviour here figuratively, but significantly, teach His people? Is it not the important truth that, though dependent on Him for all they are, and all they have, they are not thereby released and exempted from the use of _means_? He alone can bring back Lazarus from his death-sleep. Martha and Mary may weep an ocean of tears, but they cannot weep him back. They may linger for days and nights in that lonely graveyard, making it resound with their bitter dirges, but their impa.s.sioned entreaties will be mocked with impressive silence. Too well do they know _that_ spirit is fled beyond their recall--the spark of life extinguished beyond any earthly rekindling!

But though the word of Omnipotence can alone bring back the dead, human hands and human efforts can roll away the interjacent stone, and prepare for the performance of the miracle; and after the miracle _is_ performed, human hands may again be called in to tear off the cerements of the tomb, to ungird the bandages from the restored captive, to "loose him and let him go!"

This simple incident in the Bethany narrative admits of manifold practical applications. Let us look to it with reference to the mightier moral miracle of the Resurrection of the soul "dead in trespa.s.ses and sins." Jesus, and Jesus alone, can awake that soul from the deep slumber of its spiritual death, and invest it with the glories of a new resurrection-life. In vain can it awake of itself; no human skill can put animation into the moral skeleton. No power of human eloquence, no "excellency of man's wisdom," can open these rayless eyes, and pour life, and light, and hope into the dull caverns of the spiritual sepulchre. "Prophesy to the dry bones!"--We may prophesy for ever--we may wake the valley of vision by ceaseless invocations, but the dead will hear not. No bone of the spiritual skeleton will stir, for it is "not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."

But though it be a Divine work from first to last which effects the spiritual regeneration of man, are we from this presumptuously to disregard the use of means? Are prayer, and preaching, and human effort, and strenuous earnestness in the work of our high calling, are these all to be superseded, and p.r.o.nounced unavailing and unnecessary?

Nay, though man cannot wake to life his dormant spiritual energies--though these lie slumbering in the deep sleep of the sheeted dead, and nothing but Lazarus' Lord can break the moral trance--yet _he can use the appointed means_. He dare not be guilty of the monstrous inconsistency and crime of willingly allowing impediments to stand in the way of his spiritual revival which his own efforts may remove! He cannot expect his Lord to sound over his soul the gladdening accents of peace, and reconciliation, and joy, if some known sin be still lying, like the superinc.u.mbent grave-stone, which it is in his power to roll away, and at his peril if he suffer to remain!

Christ is alone the "abolisher of death," and the "giver of life;" but notwithstanding this, "Roll ye away the stone!"--neglect not the means He has appointed and prescribed. If ye neglect prayer, and despise ordinances, and trifle with temptation, or venture on forbidden ground, ye are only making the intervening obstacle firmer and faster, and wilfully denuding yourselves of the gift of life. Naaman must plunge seven times in Jordan, else he cannot be made clean. To cleanse _himself_ of his leprosy he cannot, but to wash in Jordan _he can_. The Israelite must gaze on the brazen serpent; he cannot of himself heal one fevered wound, but to gaze on the appointed symbol of cure he can. In vain can the engines of war effect a breach on the walls of Jericho; but the hosts of Joshua can sound the appointed trumpet, and raise the prescribed shout, and the battlements in a moment are in the dust.

Martha and Mary in vain can make their voices be heard in the "dull, cold ear of death," but at their Lord's bidding they can hurl back the outer portals where their dead is laid. They cannot unbind one fetter, but they can open with human hand the prison-door to admit the Divine Liberator.

Let it not be supposed that in this we detract in any wise from the omnipotence of the Saviour's grace. G.o.d forbid! All is of grace, from first to last--free, sovereign grace. Man has no more merit in salvation than the beggar has merit in reaching forth his hand for alms, or in stooping down to drink of the wayside fountain. But neither must we ignore the great truth which G.o.d strives throughout His Word to impress upon us, that He works by _means_, and that for the neglect of these means we are ourselves responsible. Paul had the a.s.surance given him by an angel from heaven, when tossed in the storm in Adria, that not one life in his vessel was to be lost; that though the s.h.i.+p was to be wrecked, all her crew were to come safe to land. But was there on this account any effort on his part relaxed to secure their safety? No! he toiled and laboured at the pumps and rigging and anchors as unremittingly as before; and when some of the sailors made the cowardly attempt, by lowering a small boat, to effect their own escape, the voice of the apostle was heard proclaiming, amid the storm, that unless they abode in the s.h.i.+p none could be saved!

