God's Bereavement

“This my son was dead.” — Luke xv. 24.

The prodigal son had not been dead physically. We draw up our list of obituaries on a totally different principle from that on which they are drawn up in heaven. We record the death of the man; God records the death of the ideal. There are funeral obsequies which make the angels very sad; but these are generally attended only by the angels. We never call a man dead till the life has left his body; God calls him dead when the life has left his soul. There is such a thing as a Divine bereavement. We shall never understand its sadness until we know what it is to lose an ideal. There is no pain more excruciating than the sense of an ideal lost. We speak of the separations through physical death; and they are sad enough. But have you ever thought that there may be a more effectual separation than either physical death or physical locomotion can bring! When you go away from me either to earthly lands or to the silent land, I still keep your picture in my heart. But what it your picture is taken out of my heart! What if it is yoMX picture and not yourself, that is to be buried! What if the beautiful painting of you, which I kept in my soul and for whose sake I loved you, has become ghastly and grim — so ghastly and grim that I have to bury it out of my sight! Will any sense ot separation equal that! It will be all the sadder because it will be unshared. Nobody will attend the funeral but me. There will be no record in the newspapers. There will be no mourning put on by others. There wdll be no condolence cards of kind sympathy. There will be no appreciation of why I do not still laugh and dance and play. I shall have to bear the funeral obsequies alone.

Thou Christ of Love, may I never cause Thee this pain! Twice do I read of Thy tears. They were both weepings in bereavement — but in different kinds of bereavement. The one was for the physically dead — Lazarus; the other was for the death of an ideal — Jerusalem. But I think the latter weeping was the sorer. The dead Lazarus brought Thy tears but not Thy words; the dead Jerusalem gave language to Thy cry At that funeral of Jerusalem Thou alone wert present; none but Thyself saw that she was dead. They were all speaking of her glitter and her glory when Thou wert weeping over her grave. It was her ideal that was dead — her picture in Thy heart. I often ask Thee to comfort my hours of bereavement; do I ever try to comfort Thine! I often cry for the raising of my dead; do I ever seek to raise Thine! Help me to try, O Lord! I should like to give Thee back one prodigal child. I should like to restore 07te buried picture. I should like to revive one dead ideal. I should like to plant again in Thy heart one flower of former hope. There will be music and dancing in the Father’s house when man shall give Thee back Thy dead.