Chapter II: Part 2

"God delays to answer prayer," says Archbishop Usher, "because he would have more of it. If the musicians come to play at our doors or our windows, if we delight not in their music, we throw them out money presently that they may be gone. But if the music please us, we forbear to give them money, because we would keep them longer to enjoy their music. So the Lord loves and delights in the sweet words of His children, and therefore puts them off and answers them not presently."

Observe still further, in the case of these sorrowing sisters of Bethany, while in all haste and urgency they send their messenger, they do not ask Jesus to come--they dictate no procedure--they venture on no positive request--all is left to Himself. What a lesson also is there here to confide in His wisdom, to feel that His way and His will must be the best--that our befitting attitude is to lie passive at His feet--to wait His righteous disposal of us and ours--to make this the burden of our petition, "Lord, what wouldst _Thou_ have me to do?" "If it be possible let this cup pass from me, _nevertheless_, not as _I_ will, but as _Thou wilt_."

Reader! invite to your gates this celestial messenger. Make prayer a holy habit--a cherished privilege. Seek to be ever maintaining intercommunion with Jesus; consecrating life's common duties with His favour and love. Day by day ere you take your flight into the world, night by night when you return from its soiling contacts, bathe your drooping plumes in this refreshing fountain. Let prayer sweeten prosperity and hallow adversity. Seek to know the unutterable blessedness of habitual filial nearness to your Father in heaven--in childlike confidence unbosoming to Him those heart-sorrows with which no earthly friend can sympathise, and with which a stranger cannot intermeddle. No trouble is too trifling to confide to His ear--no want too trivial to bear to His mercy-seat.

"Prayer is appointed to convey
The blessings He designs to give;
Long as they live should Christians pray,
For only while they pray, they live."

V.

THE MESSAGE.

The messenger has reached--what is his message? It is a brief, but a beautiful one. "_Lord, behold he whom Thou lovest is sick._"

No laboured eulogium--no lengthened panegyric could have described more significantly the character of the dying villager of Bethany. Four mystic words invest his name with a sacred loveliness. By one stroke of his pen the Apostle unfolds a heart-history; so that we desiderate no more--more would almost spoil the touching simplicity--"_He whom Thou lovest!_"

We might think at first the words are inverted. Can the messenger have mistaken them? Is it not more likely the message of the sisters was this:--"Go and tell Him, 'Lord, he whom _we_ love,' or else, 'he who loveth _Thee_ is sick?'"

Nay, it is a loftier argument by which they would stir the infinite depths of the Fountain of love! They had "known and believed the love" which the Great Redeemer bore to their brother, and they further felt assured that "loving him at the beginning, He would love him even to the end." Their love to Lazarus (tender, unspeakably tender as it was one of the loveliest types of human affection)--was at best an _earthly love_--finite--imperfect--fitful--changing--perishable. But the love they invoked was undying and everlasting, superior to all vacillation--enduring as eternity.

It is ours "to take encouragement in prayer from God only;"--to plead nothing of our own--our poor devotedness, or our unworthy services; they are rather arguments for our condemnation;--but _His_ promises are all "Yea, and amen." They never fail. His name is "a strong tower," running into which the righteous are safe. That tower is garrisoned and bulwarked by the attributes of His own everlasting nature. Among these attributes not the least glorious is His _Love_--_that_ unfathomable love which dwelt in His bosom from all eternity, and which is immutably pledged never to be taken from His people!

Man's love to his God is like the changing sand--_His_ is like the solid rock. Man's love is like the passing meteor with its fitful gleam. _His_ like the fixed stars, shining far above, clear and serene, from age to age, in their own changeless firmament.

Do we know anything of the words of this message? Could it be written on our hearts in life? Were we to die, could it be inscribed on our tombs, "This is one whom _Jesus loved_?"

Happy assurance! The pure spirits who bend before the throne know no happier. The archangels--the chieftains among principalities and powers, can claim no higher privilege, no loftier badge of glory!

Love is the atmosphere they breathe. It is the grand moral law of gravitation in the heavenly economy. God, the central sun of light, and joy, and glory, keeping by this great motive principle every spiritual planet in its orbit, "for _God is love_."

That love is not confined to heaven. It may be foretasted here. The sick man of Bethany knew of it, and exulted in it. Though in the moment of dissolution he had to mourn the personal absence of his Lord, yet "believing" in that love, he "rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory." His sisters, as they stood in sorrowing emotion by his dying couch, and thought of that hallowed fraternal bond which was about so soon to be dissolved, could triumph in the thought of an affection nobler and better which knit him and them to the Brother of brothers--and which, unlike any earthly tie, was indissoluble.

And what was experienced in that lowly Bethany home, may be experienced by us.

That love in its wondrous manifestation is confined to no limits, no age, no peculiar circumstances. Many a Lazarus, pining in want, who can claim no heritage but poverty, no home but cottage walls, or who, stretched on a bed of protracted sickness, is heard saying in the morning, "Would God it were evening! and in the evening, Would God it were morning!" if he have that love reigning in his heart, he has a possession outweighing the wealth of worlds!

