Memories of Bethany Part 2

The philanthropic and benevolent have an arrest put on their manifold deeds of kindness and generosity; the grasping, the avaricious, the mean-souled--those who neither fear G.o.d nor do good to man, are suffered to live on from day to day! What is it but the picture here presented eighteen hundred years ago--_Judas_ spared to be a _traitor to his Lord_, while--_Lazarus is dead_!

But let us be still! The Saviour, indeed, does not now lead us forth, amid the scene of our trial, as He did the bereft sisters, to unravel the mysteries of His providence, and to shew glory to G.o.d, redounding from the darkest of His dispensations. To _us_ the grand sequel is reserved for eternity. The grand development of the divine plan will not be fully accomplished till _then_; faith must meanwhile rest satisfied with what is baffling to sight and sense. This whole narrative is designed to teach the lesson that there is an undeveloped future in all G.o.d's dealings. There is an unseen "why and wherefore" which cannot be answered here. Our befitting att.i.tude and language _now_ is that of simple confidingness--"Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"--Listening to one of these Bethany sayings (we shall by and by consider), whose meaning will be interpreted in a brighter world by Him who uttered it in the days of His flesh--"Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest _believe_ thou shouldest _see_ the glory of G.o.d?"

"O thou who mournest on thy way, With longings for the close of day, He walks with thee, that Angel kind, And gently whispers--'Be resign'd; Bear up--bear on--the end shall tell, The dear Lord ordereth all things well.'"

Our duty, meanwhile, is that of children, simply to trust the faithfulness of a G.o.d whose footsteps of love we often fail to trace.

All will be seen at last to have been not only _for_ the best, but really _the best_. Dark clouds will be fringed with mercy. What we call now "baffling dispensations," will be seen to be wondrous parts of a great connected whole,--the wheel within wheel of that complex machinery, by which "all things" (yes, ALL things) are now working together for good.

"Lazarus is dead!" The choicest tree in the earthly Eden has succ.u.mbed to the blast. The choicest cup has been dashed to the ground. Some great lights in the moral firmament have been extinguished. But G.o.d can do without human agency. His Church can be preserved, though no Moses be spared to conduct Israel over Jordan, and no Lazarus to tell the story of his Saviour's grace and love, when other disciples have forsaken Him and fled.

We may be calling, in our blind unbelief, as we point to some ruined fabric of earthly bliss--some tomb which has become the grave of our fondest affections and dearest hopes--"Shall the dust praise thee, shall _it_ declare thy truth?" _Believe! believe!_ G.o.d will not give us back our dead as He did to the Bethany sisters; but He will not deprive us of aught we have, or suffer one garnered treasure to be removed, except for His own glory and our good. _Now_ it is our province to _believe_ it--in _Heaven_ we shall _see_ it. Before the sapphire throne we shall _see_ that not one redundant thorn has been suffered to pierce our feet, or one needless sorrow to visit our dwelling, or tear to dim our eye. Then our acknowledgment will be, "We have _known_ and _believed_ the love which G.o.d hath to us."

"Oh, weep not though the beautiful decay, Thy heart must have its autumn--its pale skies Leading mayhap to winter's cold dismay.

Yet doubt not. Beauty doth not pa.s.s away; His form departs not, though his body dies.

Secure beneath the earth the snowdrop lies, Waiting the spring's young resurrection-day."[9]

Be it ours to have Jesus _with_ us, and Jesus _for_ us, in all our afflictions. If we wish to insure these mighty solaces, we must not suffer the hour of sorrow and bereavement to overtake us with a Saviour till _then_ a stranger and unknown. St Luke tells us the secret of Mary's faith and composure at her loved one's grave:--_She had, long before her day of trial, learned to sit at her Redeemer's feet. It was when in health Jesus was first resorted to and loved_.

In prosperity may our homes and hearts be gladdened with His footstep; and when prosperity is withdrawn, and is succeeded by the dark and cloudy day, may we know, like Martha and Mary, where to rush in our seasons of bitter sorrow; listening from His glorified lips on the throne to those same exalted themes of consolation which, for eighteen hundred years, have to myriad, myriad mourners been like oil thrown on the troubled sea. Jesus is with us! The Master is come! His presence will extract sorrow from the bitterest cup, and make, as He did at Bethany, a very home of bereavement and a burial scene to be "hallowed ground!"

IV.

THE MESSENGER.

Is the absent Saviour not to be sought? Martha and Mary knew the direction He had taken. The last time He had visited their home was at the Feast of Dedication, during the season of winter, when the palm-trees were bared of their leaves, and the voice of the turtle was silent. Jesus, on that occasion, had to escape the vengeance of the Jews in Jerusalem by a temporary retirement to the place where John first baptized, near Enon, on the wooded banks of the Jordan. It must have been to Him a spot and season of calm and grateful repose; a pleasing transition from the rude hatred and heartless formalism which met Him in the degenerate "City of Solemnities." The savour of the Baptist's name and spirit seemed to linger around this sequestered region. John had evidently prepared, by his faithful ministry, the way for a mightier Preacher, for we read, as the result of the Saviour's present sojourn, that "many believed on him there."

