Miracles of Our Lord Part 6

Their ideal does not approach the ideal of Christianity for _this_ life even.

Before I can tell whether their words are a true representation of themselves, in relation to this future, I must know both their conscious and unconscious being. No wonder I should be loath to judge them.

No poet of high rank, as far as I know, ever disbelieved in the future.

He might fear that there was none; but that very fear is faith. The greatest poet of the present day believes with ardour. That it is not proven to the intellect, I heartily admit. But if it were true, it were such as the intellect could not grasp, for the understanding must be the offspring of the life--in itself essential. How should the intellect understand its own origin and nature? It is too poor to grasp this question; for the continuity of existence depends on the nature of existence, not upon external relations. If after death we should be conscious that we yet live, we shall even then, I think, be no more able to prove a further continuance of life, than we can now prove our present being. It may be easier to believe--that will be all. But we constantly act upon grounds which we cannot prove, and if we cannot feel so sure of life beyond the grave as of common every-day things, at least the want of proof ought neither to destroy our hope concerning it, nor prevent the action demanded by its bare possibility.

But last, I do say this, that those men, who, disbelieving in a future state, do yet live up to the conscience within them, however much lower the requirements of that conscience may be than those of a conscience which believes itself enlightened from "the Lord, who is that spirit,"

shall enter the other life in an immeasurably more enviable relation thereto than those who say _Lord, Lord_, and do not the things he says to them.

It may seem strange that our Lord says so little about the life to come--as we call it--though in truth it is one life with the present--as the leaf and the blossom are one life. Even in argument with the Sadducees he supports his side upon words accepted by them, and upon the nature of G.o.d, but says nothing of the question from a human point of regard. He seems always to have taken it for granted, ever turning the minds of his scholars towards that which was deeper and lay at its root--the life itself--the oneness with G.o.d and his will, upon which the continuance of our conscious being follows of a necessity, and without which if the latter were possible, it would be for human beings an utter evil.

When he speaks of the world beyond, it is as _his Father's house_. He says there are many mansions there. He attempts in no way to explain.

Man's own imagination enlightened of the spirit of truth, and working with his experience and affections, was a far safer guide than his intellect with the best schooling which even our Lord could have given it. The memory of the poorest home of a fisherman on the sh.o.r.e of the Galilean lake, where he as a child had spent his years of divine carelessness in his father's house, would, at the words of our Lord _my Father's house_, convey to Peter or James or John more truth concerning the many mansions than a revelation to their intellect, had it been possible, as clear as the Apocalypse itself is obscure.

When he said "I have overcome the _world_" he had overcome the cause of all doubt, the belief in the outside appearances and not in the living truth: he left it to his followers to say, from their own experience knowing the thing, not merely from the belief of his resurrection, "He has conquered death and the grave. O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?" It is the inward life of truth that conquers the outward death of appearance; and nothing else, no revelation from without, could conquer it.

These miracles of our Lord are the nearest we come to news of any kind concerning--I cannot say _from_--the other world. I except of course our Lord's own resurrection. Of that I shall yet speak as a miracle, for miracle it was, as certainly as any of our Lord's, whatever interpretation be put upon the word. And I say _the nearest to news we come_, because not one of those raised from the dead gives _us_ at least an atom of information. Is it possible they may have told their friends something which has filtered down to us in any shape?

I turn to the cases on record. They are only three. The day after he cured the servant of the centurion at Capernaum, Jesus went to Nain, and as they approached the gate--but I cannot part the story from the lovely words in which it is told by St Luke: "There was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compa.s.sion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And he came and touched the bier; and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother."

In each of the cases there is an especial fitness in the miracle. This youth was the only son of a widow; the daughter of Jairus was his "one only daughter;" Lazarus was the brother of two orphan sisters.

