After Address to a Mourning Communicant
“Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; and looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith, Behold the Lanib of God! Aid the two disciples heard him speak, and they folloioed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto Him, Rahhi {which is to say, teing interpreted. Master’), where dwellest thu? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day: for it was about the tenth ho2tr” (S. John i. 35-39). We had our meditations directed, to-day, to this beautiful incident in the early Gospel narrative: — the two fishermen friends and companions from Bethsaida of Galilee — having pointed out to them, by the Baptist, a Greater far than he: — “Behold the Lamb of God!” They are at once attracted, in some mysterious way, by Him who had just returned to the banks of the Jordan from the temptation of the wilderness, where, for forty days, He had been without home or shelter. They hesitate to intrude: not venturing to address Him or to disturb His meditations; — still they follow His footsteps, in the direction of His temporary dwelling; — a dwelling probably, like that of the other pilgrims who had gathered around the Desert Preacher: — some leafy tent close to the river side or under the shadow of a rock, made of interlacing boughs from the adjoining woods. “Ptabbi, where dwellest thou?” was their simple request, full of humble yet confident faith and trust. His response was immediate, a word of kind welcome; — “Gome and see.” His voice. His look. His demeanour reassure them. It was the truth of a future saying anticipated and illustrated, “Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.” That long afternoon and evening were spent in loving fellowship with that Gracious Master, whose devoted consecrated servants they were ever after to be: enjoying an immediate three years of blissful personal communion, and wdien that was terminated and His visible presence withdrawn, believing, they still rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
What the themes of meditation were, during these thrice hallowed hours, we cannot tell. May not their thoughts naturally have grouped themselves around the Baptist’s suggestive exclamation — “Behold the Lamb of God “? John was undoubtedly one of these two disciples. And we know that these words lingered in his ears like a strain of heavenly music, and filled his most seraphic visions fifty years afterwards, when he wrote the Apocalypse. How the divine emblem seemed ahnost to absorb his recollections! Thirty times is Jesus there spoken of as a lamb. Retaining that first never-to-be-forgotten ‘glimpse of his divine Redeemer, the writer seems to have lived, and suffered, and died, beholding “the Lamb of God!” How long, moreover, this interview in the valley at Bethabara lasted, we are not informed. Probably it was far on towards midnight ere they departed. The bright stars and paschal moon may have been shining on the white cliff’s and foaming waters when the two disciples came forth, at the close of the most momentous day of their lives. Who can doubt, that they would return to the distant Bethsaida-home with their souls filled with the one wondrous theme and thought — “We have seen the Lord!”
Our experience to-day has been identical with that of these favoured disciples. We have received a gracious invitation to partake of nearer and more confidential communion with our divine Redeemer, “Master, where dwellest thou?” Thou Son of the Eternal God, yet the Divine Brother-man — alike the Taker-away of sin and the Eemover of burdens from laden-hearts: where dwellest Thou? that we may come and unburden our heavy secrets: and, like these two disciples of old, away from the din of the multitude, sit at Thy feet and behold Thee as the Lamb of God? “Come and see” — has been the gracious response. We have obeyed the summons. We have beheld, in impressive emblem and memorial, the Great Propitiation, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” The leafy tent or covert of the Jordan has still its glorious spiritual counterpart and reality. “There shall be a tabernacle (a tent) for a shadow in the day-time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.” “A Man shall be, as an hiding-place from the wind, and as a covert from the tempest, ... as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land!” Afflicted communicant! — Pilgrim of sorrow, — you have resorted to your Lord’s Bethabara-dwelling, at His own gracious summons, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” But while your season of fellowship has doubtless been hallowed and comforting; when you come forth from it now, it is, like these same two disciples, to face the dark night again: the dewy tear-drops on the dank grass: the cold moonshine; — the glimmering stars and the roll of Jordan. Yes, ’ the roll of Jordan,’ with the saddened memories it may be of those who, in the familiar and accepted figure, have recently crossed it; and whose companionship is gone for the for ever of time. You walk along, pensive and sad, to mingle, once more, in the noise of the wilderness tents: back again to-morrow to Bethsaida, to your smitten home — to gaze on the vacant seat: to miss the old voice and the sympathetic ear, into which you could have told how your heart burned within you, while He talked to you by the way, and you sat under His shadow with great delight! Ah, perhaps it was the very smiting of that earthly home which drove you, to-day, to ask, with more intense fervour and more impassioned prayer, as you missed the earthly friend, “Master, where dwellest Thou?” ‘My best earthly prop is gone. Oh, Messiah Jesus, I come to Thee! I come now to Thine own appointed dwelling-place, that I may unfold all my grief, and get these heart-storms lulled with Thine Omnipotent “Peace, be still “! ’