The true philosophy of the Gospel system is this, to feel as if much depended on ourselves; but at the same time entertaining the loftier conviction that _all_ depends upon G.o.d. Jesus, when He invites to the strait gate, does not inculcate remaining outside, in a state of pa.s.sive and listless inaction, until the portals be seen to move by the Divine hand. His exhortation and command rather is, "Strive"--"knock"--_agonise_ to "enter in!" We are not to ascend to heaven, seated, like Elijah, in a chariot of fire, without toil or effort, but rather to "_fight_ the good fight of faith." The saying of the great Apostle is a vivid portraiture of what the Christian's feelings ought to be regarding personal holiness--"I laboured, ... yet not I, but the grace of G.o.d which was with me."

As the Lord of Bethany gives the summons, "Roll ye away the stone," His words seem paraphrased in this other Scripture, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is G.o.d that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." You may feel a.s.sured that He will not impose upon you one needless burden; He will not exact more than He knows your strength will bear; He will ask no Peter to come to Him on the water, unless He impart at the same time strength and support on the unstable wave; He will not demand of you the endurance of providences, and trials, and temptations you are unable to cope with; He will not ask you to draw water if the well is too deep, or withdraw the stone if too heavy. But neither, at the same time, will He admit as an impossibility that which, as a free and responsible agent, it is in your power to avert. He will not regard as your misfortune what is your crime. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me."

Oh! let life be, more than it ever has been, one constant effort to roll away the stone from the moral sepulchre--carefully to remove every barrier between our souls and Jesus--looking forward to that glorious day when the voice of the Restorer shall be heard uttering the omnipotent "_Come forth!_" and to His angel a.s.sessors the mandate shall be given regarding the thronging myriads of risen dead, "_Loose them and let them go!_"

XIV.

UNBELIEF.

Man--short-sighted man--often raises impossibilities when G.o.d does not.

It is hard for rebellious unbelief to lie submissive and still. In moments when the spirit might well be overawed into silence, it gives utterance to its querulous questionings and surmisings rather than remain obedient at the feet of Christ, reposing on the sublime aphorism, "All things are possible to him that believeth." In the mind of Martha, where faith had been so recently triumphant, doubt and unbelief have begun again to insinuate themselves. This "Peter of her s.e.x" had ventured out boldly on the water to meet her Lord. She had owned Him as the giver of life, and triumphed in Him as her Saviour! But now she is beginning to sink. A natural difficulty presents itself to her mind about the removal of the inc.u.mbent grave-stone. She avers how needless its displacement would be, as by this time corruption must have begun its fatal work. Four brief days only had elapsed since the eye of Lazarus had beamed with fraternal affection. Now these lips must be "saying to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister." Death, she felt, must now be stamping his impressive mockery on that cherished earthly friends.h.i.+p, and, attired in his most terrible insignia, putting the last fatal extinguisher on the glimmerings of her faith and hope. "What need is there, Lord," she seems to say, "for this redundant labour? My brother is far beyond the reach even of a voice like Thine. Why excite vain expectations in my breast which never can be realised? That grave has closed upon him for the 'for ever' of time. Nothing now can revoke the sentence, or reanimate the silent dust, save the trump of G.o.d on the final day."[16]

Thus blindly did Martha reason. She can see no other object her Redeemer can have for the removal of the stone, save to gaze once more on a form and countenance He loved. Both for His sake, and the strangers a.s.sembled, she recoils from the thought of disclosing so humiliating a sight.

Alas! how little are fitful frames and feelings to be trusted. Only a few brief moments before, she had made a n.o.ble protestation of her faith in the presence of her Lord. His own majestic utterances had soothed her griefs, dried her tears, and elicited the confession that He was truly the Son of G.o.d. But the sight of the tomb and its mournful accompaniments obliterate for a moment the recollection of better thoughts and a n.o.bler avowal. She forgets that "things which are impossible with men are possible with G.o.d." She is guilty of "limiting the Holy One of Israel."