What a message, too, of consolation is here to the _sick_! How often are those chained down year after year to some aching pillow, worn, weary, shattered in body, depressed in spirit,--how apt are they to indulge in the sorrowful thought, "Surely God cannot care for _me_!" What! Jesus think of this wasted frame--these throbbing temples--these powerless limbs--this decaying mind! I feel like a wreck on the desert shore--beyond the reach of His glance--beneath the notice of His pitying eye! Nay, thou poor desponding one, He _does_ cherish, He _does_ remember thee!--"Lord, _he whom Thou lovest_ is sick." Let this motto-verse be inscribed on thy Bethany chamber. The Lord _loves_ His sick ones, and He often chastens them with sickness, just _because_ He loves them. If these pages be now traced by some dim eyes that have been for long most familiar with the sickly glow of the night-lamp--the weary vigils of pain and languor and disease--an exile from a busy world, or a still more unwilling alien from the holy services of the sanctuary--oh! think of Him who _loves_ thee, who loved thee _into_ this sickness, and will love thee _through_ it, till thou standest in that unsuffering, unsorrowing world, where sickness is unknown! Think of Lazarus in _his_ chamber, and the plea of the sisters in behalf of their prostrate brother, "Lord, come to the sick one, _whom Thou lovest_."

Believe it, the very continuance of this sickness is a pledge of His love. You may be often tempted to say with Gideon, "If the Lord be with me, why has _all_ this befallen me?" Surely if my Lord loved me, He would long ere this have hastened to my relief, rebuked this sore disease, and raised me up from this bed of languishing? Did you ever note, in the 6th verse of this Bethany chapter, the strangely beautiful connexion of the word THEREFORE? The Evangelist had, in the preceding verse, recorded the affection Jesus bore for that honoured family. "Now Jesus _loved_ Martha and her sister and Lazarus." "When He had heard THEREFORE that he was sick,"--what did He do? "Fled on wings of love to the succour of His loved friend; hurried in eager haste by the shortest route from Bethabara?" We expect to hear so, as the natural deduction from John's premises. How we might think could love give a more truthful exponent of its reality than hastening instantaneously to the relief of one so dear to Him? But not so! "When He had heard THEREFORE that he was sick, _He abode two days still in the same place where He was_!" Yes, there is _tarrying_ love as well as _succouring_ love. He _sent_ that sickness because He loves thee; He _continues_ it because He loves thee. He heaps fresh fuel on the furnace-fires till the gold is refined. He appoints, not one, but "many days where neither sun nor stars appear, and no small tempest lies on us," that the ship may be lightened, and faith exercised; our bark hastened by these rough blasts nearer shore, and the Lord glorified, who rules the raging of the sea. "We expect," says Evans, "the blessing or relief in _our_ way; He chooses to bestow it in _His_."

Reader! let this ever be your highest ambition, to love and to be loved of Jesus. If we are covetous to have the regard and esteem of the great and good on earth, what is it to share the fellowship and kindness of Him, in comparison with whose love the purest earthly affection is but a passing shadow!

Ah! to be without that love, is to be a little world ungladdened by its central sun, wandering on in its devious pathway of darkness and gloom. Earthly things may do well enough when the world is all bright and shining--when prosperity sheds its bewitching gleam around you, and no symptoms of the cloudy and dark day are at hand; but the hour is coming (it may come soon, it _must_ come at some time) when your Bethany-home will be clouded with deepening death-shadows--when, like Lazarus, you will be laid on a dying couch, and what will avail you then? Oh, nothing, _nothing_! if bereft of that love whose smile is heaven. If you are left in the agony of desolation to utter importunate pleadings to an _Unknown Saviour_, a _Stranger God_--if the dark valley be entered uncheered by the thought of a loving Redeemer dispelling its gloom, and waiting on the Canaan side to shew you the path of life!

Let the home of your hearts be often open, as was the home of Lazarus, to the visits of Jesus in the day of brightness; and _then_, when the hour of sorrow and trial unexpectedly arises, you will know where to find your Lord--where to send your prayer-message for Him to come to your relief.

Yes! He _will_ come! It will be in His own way, but His joyous footfall _will_ be heard! He is not like Baal, "slumbering and sleeping, or taking a journey" when the voice of importunate prayer ascends from the depths of yearning hearts! If, instead of at once hastening back to Bethany, He "abides still for two days where He was"--if He linger among the mountain-glens of distant Gilead, instead of, as we would expect, hastening to the cry and succour of cherished friendship, and to ward off the dart of the inexorable foe--be assured there must be a reason for this strange procrastination--there must be an unrevealed cause which the future will in due time disclose and unravel. All the recollections of the past forbid one unrighteous surmise on His tried faithfulness. "_Now, Jesus loved Lazarus_," is a soft pillow on which to repose;--raising the sorrowing spirit above the unkind insinuation, "My Lord hath forsaken me, and my God hath forgotten me."

If He linger, it is to try and test the faith of His people. If He let loose the storm, and suffer it to sweep with a vengeance apparently uncontrolled, it is that these living trees may strike their roots firmer and deeper in Himself--the Rock of eternal ages. Trust Him where you cannot trace Him. Not one promise of His can come to nought. The channel may have continued long dry--the streams of Lebanon may have failed--the cloud has been laden, but no shower descends--the barren waste is unwatered--the windows of heaven seem hopelessly closed. Nay, nay! Though "the vision tarry," yet if you "wait for it" the gracious assurance will be fulfilled in your experience--"The Lord is good to them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him." The fountain of love pent up in His heart will in due time gush forth--the apparently unacknowledged prayer will be crowned with a gracious answer. In His own good time sweet tones of celestial music will be wafted to your ear--"It is the voice of the Beloved!--lo, He cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills!" If you are indeed the child of God, as Lazarus was, remember this for your comfort in your dying hour, that whether the prayers of sorrowing friends for your recovery be answered or no, the Lord of love has at least _heard_ them--the messenger has not been mocked--the prayer-message has not been spurned or forgotten! I repeat it, He _will_ answer, but it will be _in His own way_! If the Bethany-home be ungladdened by Lazarus restored, it will exult through tears in the thought of Lazarus glorified. And the Marthas and Marys, as they go often unto the grave to weep there, will read, as they weep, in the holy memories of the departed, that which will turn tears into joy--"_Jesus loved him._"

VI.

