Christians in Darkness When Christ Is Not Near

“And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them.” — John vi. 17.

Certain fishermen in their boat are crossing the Sea of Galilee, and making for their home on its western shore. The wind suddenly increases into a gale; the waves are rising; the darkness is settling down; the men are in danger, and are accordingly afraid. But all this happens at many times and in many places. Why should these common and homely things find a place in such a solemn book as the Bible? This is indeed a step in the daily life of some poor labourers, but it is the step at which Jesus joins their company. Heaven, bowed down, touches the earth at this spot, and glory glances from the point of contact. If the spot on the road near Damascus where Saul of Tarsus fell were certainly known, a traveller would tread reverently over it. Little things grow great when they become the hinge on which life or death eternal turns. That place cannot be accounted common or mean where Jesus met a sinner to give life from the dead at first, or refreshing to the living afterwards. No monument may fix the spot or record its history; but it is marked in angels’ memories, and celebrated in the songs of saints. The earth’s surface will yet be thickly dotted all over with the birth-places of the King’s sons and daughters. These, blending into one when viewed from heaven, will make this dull globe in its Maker s eyes more glorious than any star that sparkles in the firmament.

Every word, and step, and act of Jesus had a design and a significance. He had meat to eat which others knew not. He was straitened until his work was done. He held to his purpose without wavering, like the sun in his course. In all places, among all persons, at all times, he was wholly bent on finishing his work. His consent at one time and his refusal at another, his sermon here and his silence there, his retirement to a desert place to-day, and his mingling with the miscellaneous throng on the streets of the city to-morrow, were all, and all alike, designed and adapted to carry forward his purpose, and make his redemption complete. In the life of Jesus there was no useless act, no idle hour. Every part was vital; and, as any portion of a living willow, if cut off and planted, will itself become a tree, each step of his history is separately charged with saving grace.

This step of his lowly life was directed by the same wisdom and love which prompted the plan of redemption in the eternal council, and determine the government of the world still. Take this text in connection with its circumstances, and read the testimony which it contains on —

I. Christ’s thoughts about his disciples; and, II. The disciples’ thoughts about Christ.

Although in the enunciation these two subjects are en-

tirely distinct, in the illustration they must, from the nature of the case, be permitted in some measure to intermingle. It is as if we stood between two mirrors and looked alternately on either side, in either surface we would see the objects which belong to both. On the whole, we shall gain in order and distinctness by turning first to the one side and then to the other; but we must not be surprised although the same objects should come twice into view.

I. Christ’s thoughts about his disciples: “It was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them.”

1. He leaves men, whether the world in general or his own people in particular, for a time in fear and danger. The text records an isolated act, but it is an act in the government of the unchanging One. The principle of that act runs through all his administration. What he does at one time he does, with appropriate variations of form, at all times. Accordingly?-, if we look either into the Scriptures or into the history of the Church, we shall find that this fact is of a piece with the whole texture of his rule.

After the fall of man the whole world continued long in darkness and fear ere Christ came in the flesh. Darkness covered the earth for many generations before the promised, expected Day-star appeared. Long before Simeon’s day prophets were weary with waiting for the Consolation of Israel.

After the incarnation the same feature often appears in his history. He remained thirty years in obscurity at Nazareth before he came forth to make redemption known. He turned his back for a time on the Syrophoenician. woman who faithfully and fondly followed him. He remained far distant from Bethany while Lazarus his friend was struggling single-handed with the great conqueror of men. He lingered on the mountain-top alone while these Galileans whom he loved so tenderly were toiling against the storm, and losing heart as the darkness fell. At a time when those who had left all to follow him were few and feeble, desponding and almost despairing, he left the world, and returned to heaven. “Thou art a God that hidest thyself” At this day also his people sow in tears, and wonder while they weep why he does not come like the lightning and subdue the nations unto himself. But, —

2. His delay is not proof of neglect. He yearns over a sinning, suffering world, and regards his own with more than a mother’s love. His delights were with the childi-en of men before his abode was among them. The visions which godly patriarchs saw were glimpses of his countenance, as he bowed his heavens in longing anticipation before the fulness of time.

When, during his personal ministry, he kept back from the sufferer or the pleader for a time, the motive for the delay was love. Denial made the heathen woman more ardent, and the answer at last more welcome and more full. The keener the appetite, the sweeter the food. Even when of design he remained far from the dying bed of Lazarus, he was occupied, and even oppressed, by a brother’s longing love. Once and again with mysterious solemnity he spoke of it to his disciples; and with them, when the time was come, he hastened to the spot. Having wept over Lazarus as man, he called him from the grave as God. In all this, and especially in the delay, he was carrying out the plans of infinite mercy. Having tried and confirmed the faith of his followers, he also glorified God in the adversaries’ sight.