How often is it so with us! How easy is it for us, like Martha, to be bold in our creed when there is nothing to cross our wishes, or dim and darken our faith. But when the hour of trial comes, how often does _sense_ threaten to displace and supplant the n.o.bler antagonist principle! How often do we lose sight of the Saviour at the very moment when we most need to have Him continually in view! How often are our convictions of the efficacy of prayer most dulled and deadened just when the dark waves are cresting over our heads, and voices of unbelief are uttering the upbraiding in our ears, "Where is now thy G.o.d?" But will Jesus leave His people to their own guilty unbelieving doubts? Will Martha, by her unworthy insinuations, put an arrest on her Lord's arm; or will He, in righteous retribution for her faithlessness, leave the stone sealed, and the dead unraised?

Nay! He loves His people too well to let their stupid unbelief and hardness of heart interfere with His own gracious purposes! How tenderly He rebukes the spirit of this doubter. "Why," as if He said, "Why distrust me? Why stultify thyself with these unbelieving surmises. Hast thou already forgotten my own gracious a.s.surances, and thine own unqualified acceptance of them. My hand is never shortened that it cannot save; my ear is never heavy that it cannot hear. I can call the things which are not, and make them as though they were. Said I not unto thee, in that earnest conversation which I had a little ago outside the village, in which Gospel faith was the great theme, if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of G.o.d?"

This Bethany utterance has still a voice,--a voice of rebuke and of comfort in our hours of trial. When, like aged Jacob, we are ready to say, "All these things are against me;" when we are about to lose the footsteps of a G.o.d of love, or _have_ perhaps lost them, there is a voice ready to hush into silence every unbelieving doubt and surmise.

"Although thou sayest thou canst not see Him, yet judgment is before Him, therefore trust thou in Him." G.o.d often thus hides Himself from His people in order to try their faith, and elicit their confidence. He puts us in perplexing paths--"allures" and "brings into the wilderness,"

only, however, that we may see more of Himself, and that He may "speak comfortably unto us." He lets our need attain its extremity, that His intervention may appear the more signal. He suffers apparently even His own promises to fail, that He may test the faith of His waiting people;--tutor them to "hope against hope," and to find, in _unanswered_ prayers and baffled expectations, only a fresh reason for clinging to His all-powerful arm, and frequenting His mercy-seat. He dashes first to the ground our human confidences and refuges, shewing how utterly "vain is the help of man;" so that faith, with her own folded, dove-like wings, may repose in quiet confidence in His faithfulness, saying, "In the Lord put I my trust: why say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?"

Reader! It would be well for you to hear this gentle chiding of Christ, too, in the moment of your _spiritual_ depression;--when complaining of your corruptions, the weakness of your graces, your low attainments in holiness, the strength of your temptations, and your inability to resist sin. "_Said I not unto thee_," interposes this voice of mingled reproof and love, "My grace is sufficient for thee?" "The bruised reed I will not break, the smoking flax I will not quench." "Look unto _Me_, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." We are too apt to look to _ourselves_, to turn our contemplation _inwards_, instead of keeping the eye of faith centered undeviatingly on a faithful covenant-keeping G.o.d, laying our finger on every promise of His Word, and making the challenge regarding each, "Hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not bring it to pa.s.s?"

Yes; there may be much to try and perplex. Sense and sight may stagger, and stumble, and fall; we may be able to see no break in the clouds; "deep may be calling to deep," and wave responding to wave, "yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me." If we only "_believe_" in spite of unbelief; hoping on, and praying on, and trusting on; like the great Father of the faithful, in the midst of adverse providences, "strong in faith, giving glory to G.o.d," He will yet cause the day-spring from on high to visit us. Even in _this_ world perplexing paths may be made plain, and slippery places smooth, and judgments "bright as the noonday;" but if not _here_, there _is_ at least a glorious day of disclosures at hand, when the reign of unbelieving doubt shall terminate for ever, when the archives of a chequered past will be ransacked of their every mystery;--all events mirrored and made plain in the light of eternity; and this saying of the weeping Saviour of Bethany obtain its true and everlasting fulfilment, "SAID I NOT UNTO THEE, IF THOU WOULDST BELIEVE, THOU SHOULDST SEE THE GLORY OF G.o.d?"

XV.