THE SLEEPER.

"_Our friend Lazarus sleepeth._"--The hopes and fears which alternately rose and fell in the bosoms of the sisters, like the surges of the ocean, are now at rest. Oft and again, we may well believe, had they gone, like the mother of Sisera, to the lattice to watch the return of the messenger, or, what was better, to hail their expected Lord. Gazing on the pale face at their side, and remembering that ere now the tidings of his illness must have reached Bethabara, they may have even expected to witness the power of a distant _word_;--to behold the hues of returning health displacing the ghastly symptoms of dissolution. But in vain! The curtain has fallen! Their season of aching anxiety is at an end. Their worst fears are realised.--"Lazarus sleepeth."

How calm, how tranquil that departure! Never did sun sink so gently in its crimson couch--never did child, nestling in its mother's bosom, close its eyes more sweetly!

"His summon'd breath went forth as peacefully
As folds the spent rose when the day is done."

Befitting close to a calm and noiseless existence! It would seem as if the guardian angels who had been hovering round his death-pillow had well-nigh reached the gates of glory ere the sorrowing survivors discovered that the clay tabernacle was all that was left of a "brother beloved!"

From the abrupt manner in which, in the course of the narrative, our Lord makes the announcement to His disciples,[10] we are almost led to surmise that He did so at the very moment of the spirit's dismissal--the Redeemer speaks while the eyelids are just closing, and the emancipated soul is winging its arrowy flight up to the spirit-land!

_Death_ a SLEEP!--How beautiful the image! Beautifully true, and _only_ true regarding the Christian. It is here where the true and the false--Christianity and Paganism--meet together in impressive and significant contrast. The one comes to the dark river with her pale, sickly lamp. It refuses to burn--the damps of Lethe dim and quench it. Philosophy tries to discourse on death as a "stern necessity"--of the duty of passing heroically into this mysterious, oblivion-world--taking with bold heart "the leap in the dark," and confronting, as we best can, blended images of annihilation and terror.

The Gospel takes us to the tomb, and shews us Death vanquished, and the Grave spoiled. Death truly is in itself an unwelcome messenger at our door. It is the dark event in this our earth,--the deepest of the many deep shadows of an otherwise fair creation--a cold, cheerless avalanche lying at the heart of humanity, freezing up the gushing fountains of joyous life. But the Gospel shines, and the cold iceberg melts. The Sun of Righteousness effects what philosophy, with all its boasted power, never could. Jesus is the abolisher of Death. He has taken all that is terrible from it. It is said of some venomous insects that when they once inflict a sting, they are deprived of any future power to hurt. Death left his envenomed sting in the body of the great victim of Calvary. It was thenceforward disarmed of its fearfulness! So complete, indeed, is the Redeemer's victory over this last enemy, that He Himself speaks of it as no longer a reality, but a shadow--a phantom-foe from which we have nothing to dread. "Whosoever believeth in Me shall _never die_." "If a man keep My sayings, he shall _never see death_." These are an echo of the sweet Psalmist's beautiful words, a transcript of his expressive figure when he pictures the Dark Valley to the believer as the Valley of a "_shadow_." The substance is removed! When the gaunt spirit meets him on the midnight waters, he may, like the disciples at first, be led to "cry out for fear." But a gentle voice of love and tenderness rebukes his dread, and calms his misgivings--"It is I! be not afraid!" Yes, here is the wondrous secret of a calm departure--the "sleep" of the believer in death. It is the name and presence of JESUS. There may be many accompaniments of weakness and prostration, pain and suffering, in that final conflict; the mind may be a wreck--memory may have abdicated her seat--the loving salutation of friends may be returned only with vacant looks, and the hand be unable to acknowledge the grasp of affection--but there is strength in that presence, and music in that name to dispel every disquieting, anxious thought. Clung to as a sheet-anchor in life, He will never leave the soul in the hour of dissolution to the mercy of the storm. Amid sinking nature, He is faithful that promised--"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."--"Thou art with me," says Lady Powerscourt--"this is the rainbow of light thrown across the valley, for there is no need of sun or moon where covenant-love illumes."

A Christian's death-bed! It is indeed "good to be there." The man who has not to seek a living Saviour at a dying hour, but who, long having known His preciousness, loved His Word, valued His ordinances, sought His presence by believing prayer, has now nothing to do but to die (to _sleep_), and wake up in glory everlasting! "Oh! that all my brethren," were among Rutherford's last words, "may know what a Master I have served, and what peace I have this day. This night shall close the door, and put my anchor within the veil." "This must be the chariot," said Helen Plumtre, making use of Elijah's translation as descriptive of the believer's death; "This must be the chariot; oh, how easy it is!" "Almost well," said Richard Baxter, when asked on his death-bed how he did.