I will not attempt by any lingering over the simple details to render the record more impressive. That lingering ought to be on the part of the reader of the narrative itself. Friends crowded around a loss--the centre of the gathering that which _was not_--the sole presence the hopeless sign of a vanished treasure--an open gulf, as it were, down which love and tears and sad memories went plunging in a soundless cataract: the weeping mother--the dead man borne in the midst. They were going to the house of death, but Life was between them and it--was walking to meet them, although they knew it not. A face of tender pity looks down on the mother. She heeds him not. He goes up to the bier, and lays his hand on it. The bearers recognize authority, and stand. A word, and the dead sits up. A moment more, and he is in the arms of his mother. O mother! mother! wast thou more favoured than other mothers? Or was it that, for the sake of all mothers as well as thyself, thou wast made the type of the universal mother with the dead son--the raising of him but a foretaste of the one universal bliss of mothers with dead sons? That thou wert an exception would have ill met thy need, for thy motherhood could not be justified in thyself alone. It could not have its rights save on grounds universal. Thy motherhood was common to all thy sisters. To have helped thee by exceptional favour would not have been to acknowledge thy motherhood. That must go mourning still, even with thy restored son in its bosom, for its claims are universal or they _are_ not. Thou wast indeed a chosen one, but that thou mightest show to all the last fate of the mourning mother; for in G.o.d's dealings there are no exceptions. His laws are universal as he is infinite. Jesus wrought no new thing--only the works of the Father. What matters it that the dead come not back to us, if we go to them? _What matters it?_ said I! It is tenfold better. Dear as home is, he who loves it best must know that what he calls home is not home, is but a shadow of home, is but the open porch of home, where all the winds of the world rave by turns, and the glowing fire of the true home casts lovely gleams from within.

Certainly this mother did not thus lose her son again. Doubtless next she died first, knowing then at last that she had only to wait. The dead must have their sorrow too, but when they find it is well with them, they can sit and wait by the mouth of the coming stream better than those can wait who see the going stream bear their loves down to the ocean of the unknown. The dead sit by the river-mouths of Time: the living mourn upon its higher banks.

But for the joy of the mother, we cannot conceive it. No mother even who has lost her son, and hopes one blessed eternal day to find him again, can conceive her gladness. Had it been all a dream? A dream surely in this sense, that the final, which alone, in the full sense, is G.o.d's will, must ever cast the look of a dream over all that has gone before.

When we last awake, we shall know that we dreamed. Even every honest judgment, feeling, hope, desire, will show itself a dream--with this difference from some dreams, that the waking is the more lovely, that nothing is lost, but everything gained, in the full blaze of restored completeness. How triumphant would this mother die, when her turn came!

And how calmly would the restored son go about the duties of the world. [Footnote:11 Those who can take the trouble, and are capable of understanding it, will do well to study Robert Browning's "Epistle of an Arab Physician."]

He sat up and began to speak.

It is vain to look into that which G.o.d has hidden; for surely it is by no chance that we are left thus in the dark. "He began to speak." Why does not the Evangelist go on to give us some hint of what he said?

Would not the hearts of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, wives, children, husbands--who shall say where the divine madness of love will cease?--grandfathers, grandmothers--themselves with flickering flame--yes, grandchildren, weeping over the loss of the beloved gray head and tremulously gentle voice--would not all these have blessed G.o.d for St Luke's record of what the son of the widow said? For my part, I thank G.o.d he was silent.

When I think of the pictures of heaven drawn from the attempt of prophecy to utter its visions in the poor forms of the glory of earth, I see it better that we should walk by faith, and not by a fancied sight.

I judge that the region beyond is so different from ours, so comprising in one surpa.s.sing excellence all the goods of ours, that any attempt of the had-been-dead to describe it, would have resulted in the most wretched of misconceptions. Such might please the lower conditions of Christian development--but so much the worse, for they could not fail to obstruct its further growth. It is well that St Luke is silent; or that the mother and the friends who stood by the bier, heard the words of the returning spirit only as the babble of a child from which they could draw no definite meaning, and to which they could respond only by caresses.

The story of the daughter of Jairus is recorded briefly by St Matthew, more fully by St Luke, most fully by St Mark. One of the rulers of the synagogue at Capernaum falls at the feet of our Lord, saying his little daughter is at the point of death. She was about twelve years of age. He begs the Lord to lay his hands on her that she may live. Our Lord goes with him, followed by many people. On his way to restore the child he is arrested by a touch. He makes no haste to outstrip death. We can imagine the impatience of the father when the Lord stood and asked who touched him. What did that matter? his daughter was dying; Death would not wait.

But the woman's heart and soul must not be pa.s.sed by. The father with the only daughter must wait yet a little. The will of G.o.d cannot be outstripped.

"While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further?" "Ah! I thought so! There it is! Death has won the race!"

we may suppose the father to say--bitterly within himself. But Jesus, while he tried the faith of men, never tried it without feeding its strength. With the trial he always gives the way of escape. "As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken"--not leaving it to work its agony of despair first--"he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid; only believe." They are such simple words--commonplace in the ears of those who have heard them often and heeded them little! but containing more for this man's peace than all the consolations of philosophy, than all the enforcements of morality; yea, even than the raising of his daughter itself. To arouse the higher, the hopeful, the trusting nature of a man; to cause him to look up into the unknown region of mysterious possibilities--the G.o.d so poorly known--is to do infinitely more for a man than to remove the pressure of the direst evil without it. I will go further: To arouse the hope that there may be a G.o.d with a heart like our own is more for the humanity in us than to produce the absolute conviction that there is a being who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and the fountains of waters. Jesus is the express image of G.o.d's substance, and in him we know the heart of G.o.d. To nourish faith in himself was the best thing he could do for the man.