THE DIVINE PLEADER.

The stone is rolled away, but there is a solemn pause just when the miracle is about to be performed.

_Jesus prays!_ The G.o.d-Man Mediator--the Lord of Life--the Abolisher of Death--the Being of all Beings--who had the boundless treasures of eternity in His grasp--pauses by the grave of the dead, and lifts up His eyes to heaven in supplication! How often in the same incidents, during our Lord's incarnation, do we find His manhood and His G.o.dhead standing together in stupendous contrast. At His birth, the mystic star and the lowly manger were together; at His death, the ignominious cross and the eclipsed sun were together. Here He weeps and prays at the very moment when He is baring the arm of Omnipotence. The "mighty G.o.d" appears in conjunction with "the man Christ Jesus." "His name is Immanuel, G.o.d with us."

The body of Lazarus was now probably, by the rolling away of the stone, exposed to view. It was a humiliating sight. Earth--the grave--could afford no solace to the spectators. The Redeemer, by a significant act, shews them where alone, at such an hour, comfort can be found. He points the mourning spirit to its only true source of consolation and peace in G.o.d Himself, teaching it to rise above the mortal to the immortal--the corruptible to the incorruptible--from earth to heaven.

Ah! there is nothing but humiliation and sadness in every view of the grave and corruption. Why dwell on the shattered casket, and not rather on the jewel which is sparkling brighter than ever in a better world?

Why persist in gazing on the trophies of the last enemy, when we can joyfully realise the emanc.i.p.ated soul exulting in the plenitude of purchased bliss? Why fall with broken wing and wailing cry to the dust, when on eagle-pinion we can soar to the celestial gate, and learn the unkindness of wis.h.i.+ng the sainted and crowned one back to the nether valley?

It is _Prayer_, observe, which thus brings the eye and the heart near to heaven. It is _Prayer_ which opens the celestial portals, and gives to the soul a sight of the invisible.

Yes; ye who may be now weeping in unavailing sorrow over the departed, remember, in conjunction with the _tears_, the _prayers_ of Jesus. Many a desolate mourner derives comfort from the thought--"Jesus wept."

Forget not this other simple entry in our touching narrative, telling where the spirit should ever rest amid the shadows of death--"_Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. And I knew that Thou hearest me always._"[17]

Let us gather for a little around this incident in the story of Bethany.

It is one of the many golden sayings of priceless value.

That utterance has at this moment lost none of its preciousness; that voice, silent on earth, is still eloquent in heaven. The Great Intercessor still is there, "walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;" loving to note all the wants and weaknesses, the necessities and distresses, of every Church, and every member of His Church. What He said of old to Peter, He says to every trembling believer--"I _have_ prayed, and _am_ praying for _thee_, that thy faith fail not!" "For _thee_!" We must not merge the interest which Jesus has in each separate member of His family, in His intercession for the Church in general. While He lets down His censer, and receives into it, for presentation on the golden altar, the prayers of the vast aggregate; while, as the true High Priest, He enters the holiest of all with the names of His spiritual Israel on His breastplate--carrying the burden of their hourly needs to the foot of the mercy-seat;--yet still, He pleads, as if the case of _each_ stood separate and alone! He remembers _thee_, dejected Mourner, as if there were no other heart but thine to be healed, and no other tears but thine to be dried. His own words, speaking of believers, not collectively but individually, are these--"I will confess _his_ name before my Father and his angels."[18] "_Who_ touched me?" was His interrogation once on earth, as His discriminating love was conscious of some special contact amid the press of the mult.i.tude,--"_Somebody_ hath touched me!" If we can say, in the language of Paul's appropriating faith, "He loved _me_, and gave Himself for _me_," we can add, He pleads for _me_, and bears _me_! He bears this very heart of _mine_, with all its weaknesses, and infirmities, and sins, before His Father's throne. He has engraven each stone of His Zion on the "palms of His hands," and "its walls are continually before Him!"

How untiring, too, in His advocacy! What has the Christian so to complain of, as his own cold, unworthy prayers--mixed so with unbelief--soiled with worldliness--sometimes guiltily omitted or curtailed. Not the fervid e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of those feelingly alive to their spiritual exigencies, but listless, unctionless, the hands hanging down, the knees feeble and trembling!