Yes! there is speechless eloquence in such a scene. The figure of a quiet slumber is no hyperbole, but a sober verity. As the gentle smile of a foretasted heaven is seen playing on the marble lips--the rays gilding the mountain tops after the golden sun has gone down--what more befitting reflection than this, "_So_ giveth He His beloved SLEEP!"

"Sweetly remembering that the parting sigh
Appoints His saints to slumber, not to die,
The starting tear we check--we kiss the rod,
And not to earth resign them, but to God."

Or shall we leave the death-chamber and visit the grave? Still it is a place of _sleep_; a bed of rest--a couch of tranquil repose--a quiet dormitory "until the day break," and the night shadows of earth "flee away." The dust slumbering there is precious because redeemed; the angels of God have it in custody; they encamp round about it, waiting the mandate to "gather the elect from the four winds of heaven--from the one end of heaven to the other." Oh, wondrous day, when the long dishonoured casket shall be raised a "glorified, body" to receive once more the immortal jewel, polished and made meet for the Master's use! See how Paul clings, in speaking of this glorious resurrection period, to the expressive figure of his Lord before him--"Them also which SLEEP in Jesus will God bring with Him!" _Sleep in Jesus!_ His saints fall asleep on their death-couch in His arms of infinite love. There their spirits repose, until the body, "sown in corruption" shall be "raised in incorruption," and both reunited in the day of His appearing, become "a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of their God."

Weeping mourner! Jesus dries thy tears with the encouraging assurance, "Thy dead shall live; together with My body they shall arise." Let thy Lazarus "sleep on now and take his rest;" the time will come when My voice shall be heard proclaiming, "Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in dust." "The winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away." "Weep not! he is not dead, but sleepeth. Soon shall the day-dawn of glory streak the horizon, and then I shall go that I may awake him out of sleep!"

Beautifully has it been said, "Dense as the gloom is which hangs over the mouth of the sepulchre, it is the spot, above all others, where the Gospel, if it enters, shines and triumphs. In the busy sphere of life and health, it encounters an active antagonist--the world confronts it, aims to obscure its glories, to deny its claims, to drown its voice, to dispute its progress, to drive it from the ground it occupies. But from the mouth of the grave the world retires; it shrinks from the contest there; it leaves a clear and open space in which the Gospel can assert its claims and unveil its glories without opposition or fear. There the infidel and worldling look anxiously around--but the world has left them helpless, and fled. There the Christian looks around, and lo! the angel of mercy is standing close by his side. The Gospel kindles a torch which not only irradiates the valley of the shadow of death, but throws a radiance into the world beyond, and reveals it peopled with the sainted spirits of those who have died in Jesus."

Reader! may this calm departure be yours and mine. "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. ... They REST." All life's turmoil and tossing is over; they are anchored in the quiet haven. _Rest_--but not the rest of annihilation--

"Grave! the guardian of our dust;
Grave! the treasury of the skies;
Every atom of thy trust
Rests in hope again to rise!"

Let us seek to have the eye of faith fixed and centred on Jesus _now_. It is _that_ which alone can form a peaceful pillow in a dying hour, and enable us to rise superior to all its attendant terrors. Look at that scene in the Jehoshaphat valley! The proto-martyr Stephen has a pillow of thorns for his dying couch, showers of stones are hurled by infuriated murderers on his guiltless head, yet, nevertheless, he "fell asleep." What was the secret of that calmest of sunsets amid a blood-stained and storm-wreathed sky? The eye of faith (if not of sight) pierced through those clouds of darkness. Far above the courts of the material temple at whose base he lay, he beheld, in the midst of the general assembly and Church of the First-born of Heaven, "JESUS standing at the right hand of God." The vision of his Lord was like a celestial lullaby stealing from the inner sanctuary. With _Jesus_, his last sight on earth and his next in glory, he could "lay him down in peace and sleep," saying, in the words of the sweet singer of Israel, "What time I awake I am still with Thee."

"It matters little at what hour o' the day
The righteous falls asleep. Death cannot come
To him untimely who is fit to die.
The less of this cold world the more of heaven;
The briefer life, the earlier immortality."--MILMAN.

"Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." This tells us that Christ forgets not the dead. The dead often bury their dead, and remember them no more. The name of their silent homes has passed into a proverb, "The land of forgetfulness." But they are not forgotten by Jesus. That which sunders and dislocates all other ties--wrenching brother from brother, sister from sister, friend from friend--cannot sunder us from the living, loving heart on the throne of heaven. His is a friendship and love stronger than death, and surviving death. While the language of earth is

"Friend after friend departs--
Who hath not lost a friend?"

the emancipated spirit, as it wings its magnificent flight among the ministering seraphim, can utter the challenge, "Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?" The righteous are had with Him "in everlasting remembrance." Their names "written among the living in Jerusalem;" yea, "engraven on the palms of His hands."