Here, too, in the story of the text, a love at once divine and human was beating in the breast of Jesus, while he prayed alone on that mountain, toward the little band of Galilean fishermen who were battling with the waves on the stormy lake below. He had a purpose to serve by letting them feel the danger: their extremity became his opportunity. A longing for his presence grew that night in their hearts to its fullest measure, and at his appearing their joy was correspondingly full. Blessed are they that hunger; and most blessed are they who hunger most, for they shall be most fully satisfied. Even when, after his resurrection, he ascended into heaven, and left the disciples sorrowing, the act was determined by the same changeless love. Before he departed, he explained with his own lips the reason of his departure:” It is expedient for you that I go away.’’ At the present time, although the whole creation groans, as dumb cattle cry under pain without knowing what ails them, or what would heal, and the new creation intelligently longs, and articulately prays, for his coming the second time without sin unto salvation, still it is love that detains him within the veil. At the set time, — at the best time for the Father’s glory and his people’s good, he will come. Love to his own keeps him back till all be ready; and when all is ready, love will urge him on. He will come, and not tarry. As the lightning comes, so will the Son of man come in his glory.

3. Never and nowhere do they who wait upon the Lord wait in vain. Although to weary watchers the time seemed long, the coming was sure. He took our nature, and dwelt among us. He gave at length all her heart’s desire to the woman who followed him from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. He visited the sisters at Bethany in their affliction, and gave them back their brother from the grave. He followed these frightened Galileans over the troubled waters, and found them in the dark. Faithful is He that promised; he also will do it. To them that look for him he will yet come, dispelling by his presence a thicker darkness, and calming a more terrible tempest by his word.

The ordinances of heaven, the sun, moon, and stars, rulijjig the day and the night, the summer and the winter, are the surest and steadiest things that men in the body know; to these, therefore, God, their maker, points as marks and measures of his own faithfulness. As his power in creation has never failed, his promises in grace will be all made good.

How safe is a sinful man who has simply, wholly cast himself on Jesus! The Redeemer loves his own with a love that cannot die. He that keepeth Israel slumbers not nor sleeps. The sun even in his absence holds up the earth all night, and at his coming also brings the day. So Christ keeps a soul intrusted to him while it lies in darkness, and then dawns on that darkness with the light of life. The love of a Saviour niiseeii reaches as far and holds as firmly as the law by which central suns grasp tributary worlds. His coming is like the morning; as sweet and as sure.

Fear not, little flock; the good Shepherd knows his sheep all by name. He is absent, but he thinks of you. He feels your weight, and bears it. He longs to have you, and will not want you. He remained on the mountain-top only until his disciples fully felt their own need; and then he brought deliverance. Let none refuse the consolation on the one hand, or the reproof on the other, on the ground that the danger and the deliverance were both seen and temporal things. Our Redeemer became bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, that he might come closer to us, and that we might come closer to him. The transactions of that night on the sea of Galilee and the mountain by its shore reveal the heart of Jesus more clearly than his coming to the world, or his intercession in heaven, because they are bodily human, and palpable to sense. The longing of his human heart that night towards his absent brethren, and his goings, as God, upon the waters to find and save them, mark the line on which his love is running still. The compassion which he felt and the help which he rendered to these poor men are graven here as with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond, that I, in this latter day of time, may know his readiness to pity and ransom me. These lines show how the heart of our Redeemer lies. In that direction his love goes out, and it goes to the uttermost. To-day he is as able and as glad to save from a deeper, darker sea.

II. The disciples’ thoughts about Christ.

It was a matter of the heart; it was a personal affection. Their knowledge of doctrines was very defective. They could not have written the Epistle to the Komans; they could not at that time have understood it, although it had been written and placed in their hands. In knowledge they were like children; and like children, too, in single-eyed, confiding love. They were born again, and so saw the kingdom of God; but they were new-born babes, and therefore could neither give nor take strong meat. The understanding was feeble; but the life was real, and its instincts true.