As you now pursue your saddened way, let not the darkness blind your eye to this day’s sight and vision. Let not that roll of Jordan dull your ears to this day’s exclamation, “Behold the Lamb of God!” Suffering one! fix your gaze on that Sufferer of sufferers: — that wounded, bleeding Lamb of God, Think of that wilderness of temptation from which He had just come! See Him, there, assaulted with hunger, thirst, cold, weariness; tempted in body, assailed in spirit; and this by the arch enemy of all. Yet He meekly endures! He is the Lamb “dumb before His shearers!” Say, can you murmur where He murmured not? Seek, rather, to honour Him more and more by a closer following of His divine footsteps. Go forth, even in the dark, with the fretted waters at your side, and star after star of earthly hope expunged from your firmament, meditating on His faithfulness and love, even “in the night-watches!” Rest assured, if, as you journey on, you try to utter through your tears, “though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” — He will, as with the Bethsaida disciples, give you glorious surprises: meeting you, now on the distant lake: now in the busy city: now in “the high mountain apart;” until, from these chequered earthly experiences, He takes you across the true Bethabara (” the house of passage “) to be with Himself in the tearless laud for ever!
AFTER ADDRESS TO A IMOUENING COMMUNICANT.
II.
“Who hioicdh not in all these, that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?” (Job xii. 9).
God has been addressing a twofold voice to-day to those who have gathered at His Holy Table.
To some, He has been speaking in prosperity. New gourds have been given, — new fountains of blessing opened. The dreaded cloud, big with disaster, has passed. The pecuniary loss has been redeemed or compensated. The shaft of death has been turned aside: the dear one hovering on the confines of the dark valley has been restored. The chair in the family circle has not been emptied. You have been spared the awful word which falls on the heart like the crash of a descending avalanche.
To others — to you- — He has been speaking by adversity; by crushed hopes and blighted joys, — early and unlooked-for graves.
Afflicted one! if your sorrows are great, have you not had to-day vividly brought before you, in touching symbol, the memorial of sufferings, in comparison with which, your deepest and intensest are light indeed. In the contemplation of these, you have not only the revelation of the Heart of a loving, sympathising Saviour, but the pledge and assurance that the God who gave His Son would not, and could not, visit you with one needless pang, or put one redundant thorn into your chaplet of woe. Be assured, it is for the spiritual good of His children that He sees meet, ever and anon, to put a scar, so to speak, on His people’s most treasured earthly joys. It is said in a striking passage of Isaiah — “-Tlie day of the Lord of Hosts shall be upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures” (Isaiah ii. 12, 16). Yes, on these “pleasant pictures” He deems it meet, at times, to stretch forth His hand, and sweep the pourtrayed vision of gladness away: — He may have seen it was eclipsing and dimming His own likeness on the soul. You may remember the great Artist who painted the lofty ceiling of the Roman Basilica. High up on the giddy platform, his eye is on some ’ pleasant picture,’ on which he is just putting his finishing touches. Absorbed in the triumph of his genius, he has left his position, in order to obtain a broad, general view of the gigantic work. But he has forgotten his danger. He is stepping back, and yet farther back, to the edge of the scaffolding. A few inches more, and he will go reeling down to the marble pavement, a hundred feet beneath. What can srve him? It is a moment of thrilling suspense. Life is trembling in the balance: verily there is but a step between him and death. One who was assisting sees, at a glance, the imminent peril. With the speed of lightning, his determination is formed. On he dashes towards the work of the
Master, and, with apparently presumptuous hand, plants a deep scar on the moist fresco. The Artist rushes forward to avert the blow. It was enough: — all the other wanted: — It destroyed the painting, but it saved the more valued life. How often is this God’s method of dealing! He sees us on the world’s giddy eminences; — going back, back, back, to certain ruin. He hastens to the rescue. He places a seemingly remorseless, destructive hand on our most cherished objects of pursuit; — blurs and scars life’s loveliest visions. He breaks our hearts, that He may save our souls! “The day of the Lord of Hosts is on all pleasant pictures!”