One other thought.--Jesus had at first kindly and considerately disguised from His disciples the stern truth of Lazarus' departure. "Our friend sleepeth." "They thought that He had spoken of taking of rest in sleep." They understood it as the indication of the crisis-hour in sickness when the disease has spent itself, and is succeeded by a balmy slumber--the presage of returning health; but now He says unto them plainly, "Lazarus is dead." How gently He thus breaks the sad intelligence! And it is His method of dealing still. He _prepares_ His people for their hours of trial. He does not lay upon them more than they are able to bear. He considers their case--He teaches by slow and gradual discipline, leading on step by step; staying His rough wind in the day of His east wind. As the Good Physician, He metes out drop by drop in the bitter cup--as the Good Shepherd, His is not rough driving, but gentle guiding from pasture to pasture. "He leadeth them out;" "He goeth before them." He is Himself their sheltering rock in the "dark and cloudy day." The sheep who are inured to the hardships of the mountain, He leaves at times to wrestle with the storm; but "the _lambs_" (the young, the faint, the weak, the weary) "He gathers in His arms and carries in His bosom." He speaks in gentle whispers. He uses the pleasing symbol of quiet slumber before He speaks plainly out the mournful reality, "Lazarus is dead." Truly "He knoweth our frame--He remembereth that we are dust." "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him!"

But let us resume our narrative, and follow the journey of the dead man's "Friend." It is a mighty task He has undertaken; to storm the strong enemy in his own citadel, and roll back the barred gates! In mingled majesty and tenderness He hastens to the bereft and desolate home on this mission of power and love. We left the sisters wondering at His mysterious delay. Again and again had they imagined that at last they heard His tardy step, or listened to His hand on the latch, or to the loving music of His longed-for voice. But they are mistaken; it was only the beating of the vine-tendrils on the lattice, or the footfall of the passer by. The Lord is still absent! Their earnest and importunate heart-breathings are expressed by the Psalmist--"O Lord our God, early do we seek Thee: our soul thirsteth for Thee, our flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see Thy power and Thy glory, as we _have_ seen Thee." Be still, afflicted ones! He is coming. He will, however, let the cup of anguish be first filled to the brim that He may manifest and magnify all the more the might of His omnipotence, and the marvels of His compassion. The thirsty land is about to become streams of water. The sky is at its darkest, when, lo! the rainbow of love is seen spanning the firmament, and a shower of blessings is about to fall on the "_Home of Bethany_!"

VII.

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.

The sounds of lamentation had now been heard for four days in the desolate household.

In accordance with general wont, the friends and relatives of the deceased had assembled to pay their tribute of respect to the memory of a revered friend, and to solace the hearts of the disconsolate survivors. They needed all the sympathy they received. It was now the dull dead calm after the torture of the storm, the leaden sea strewn with wrecks, enabling them to realise more fully the extent of their loss. Amid the lulls of the tempest, while Lazarus yet lived, hope shrunk from entertaining gloomy apprehensions. But now that the storm has spent its fury, now that the worst has come, the future rises up before them crowded with ten thousand images of desolation and sorrow. The void in their household is daily more and more felt. All the past bright memories of Bethany seem to be buried in a yawning grave.

We may picture the scene. The stronger and more resolute spirit of Martha striving to stem the tide of overmuch sorrow. The more sensitive heart of Mary, bowed under a grief too deep for utterance, able only to indicate by her silent tears the unknown depths of her sadness.

Thus are they employed, when Martha, unseen to her sister, has been beckoned away. "_The Master has come._" But desirous of ascertaining the truth of the joyful tidings, ere intruding on the grief of Mary, the elder of the survivors rushes forth with trembling emotion to give full vent to her sorrow at the feet of the Great Friend of all the friendless![11]

He has not yet entered the village. She cannot, however, wait His arrival. Leaving home and sepulchre behind, she hastens outside the groves of palm at its gate.

It requires no small fortitude in the season of sore bereavement to face an altered world; and, doubtless, passing all alone now through the little town, meeting familiar faces wearing sunny smiles which could not be returned, must have been a painful effort to this child of sorrow. But what will the heart not do to meet such a Comforter? What will Martha be unprepared to encounter if the intelligence brought her be indeed confirmed? One glance is enough. "_It is the Lord!_" In a moment she is a suppliant at His feet. Doubt and faith and prayer mingle in the exclamation, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died!"[12]

That she had faith and assured confidence in the love and tenderness of Jesus we cannot question. But a momentary feeling of unbelief (shall we say, of reproach and upbraiding?) mingled with better emotions. "Why, Lord," seemed to be the expression of her inner thoughts, "wert Thou absent? It was unlike Thy kind heart. Thou hast often gladdened our home in our season of joy--why this forgetfulness in the night of our bitter agony? Death has torn from us a loved brother--the blow would have been spared--these hearts would have been unbroken--these burning tears unshed, if _Thou hadst_ been here!"

Such was the bold--the _unkind_ reasoning of the mourner. It was the reasoning of a finite creature. Ah! if she could but have looked into the workings of that infinite Heart she was ungenerously upbraiding, how differently would she have broached her tearful suit!

_Her_ exclamation is--"Why this _unkind_ absence?"

_His_ comment on that _same_ absence to His disciples is _this_--"I was _glad_ for your sakes that I was _not_ there!"

How often are _God_ and _man_ thus in strange antagonism, with regard to earthly dispensations! Man, as he arraigns the rectitude of the Divine procedure, exclaiming--"How unaccountable this dealing! How baffling this mystery! Where is now my God?" This sickness--why prolonged? This thorn in the flesh--why still buffeting? This family blank--why permitted? Why the most treasured and useful life taken--the blow aimed where it cut most severely and levelled lowest?

Hush the secret atheism! This trial, whatever it be, has this grand motto written upon it in characters of living light;--we can read it on anguished pillows--aching hearts--ay, on the very portals of the tomb--"_This_ is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby!"