We hear of no word from the ruler further. If he answered not our Lord in words, it is no wonder. The compressed lip and the uplifted eye would say more than any words to the heart of the Saviour.

Now it would appear that he stopped the crowd and would let them go no farther. They could not all see, and he did not wish them to see. It was not good for men to see too many miracles. They would feast their eyes, and then cease to wonder or think. The miracle, which would be all, and quite dissociated from religion, with many of them, would cease to be wonderful, would become a common thing with most. Yea, some would cease to believe that it had been. They would say she did sleep after all--she was not dead. A wonder is a poor thing for faith after all; and the miracle could be only a wonder in the eyes of those who had not prayed for it, and could not give thanks for it; who did not feel that in it they were partakers of the love of G.o.d.

Jesus must have hated anything like display. G.o.d's greatest work has never been done in crowds, but in closets; and when it works out from thence, it is not upon crowds, but upon individuals. A crowd is not a divine thing. It is not a body. Its atoms are not members one of another. A crowd is a chaos over which the Spirit of G.o.d has yet to move, ere each retires to his place to begin his harmonious work, and unite with all the rest in the organized chorus of the human creation.

The crowd must be dispersed that the church may be formed.

The relation of the crowd to the miracle is rightly reflected in what came to the friends of the house. To them, weeping and wailing greatly, after the Eastern fashion, he said when he entered, "Why make ye this ado, and weep? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." They laughed him to scorn. He put them all out.

But what did our Lord mean by those words--"The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth"? Not certainly that, as we regard the difference between death and sleep, his words were to be taken literally; not that she was only in a state of coma or lethargy; not even that it was a case of suspended animation as in catalepsy; for the whole narrative evidently intends us to believe that she was dead after the fashion we call death. That this was not to be dead after the fashion our Lord called death, is a blessed and lovely fact.

Neither can it mean, that she was not dead as others, in that he was going to wake her so soon; for they did not know that, and therefore it could give no ground for the expostulation, "Why make ye this ado, and weep?"

Nor yet could it come only from the fact that to his eyes death and sleep were so alike, the one needing the power of G.o.d for awaking just as much as the other. True they must be more alike in his eyes than even in the eyes of the many poets who have written of "Death and his brother Sleep;" but he sees the differences none the less clearly, and how they look to us, and his knowledge could be no reason for reproaching our ignorance. The explanation seems to me large and simple. These people professed to believe in the resurrection of the dead, and did believe after some feeble fashion. They were not Sadducees, for they were the friends of a ruler of the synagogue. Our Lord did not bring the news of resurrection to the world: that had been believed, in varying degrees, by all peoples and nations from the first: the resurrection he taught was a far deeper thing--the resurrection from dead works to serve the living and true G.o.d. But as with the greater number even of Christians, although it was part of their creed, and had some influence upon their moral and spiritual condition, their practical faith in the resurrection of the body was a poor affair. In the moment of loss and grief, they thought little about it. They lived then in the present almost alone; they were not saved by hope. The reproach therefore of our Lord was simply that they did not take from their own creed the consolation they ought. If the child was to be one day restored to them, then she was not dead as their tears and lamentations would imply. Any one of themselves who believed in G.o.d and the prophets, might have stood up and said--"Mourners, why make such ado? The maid is not dead, but sleepeth.

You shall again clasp her to your bosom. Hope, and fear not--only believe." It was in this sense, I think, that our Lord spoke.

But it may not at first appear how much grander the miracle itself appears in the light of this simple interpretation of the Master's words. The sequel stands in the same relation to the words as if--turning into the death-chamber, and bringing the maid out by the hand--he had said to them: "See--I told you she was not dead but sleeping." The words apply to all death, just as much as to that in which this girl lay. The Lord brings his a.s.surance, his knowledge of what we do not know, to feed our feeble faith. It is as if he told us that our notion of death is all wrong, that there is no such thing as we think it; that we should be nearer the truth if we denied it altogether, and gave to what we now call death the name of sleep, for it is but a pa.s.sing appearance, and no right cause of such misery as we manifest in its presence. I think it was from this word of our Lord, and from the same utterance in the case of Lazarus, that St Paul so often uses the word sleep for die and for death. Indeed the notion of death, as we feel it, seems to have vanished entirely from St Paul's mind--he speaks of things so in a continuity, not even referring to the change--not even saying before death or after death, as if death made no atom of difference in the progress of holy events, the divine history of the individual and of the race together. In a word, when he raised the dead, the Son did neither more nor less nor other than the work of the Father--what he is always doing; he only made it manifest a little sooner to the eyes and hearts of men.