Seek to honour Him by unmurmuring submission to His holy will. Let your chastisements, for the present not joyous but grievous, lead you to live nearer Heaven and nearer Him. So that, if, at some subsequent Communion season, you too should have your place vacant at the Sacred Feast, your name may, like that of some one mourned to-day, be missed by your fellows, and never mentioned but with the sigh and the tear.
Ah, if this be a day on which we are compelled to take count of blanks in the flock; — sheep, that were wont to pasture with us, no longer to be found in the earthly fold; it is surely the most elevating of Communion thoughts’ — (the word ‘Communion’ has no more hallowed interpretation) — to behold them, with the eye of faith, up in yonder realms of bliss, fed by the living fountains of waters in the presence and love of the Heavenly Shepherd; — their voices falling in soft music on our ear, and charming us to follow after!
AFTER ADDRESS TO A MOURNING COMMUNICANT.
IIT.
“For we have not an High Priest which cannot he touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Hebrews iv. 15).
Afflicted one, — We cherish the hope that you have been able to-day to have your own sorrows soothed by close and endearing fellowship with the Man of Sorrows. We trust that Jesus, the Prince of Sufferers, has met you at His own Table, and solaced you, alike with the assurance of His exalted sympathy and with hopes that are full of immortality. Yes, even though the very sacredness of the Table of Communion — the sacredness of its associations with the ’ loved and lost,’ may have made, for the time, your sadness deeper, and the blank more real; — yet, like the two disconsolate Marys, hurrying from the spot dearest to them on earth, have you not been met by your Lord in the way? Has not Jesus, Prince too of Consolers, — peerless Comforter — been found standing, as in their case, on the very path of your trouble, ready to dry your tears and hush your sadness with the old joyous salutation — “Be not afraid “? He, the thorn-crowned King, whom you have seen through expressive symbol evidently set forth crucified, has been soothing your sorrows by pointing you to His own. His own! What a cup of suffering was that! filled to the brim! anguish which had its exponent in “the great drops of blood” and the Eloi cry! There are generally some mitigations in the case of the severest earthly afflictions, — some drops of comfort minghng in the bitter draught. In His case there were none. “All Thy waves and billows have gone over me.” In that solitary, unsolaced hour, He could plaintively echo the prophetic utterance, “I have trodden the wine-press alo7ie!”
But, blessed lesson to gather under the shadows of Gethsemane’s Garden and Calvary’s Cross: — “In that He Himself hath suffered, being tempted. He is able to succour them that are tempted!” Blessed lesson, moreover, to have learnt at that Holy Table, that, under life’s darkest experiences, there is a Brighter than the brightest material Sun to dispel the gloom; ay, and that after earth’s longest and dreariest night-watches, there is a “breaking in the Eastern Sky;” a joyful morning at hand, whose Sun shall no more go down, neither shall the moon withdraw itself, but where the Lord your God shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended.
Leave, then, the Communion Table behind you, with the vision of the Crown rising above the Cross: taking up this as your ‘Song in the night ’ — “Tor our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. iv. 17).
“Fainting and footsore toil we in the way;
No manna glistens in the desert sod;
Yet here, to earnest souls that kneel and pray
Is given — the Bread of God.
Resting beneath His Shadow cool and sweet
We gain fresh strength for conflict with our foes;
Here the lone desert, with its sultry heat,
Doth blossom as the rose.
And though these earthly shadows, dark and dim, Veil from our sight His blessed presence now;
Yet faith, exulting, lifts her eyes to Him,
And sees the thorn-crown’d Brow!
Waves from the ocean of His mighty love
Break in rejoicing on the expectant shore,
Whisp’ring sweet voices of the Land above.
Where storms shall be no more.”
R. H. BAYNt;s.