They had not chosen him, but he had chosen them. At his call they left all and followed him. When he called the sons of Zebedee from their nets, and Matthew from his tolls, he put forth the same power as when he summoned Lazarus from the grave; in every instance, and in all alike, it was the mighty power of God. He took possession of their hearts in a mysterious way. His goings were not seen, as he entered his sanctuary, and established his kingdom within his saints. The kingdom came, but not “with observation.“‘Their hearts burned within them as he talked to them by the way. So closely did he draw them to his bosom, that their hearts were inoculated with a love like his own:” He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit ‘’ (1 Cor. vi. 1 7). Afterwards they became more enlightened: under the ministry of the Spirit they grew to the stature of perfect men in Christ. But perhaps we would be safe in supposing that the unintelligent love of the new-born is as delightful to the Lord, in spite of all its blunders, as the most effective service of the most advanced saint. What is awanting in skill is gained in simplicity. The most devoted obedience of a son, in the might of his manhood, does not kindle in a mother a fonder joy than that which thrilled through her, twenty years before, when first she noticed the unconscious babe blindly feeling for her breast. First love seems best love: by leaving it behind, even true disciples greatly grieve their Lord. It was when pride had marred it in the twelve that “Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said. Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven ‘” (Matt, xviii. 2, 3).

The operation of this instinct, at the earliest stage of the new life, may be seen in the history of Nicodemus. The new creature was stirring within him, but as yet he scarcely knew what it was. We cannot tell how often in secret he uttered the perplexed question, “Why am I thus?” and got no other answer than the echo of his own complaint. But while the intelhgence as yet was undeveloped, the instinct was strong and true. His faith was weak in degree, but genuine in character. He came at a strange time, but he came to the right person. He had little faith, for he did not venture to come in the day-time; but he had a right faith, for he came to the Lamb of God that taketh away sin. Those cases that are recorded in Scripture are types, each of its own class; and each class is represented by living specimens in every age. Some conversions in our day follow the type of Nicodemus, some that of Lydia, some that of the Philippian jailer. There are diversities of operation under the administration of one Spirit. Little-child conversions are not unfrequent in our day — conversions in which life and love leap into full force at once, while knowledge is left behind; to follow step by step as it may. Grace is sweet when it is young, whatever the age of the natural stock may be on which it is engrafted. The touching tenderness of its youth, though not in its nature better, is better seen when a man is born again after he is old.

Such was the spiritual life of these fishermen. It was feeble, indeed, and unintelligent, but transparent and true. No service rendered by men or angels could be more pleasing to the Lord than that longing for his presence which wrought in the heart of these Galileans, as they toiled to keep their bark afloat in a dark night on a troubled sea. As he knelt on the mountain-top in communion with the Father, he felt these tremblers touching him. This is the want of our day; and the supply of this want will constitute a revival We have already a full, correct theology treasured in our books, and accepted by our reason: we need, in addition, the instinctive throbbing of a loving, longing, confiding heart.

Having pointed out that tender, child-like love to Christ which lives as an instinct in true disciples, and acts according to its kind in all circumstances, let us now observe, in particular, how it operates in time of special trial.

The waters were permitted to swell and frighten the children, although their Elder Brother held those waters in the hollow of his hand. This is a part of his ways, and this part corresponds with the character of the whole. The same Jesus, in far-seeing kindness, tries those who trust him still. Observe now the direction in which a true heart turns in time of need. They manifested no stoical indifference to danger; they had not iron hearts. In such a case any one of three experiences is possible, — insensibility, despair, and faith. Not to feel the distress is inhuman; to feel it and sink under it is faithless; to feel it, and yet bear up, because the Lord is merciful and omnipotent, is Christian. The apostolic precept, borrowed from the Bible of the old covenant Church, articulately denounces both the extremes of evil: “My son, despise not thou the chastenings of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.” There are two falsehoods; on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. Those true men would neither, on the one hand, be bold in the absence of their Lord, nor, on the other, faint in fear when he was at their side. Between these two rocks they steered steadily, safely through, conscious of the danger, but counting that all would be well if he were near.

The storm and the darkness made their hearts quiver, and all the more surely, therefore, did these hearts turn, and point toward the mountain-top where Jesus, the daysman, stood laying his hand upon God. I have observed that a shipmaster, especially when the presence of currents and the proximity of land make his burden heavy, shakes the compass sharply, and then watches the point on which the quivering needle finally settles down. The shaking: makes the master more sure that the needle points truly to its pole. In those days the magnet was not known. No trembling compass on the deck that night told the steersman how to hold his helm, after the mountains had disappeared in night; but an instrument more mysterious and equally true within those simple seamen had been once touched by divine, forgiving mercy, and pointed steadfastly now to the Source of saving power. It was not the darkness, but the absence of their Lord in the darkness, of which the men complained. Feeling at his own heart every pulse that throbbed in theirs, Jesus rejoiced in the fond longing for himself which the trial had produced in those little ones. They think not — they say not. If the moon should rise, — if the gale should moderate, — if the harbour were at hand; but, If Jesus were here. Such single-eyed, artless truthfulness is sweet to his taste. No tendency appears in the disciples on this occasion to prescribe to the Lord. They do not seem even to have formed any definite conception in their own minds either as to what they might desire, or he might do. If he does not see meet to change the storm into a calm, and the darkness into light, he will quell their fears, and gladden them with the light of his countenance. The thing they desire is his presence; give them that, and they do not even ask whether he will take them out of trouble, or comfort them in it.