At the very moment we are mourning what are called "_dark_ providences"--"untoward calamities"--"strokes of misfortune"--"unmitigated evils"--Jesus has a different verdict;--"I am _glad_ for your sakes."

The absence at Jordan--the still more unaccountable lingering for two days in the same place after the message had been sent, instead of hastening direct to Bethany, all was well and wisely ordered. And although Martha's upbraidings were now received in forbearing silence, her Saviour afterwards, in a calmer moment, read the rebuke--"Said I not unto thee, if thou wouldst _believe_, thou shouldst see the glory of God?"

It is indeed a comforting assurance in all trials, that God has some holy and wise end to subserve. He never stirs a ripple on the waters, but for His own glory, or the good of others. The delay on the present occasion, though protracting for a time the sorrows of the bereaved, was intended for the benefit of the Church in every age, and for the more immediate benefit of the disciples.

_They_ were destined in a few brief weeks also to be desolate survivors--to mourn a Brother dearer still! He who had been to them Friend--Father--Brother, all in one, was to be, like Lazarus, laid silent in a Jerusalem sepulchre. The Lord of Life was to be the victim of Death! His body was to be transfixed to a malefactor's cross, and consigned to a lonely grave! He knew the shock that awaited their faith. He knew, as this terrible hour drew on, how needful some overpowering visible demonstration would be of His mastery over the tomb.

_Now_ a befitting opportunity occurred in the case of their friend Lazarus to read the needed lesson. "I was glad for your sakes, ... to the intent ye might believe."

Would that we could feel as believers more than we do--that the dealings of our God are for the strengthening of our faith, and the enlivening and invigorating of our spiritual graces. Let us seek to accept more simply in dark dealings the Saviour's explanation, "It is for _your_ sake!" He gives us a blank for our every trial, indorsing it with His own gracious word, "This, _this_ is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby."

The words of Martha, then, surely teach as their great lesson, never to be hasty in our surmises and conclusions regarding God's ways.

"Lord! IF Thou _hadst_ been here?" Could she question for a moment that that loving eye of Omniscience had all the while been scanning that sick-chamber--marking every throb in that fevered brow--and every tear that fell unbidden from the eyes that watched his pillow?

"Lord! _if_ Thou hadst been here?" Could she question His ability, had He so willed it, to prevent the bereavement altogether--to put an arrest on the hand of death ere the bow was strung?

O faithless disciple, wherefore didst thou doubt? But thou art ere long to learn what each of us will learn out in eternity, that "_all_ things are for our sakes, that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving of many, redound _to the glory of God_."

* * * * *

But the momentary cloud has passed. Faith breaks through. The murmur of upbraiding has died away. He who listens makes allowance for an anguished heart. The glance of tender sympathy and gentleness which met Martha's eye, at once hushes all remains of unbelief. Words of exulting confidence immediately succeed. "But I know that even now whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee."

What is this, but that which every believer exults in to this hour, as the sheet-anchor of hope and peace and comfort, when tossed on a tempestuous sea--a gracious confidence in the ability and willingness of Christ to save. The Friend of Bethany is still the Friend in Heaven. To Him "all power has been committed;" "as a prince He has power with God, and must prevail."

Yes, gracious antidote to the spirit in the moment of its trial; when bowed down with anticipated bereavement; the curtains of death about to fall over life's brightest joys. How blessed to lay hold on the _perfect_ conviction that "the Ever-living Intercessor in glory has all power to revoke the sentence if He sees meet"--that even _now_ (yes _now_, in a moment) the delegated angel may be sent speeding from his throne, to spare the tree marked to fall, and prolong the lease of existence!

Let us rejoice in the power of this God-man Mediator, that He is as able as He is willing, and as willing as He is able. "Him the Father heareth always." "_Father, I will_," is His own divine _formula_ for every needed boon for His people.

How it ought to make our sick-chambers and death-chambers consecrated to prayer! leading us to make our every trial and sorrow a fresh reason for going to God. Laying our burden, whatever it may be, on the mercy-seat, it will be _considered_ by Him, who is too wise to grant what is better to be withdrawn, and too kind to withhold what, without injury to us, may be granted.

Let us imitate Martha's faith in our approaches to Him. Ah, in our dull and cold devotions, how little lively apprehension have we of the gracious _willingness_ of Christ to listen to our petitions! Standing as the great Angel of the Covenant with the golden censer, His hand never shortened--His ear never heavy--His uplifted arm of intercession never faint. No variety bewildering Him--no importunity wearying Him--"waiting to be gracious"--loving the music of the suppliant spirit.

Would that we had ever before us as the superscription of faith written on our closet-devotions, and domestic altars, and public sanctuaries, _whenever_ and _wherever_ the knee is bent, and the Hearer of prayer is invoked--"I _know_ that even _now_ whatsoever _Thou_ wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee."

VIII.

THE MOURNER'S COMFORT.

Martha's tearful utterances are now met with an exalted solace.

"_Thy brother shall rise again._" It is the first time her Lord has spoken. She now once more hears those well-remembered tones which were last listened to, when life was all bright, and her home all happy.

It is the self-same consolation which steals still, like celestial music, to the smitten heart, when every chord of earthly gladness ceases to vibrate. And it is befitting too that _Jesus_ should utter it. He alone is qualified to do so. The words spoken to the bereaved one of Bethany are words purchased by His own atoning work. "Thy brother--thy sister--thy friend, shall rise again!"