But they to whom he spoke laughed him to scorn. They knew she was dead, and their unfaithfulness blinded their hearts to what he meant. They were unfit to behold the proof of what he had said. Such as they, in such mood, could gather from it no benefit. A faithful heart alone is capable of understanding the proof of the truest things. It is faith towards G.o.d which alone can lay hold of any of his facts. There is a foregoing fitness. Therefore he put them all out. But the father and mother, whose love and sorrow made them more easily persuaded of mighty things, more accessible to holy influences, and the three disciples, whose faith rendered them fit to behold otherwise dangerous wonders, he took with him into the chamber where the damsel lay--dead toward men--sleeping toward G.o.d. Dead as she was, she only slept.

"Damsel, I say unto thee, arise." "And her spirit came again," "and straightway the damsel arose and walked," "and he commanded to give her meat." For in the joy of her restoration, they might forget that the more complete the health of a worn and exhausted body, the more needful was food--food which, in all its commonness, might well support the miracle; for not only did it follow by the next word to that which had wrought the miracle, but it worked in perfect harmony with the law which took shape in this resurrection, and in its relations to the human being involved no whit less marvel than lay in the miracle itself. The raising of the dead and the feeding of the living are both and equally divine--therefore in utter harmony. And we do not any more understand the power in the body which takes to itself that food, than we understand the power going out from Jesus to make this girl's body capable of again employing its ministrations. They are both of one and must be perfect in harmony, the one as much the outcome of law as the other.

He charges the parents to be silent, it may be for his sake, who did not want to be made a mere wonder of, but more probably for their sakes, that the holy thing might not evaporate in speech, or be defiled with foolish talk and the glorification of self-importance in those for whom a mighty wonder had been done; but that in silence the seed might take root in their hearts and bring forth living fruit in humility, and uprightness, and faith.

And now for the wonderful story of Lazarus. In this miracle one might think the desire of Jesus for his friend's presence through his own coming trouble, might have had a share, were it not that we never find him working a miracle for himself. He knew the perfect will of the Father, and left all to him. Those who cannot know that will and do not care for it, have to fall into trouble that they may know G.o.d as the Saviour from their own doings--as the fountain of all their well-being.

This Jesus had not to learn, and therefore could need no miracle wrought for him. Even his resurrection was all for others. That miracle was wrought in, not for him.

He knew Lazarus was dying. He abode where he was and let him die. For a hard and therefore precious lesson for sisters and friends lay in that death, and the more the love the more precious the lesson--the same that lies in every death; and the end the same for all who love--resurrection. The raising of Lazarus is the type of the raising of all the dead. Of Lazarus, as of the daughter of Jairus, he said "he sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep." He slept as every dead man sleeps.

Read the story. Try to think not only what the disciples felt, but what Jesus was thinking; how he, who saw the other side, regarded the death he was about to destroy.

"Lord, if thou hadst been here," said Martha, "my brother had not died."

Did she mean to hint what she had not faith enough to ask?

"Thy brother shall rise again," said the Lord.

But her faith was so weak that she took little comfort from the a.s.surance. Alas! she knew what it meant. She knew all about it. He spoke of the general far-off resurrection, which to her was a very little thing. It was true he should rise again; but what was that to the present consuming grief? A thousand years might be to G.o.d as one day, but to Martha the one day was a thousand years. It is only to him who entirely believes in G.o.d that the thousand years become one day also.

For he that believes shares in the vision of him in whom he believes. It is through such faith that Jesus would help her--far beyond the present awful need. He seeks to raise her confidence in himself by the strongest a.s.sertions of the might that was in him. "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live!"

The death of not believing in G.o.d--the G.o.d revealed in Jesus--is the only death. The other is nowhere but in the fears and fancies of unbelief. "And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

There is for him nothing to be called death; nothing that is what death looks to us.

"Believest thou this?"

Martha was an honest woman. She did not fully understand what he meant.

She could not, therefore, do more than a.s.sent to it. But she believed in him, and that much she could tell him plainly.

"Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of G.o.d, which should come into the world."

And that hope with the confession arose in her heart, she gave the loveliest sign: she went and called her sister. But even in the profounder Mary faith reached only to the words of her sister:

"Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died."