If we visit with hallowed emotion the places where first we learned to love the Lord, to two at least of those who accompanied the Redeemer, the region He now traversed must have been full of fragrant memories; _there_ it was that Jesus had been first pointed out to them as the "Lamb of G.o.d;" _there_ they first "beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and of truth." (John i. 28.)

On His way thither, on the present occasion, He most probably pa.s.sed through Bethany, and apprised His friends of His temporary absence.

Lazarus was then in his wonted vigour--no shadow of death had yet pa.s.sed over his brow; he doubtless parted with the Lord he loved happy at the thought of ere long meeting again.

But soon all is changed. The hand of sickness unexpectedly lays him low.

At first there is no cause for anxiety. But soon the herald-symptoms of danger and death gather fast and thick around his pillow; "his beauty consumes away like a moth." The terrible possibility for the first time flashes across the minds of the sisters, of a desolate home, and of themselves being the desolate survivors of a loved brother. The joyous dream of restoration becomes fainter and fainter. Human remedies are hopeless. There was _One_, and _only_ ONE, in the wide world who could save from impending death. His word, they knew, could alone summon l.u.s.tre to that eye, and bloom to that wan and fading cheek. Fifty long miles intervene between the great Physician and their cottage home. But they cannot hesitate. Some kind and compa.s.sionate neighbour is soon found ready to hasten along the Jericho road with the brief but urgent message, "_Lord! behold he whom thou lovest is sick._" If it only reach in time, they know that no more is needed. They even indulge the expectation that their messenger may be antic.i.p.ated by the Lord Himself appearing. Others might doubt His omniscience, but they knew its reality. They had the blessed conviction, that while they were seated in burning tears by that couch of sickness, there was a sympathising Being far away marking every heart-throb of His suffering friend. Even when the stern human conviction of "no hope" was pressing upon them, "hoping against hope," they must have felt confident that He would not suffer His faithfulness now to fail. He had often proved Himself a Brother and Friend in the hour of _joy_. _Could_ He fail--_can_ He fail to prove Himself now a "Brother born for _adversity_?"

Although, however, thus convinced that the tale of their sorrows was known to Jesus, _a messenger is sent_,--_the means are employed_! They act as though He knew it _not_; as if that omniscient Saviour had been all unconscious of these hours of prolonged and anxious agony!

What a lesson is there here for _us_! G.o.d is acquainted with our every trouble; He knows (far better than we know ourselves) every pang we heave, every tear we weep, every perplexing path we tread; but the knee must be bent, the message must be taken, the prayer must ascend! It is His own appointed method,--His own consecrated medium for obtaining blessings. Jesus _may_ have gone, and probably _would_ have gone to restore His friend, even though no such messenger had reached Him: We dare not limit the grace and dealings of G.o.d: He is often (blessed be His name for it!) "found of them that sought Him not." But He loves such messages as this. He loves the confiding, childlike trust of His own people, who delight in the hour of their extremity to cast their burdens upon Him, and send the winged herald of prayer to the throne of grace on which He sits.

Would that we valued, more than we do, this blessed link of communication between our souls and Heaven! More especially in our seasons of trouble, (when "vain is the help of man,") happy for us to be able implicitly to rest in the ability and willingness of a gracious Redeemer.

Prayer brings the soul near to Jesus, and fetches Jesus near to the soul. He may linger, as He did now at the Jordan, ere the answer be vouchsafed, but it is for some wise reason; and even if the answer given be not in accordance with our pre-conceived wishes or anxious desires, yet how comforting to have put our case and all its perplexities in His hand, saying, "I am oppressed; undertake Thou for me! To Thee I unburden and unbosom my sorrows. I shall be satisfied whether my cup be filled or emptied. Do to me as seemeth good in Thy sight. He whom I love and whom THOU lovest is sick; the Lazarus of my earthly hopes and affections is hovering on the brink of death. That levelling blow, if consummated, will sweep down in a moment all my hopes of earthly happiness and joy. But it is my privilege to confide my trouble to Thee; to know that I have surrendered myself and all that concerns me into the hand of Him who 'considers my soul in adversity.' Yes; and should my schemes be crossed, and my fondest hopes baffled, I will feel, even in apparently _unanswered_ prayers, that the Judge of all the earth has done right!"

"It is said," says Rutherford, speaking of the Saviour's delay in responding to the request of the Syrophenician woman; "It is said He _answered_ not a word, but it is not said He _heard_ not a word. These two differ much. Christ often heareth when He doth not answer. His not answering is an answer, and speaks thus: 'Pray on, go on and cry, for the Lord holdeth His door fast bolted not to keep you out, but that you may knock and knock.'"

"G.o.d 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 att.i.tude is to lie pa.s.sive at His feet--to wait His righteous disposal of us and ours--to make this the burden of our pet.i.tion, "Lord, what wouldst _Thou_ have me to do?" "If it be possible let this cup pa.s.s 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 a.s.sured 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d is like the changing sand--_His_ is like the solid rock. Man's love is like the pa.s.sing 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 a.s.surance! The pure spirits who bend before the throne know no happier. The archangels--the chieftains among princ.i.p.alities 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. G.o.d, the central sun of light, and joy, and glory, keeping by this great motive principle every spiritual planet in its...o...b..t, "for _G.o.d 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 n.o.bler 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 G.o.d it were evening! and in the evening, Would G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 sh.o.r.e--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 sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sing 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.