This brief oracle of comfort was addressed, in the first instance, specially to Martha. It had a primary reference, doubtless, to the vast miracle which was on the eve of performance. But there were more hearts to comfort and souls to cheer than one; that Almighty Saviour had at the moment troops of other bereaved ones in view; myriads on myriads of aching, bleeding spirits who could not, like the Bethany mourner, rush into His visible presence for consolation and peace. He expands, therefore, for their sakes the sublime and exalted solace which He ministers to _her_. And in words which have carried their echoes of hope and joy through all time, He exclaims--"I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall never die!"

If Bethany had bequeathed no other "memory" than _this_, how its name would have been embalmed in hallowed recollection! Truly these two brief verses are as apples of gold in pictures of silver. "_Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life._" Himself conquering death, He has conquered it for His people--opening the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

The full grandeur of that Bethany utterance could not be appreciated by her to whom it was first spoken. His death and resurrection was still, even to His nearest disciples, a profound mystery. Little did that trembling spirit, who was now gazing on her living Lord with tearful eye, dream that in a few brief days the grave was to hold HIM, too, as its captive; and that guardian angels were to proclaim words which would now have been all enigma and strangeness, "The Lord is risen!" With us it is different. The mighty deed has been completed. "Christ has died; yea, rather has risen again!" The resurrection and revival of Lazarus was a marvellous act, but it was only the rekindling of a little star that had ceased to twinkle in the firmament. A week more--and Martha would witness the Great Sun of all Being undergoing an eclipse; in a mysterious moment veiled and shrouded in darkness and blood; and then all at once coming forth like a Bridegroom from his chamber to shine the living and luminous centre of ransomed millions!

Christians! we can turn now aside and see this great sight--death closing the lips of the Lord of life--a borrowed grave containing the tenantless body of the Creator of all worlds! Is death to hold that prey? Is the grave to retain in gloomy custody that immaculate frame? Is the living temple to lie there an inglorious ruin, like other crumbling wrecks of mortality? The question of our eternal life or eternal death was suspended on the reply! If death succeeds in chaining down the illustrious Victim, our hopes of everlasting life are gone for ever. In vain can these dreary portals be ever again unbarred for the children of fallen humanity. He has gone there as their surety-Saviour. If his suretyship be accepted--if He meet and fulfil all the requirements of an outraged law, the gates of the dismal prison-house will and must be opened. If, on the other hand, there be any flaw or deficiency in His person or work as the Kinsman-Redeemer, then no power can snap the chains which bind Him; the tomb will refuse to surrender what it has in custody; the hopes of His people must perish along with Him! Golgotha must become the grave of a world's hopes!

But the stone _has_ been rolled away. The grave-clothes are all that are left as trophies of the conqueror. Angels are seated in the vacant tomb to verify with their gladdening assurance His own Bethany oracle, "The Lord has risen." "He is indeed the resurrection and the life; he that liveth and believeth on Him shall never die!"

Yes! however many be the comforting thoughts which cluster around the grave of Lazarus, grander still is it to gather, as Jesus Himself here bids us, around His own tomb, and to gaze on His own resurrection scene! It was the most eventful morning of all time. It will be the focus point of the Church's hope and triumph through all eternity.

"The Lord is risen!" It proclaimed the atonement complete, sin pardoned, mediation accepted, the law satisfied, God glorified! "The Lord is risen!" It proclaimed resurrection and life for His people--life (the forfeited _gift_ of life) now repurchased. That mighty victor rose not for Himself, but as the representative and earnest of countless multitudes, who exult in His death as their life--in His resurrection as the pledge and guarantee of their everlasting safety;--"I am He that liveth," and "because I live ye shall live also."

Anticipating His own glorious rising, He might well speak to Martha, standing before Him as the representative of weeping, sinful, woe-worn humanity, "He that liveth and believeth on Me shall never die." "_In Me_, death is no longer death; it is only a parenthesis in life--a transition to a loftier stage of being. _In Me_, the grave is the vestibule of heaven, the robing-room of immortality!"

Reader, yours is the same strong consolation. "Believe," "Only believe" in that risen Lord. He has purchased all, paid all, procured all! Look into that vacant tomb; see sin cancelled, guilt blotted out, the law magnified, justice honoured, the sinner saved!

Ay, and more than that, as you see the moral conqueror marching forth clothed with immortal victory, you see Him not alone! He is heading and heralding a multitude which no man can number. Himself the victorious precursor, he is shewing to these exulting thousands "the _path_ of life." He tells them to dread neither for themselves or others that lonesome tomb. The curse is extracted from it; the envenomed sting is plucked away. In passing through its lonesome chambers they may exult in the thought that a mightier than they has sanctified it by His own presence, and transmuted what was once a gloomy portico into a triumphal arch, bearing the inscription, "O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction!"

IX.

THE MOURNER'S CREED.

How stands our faith?

These mighty thoughts and words of consolation--are they really believed, felt, trusted in, rejoiced over?

Christian, "Believest _thou this_?"[13] Art thou really looking to this exalted life-giving Saviour? Hast thou in some feeble measure realised this resurrection-life as thine own? Hast thou the joyful consciousness of participating in this vital union with a living Lord? In vain do we listen to these sublime Bethany utterances unless we feel "_Jesus speaks to me_," and unless we be living from day to day under their invigorating power.

He had unfolded to Martha in a single verse a whole Gospel; He had irradiated by a few words the darkness of the tomb; and now, turning to the poor dejected weeper at his side, He addresses the all-important question, "Believest thou _this_?"

Her faith had been but a moment before staggering. Some guilty misgivings had been mingling with her anguished tears. She has now an opportunity afforded of rising above her doubts,--the ebbings and flowings of her fitful feelings,--and cleaving fast to the Living Rock.

It elicits an unfaltering response--"Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world."[14]

Remarkable confession! We should not so much have wondered to hear it after the grave, hard by, had been rifled, and the silent lips of Lazarus had been unsealed; or had she stood like the other Mary at her Lord's own sepulchre in the garden, and after a few brief, but momentous days and hours, seen a whole flood of light thrown on the question of His Messiahship.

But as yet there was much to damp such a bold confession, and lead to hesitancy in the avowal of such a creed. The poverty, the humiliations, the unworldly obscurity of that solitary _One_ who claimed no earthly birthright, and owned no earthly dwelling, were not all these, particularly to a Jew, at variance with every idea formed in connexion with the coming Shiloh?

Was Martha's then a blind unmeaning faith? Far from it. It was nurtured, doubtless, in that quiet home of holy love, where, while Lazarus yet lived, this mysterious Being, in an earthly form and in pilgrim garb, came time after time discoursing to them often, as we are warranted to believe, on the dignity of His nature, the glories of His person, the completeness of His work. It was neither the evidence of miracle or prophecy which had revealed to that weeping disciple that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God. With the exception of Micah's statement regarding Bethlehem-Ephratah as His birthplace, we question if any other remarkable prediction concerning Him had yet been fulfilled; and so far as miracles were concerned, though she may and must have doubtless known of them by hearsay, we have no evidence that she had as yet so much as witnessed _one_. We never read till this time of their quiet village being the scene of any manifestations of His power. These had generally taken place either in Jerusalem or in the cities and coasts of Galilee. The probability, therefore, is that Martha, had never yet seen that arm of Omnipotence bared, or witnessed those prodigies with which elsewhere He authenticated His claims to Divinity.

_Whence then her creed?_ May we not believe she had made her noble avowal mainly from the study of that beauteous, spotless character--from those looks, and words, and deeds--from that lofty teaching--so unlike every human system--so wondrously adapted to the wants and woes, the sins, the sorrows, and aching necessities of the human heart. All this had left on her own spirit, and on that of Lazarus and Mary, the irresistible impression and evidence that he was indeed the Lord of Glory--"the Hope of Israel, and the Saviour thereof."

And is it not the same evidence we exult in still? Is this not the _reason_ of many a humble believer's creed and faith--who may be all unlettered and unlearned in the evidences of the schools--the external and internal bulwarks of our impregnable Christianity? Ask them why they believe? why their faith is so firm--their love so strong?

They will tell you that that Saviour, in all the glories of His person, in all the completeness of His work, in all the beauties of His character, is the very Saviour they need!--that His Gospel is the very errand of mercy suited to their souls' necessities;--that His words of compassion, and tenderness, and hope, are in every way adapted to meet the yearnings of their longing spirits. They need to stand by the grave of no Lazarus to be certified as to His Messiahship. His looks and tones--His character and doctrine,--His cures and remedies for the wants and woes of their ruined natures, point Him out as the true Heavenly Physician.

They can tell of the best of all evidences, and the strongest of all--the _experimental_ evidence! They are no theorists. Religion is no subject with them of barren speculation; it is a matter of inner and heartfelt experience. They have tried the cure--they have found it answer;--they have fled to the Physician--they have applied His balm--they have been healed and live! And you might as well try to convince the restored blind that the sunlight which has again burst on them is a wild dream of fancy, or the restored deaf that the world's joyous melodies which have again awoke on them are the mockeries of their own brain, as convince the spiritually enlightened and awakened that He who has proved to them light and life, and joy and peace--their comfort in prosperity--their refuge in adversity--is other than the _Son of God and Saviour of the world_!

Reader, is this your experience? Have you tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious? Have you felt the preciousness of His gospel, the adaptation of His work to the necessities of your ruined condition?--the power of His grace, the prevalence of His intercession, the fulness and glory and truthfulness of His promises? Are you exulting in Him as the Resurrection and Life, who has raised you from the death of sin, and will at last raise you from the power of death, and invest you with that eternal life which His love has purchased?

Precious as is this hope and confidence at all times, specially so is it, mourners in Zion! in your seasons of sorrow. When human refuges fail, and human friendships wither, and human props give way, how sustaining to have this "anchor of the soul sure and steadfast"--union with a living Lord on earth, and the joyful hope of endless and uninterrupted union and communion with Him in glory! Are you even now enjoying, through your tears, this blessed persuasion, and exulting in this blessed creed? Do you know the secret of that twofold solace, "the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings?"--the "fellowship of His sufferings" telling of His sympathy with your sorrows below;--the "power of His resurrection" assuring you of the glorious gift of everlasting life in a world where sorrow dare not enter. Rest not satisfied with a mere outward creed and confession that "Jesus is the Saviour." Let yours be the nobler _formula_ of an appropriating faith--"He is my Saviour; He loved ME, and gave Himself for ME." Let it not be with you a salvation _possible_, but a salvation _found_; so that, with a tried apostle, you can rise above the surges of deepening tribulation as you glory in the conviction, "I _know_ in whom I _have_ believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him."