But these dangers, you say, though great, are material and temporal; whereas the dangers which induce us to seek a Saviour are our own sin, and the wages which it wins. Well, if these are the burdens which make you weary, the more welcome will you be to Christ. He cared for men in all their interests. He cured diseases and pardoned sins. He brought a blessing to the body in order that he might find an open avenue to the soul; and he took it ill when any kept him in the outer court. He was willing to relieve bodily suifering; but he was disappointed when the patient remained content with an external cure. He loves so well to be a Saviour from sin, that he contrives providential openings into the heart of the sinful. Blessed are the common trials that bring the Physician to the door, for he gladly takes every occasion of going in. A weary, longing heart on earth will draw the Lord from heaven; “If any man will open, I will come in.”

The example of these Galileans is shown here as in a glass, that every mourner may thereby be encouraged to long for the presence of the Lord. When a deeper sea is heaving underneath, and a thicker darkness closing round you, let your heart go out in truthful, fond desire to the Intercessor who stood then upon the mountain, and stands now on the steps of heaven’s throne. He cannot withstand your appeal: he will come, and will not tarry. Over these waters he will walk until he reach you; and when Jesus has come, you are at the land — the very land you had long been making for, but could never see. The moment that the Master comes, the disciples are at home.

A man of strong faith, in the days of old, cried out at the entrance of the dark valley, “I will not fear,” giving as the reason of his courage and his comfort, “For thou art with me.” Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace; so, in your extremities, the desires of your soul will go right to Jesus. He feels the touch about his heart, and he needs no other call. See how he was commanded by the message of confiding love, which, like a secret electric current, darted from the members on the sea to their Head upon the mountain. He came at their call, and made them glad by his presence = I take this story as a picture held down from heaven to show us the Lord’s way in all times and all places. For what other reason should it be inserted here? No prophecy and no fact of Scripture is of any private interpretation, exhausted by one application, as the grain stalk is cast away when the ripened ear is gathered. The word is not the stalk which is used once and done; but the seed which multiplies to serve the world in all its breadth, and abides for ever to satisfy the latest generation. It has descended to me. It hangs within my reach. I will take it, and taste it, and trust in God the giver, that the food will be as wholesome as it is sweet. Others like it, older, and yet as fresh, are hanging near:” Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me ‘’ (Ps. 1. 15).

One thing is needful, and that one thing possessed includes all other good; “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature.” John was in Christ as really and effectually that night on the sea, as when he leant on his Master’s breast at supper. It was not necessary to get that union effected after the storm came on: it was completed before, and exercised then. The children of this world are wise in their generation. Telegraph wires, which unite continent with continent, like nerves of sensation between member and member of the great mundane frame, are laid through intervening seas on the choicest days of summer, and used when the tempest rages, for making known the danger and demanding relief Nothing is impossible with God; the line may be laid when the night is darkest and the storm at its height. On Calvary it was so laid between a repenting man and a forgiving Saviour; but although God has chosen thus to display his power, the man who prefers such a time for seeking salvation is courting his own doom. Now — in youth, in health, in comfort, — now is the time for getting the connection formed; a day of trial is the time for using it.

Love to Christ in a human heart, kindled there by Christ’s love to men, and laying hold in turn of the love that lighted it, is the one thing needful. Mary had it while she sat at Jesus’ feet in Bethany: John had it while he struggled along with his comrades to keep his boat afloat in the gale: a multitude whom no man can number have possessed and enjoyed it, in the troubles of life and the terrors of a dying hour. If we are in Christ our weakness becomes our strength; our sorrow becomes the inlet of a more abounding joy. The dangers which surrounded these fishermen awakened their latent love. Christ, their head, felt its thrill, as instantly and surely as a living man feels the pain of a wound on any extremity of his body. As the man, without loss of time or wavering of purpose, comes with all his might to the defence of a suffering member, Christ in his almighty grace comes at the cry of the meanest Christian. His power and love are still the same; and still the same is the need of his disciples. The laws of Nature do not grow feeble as they grow old: they are as fresh to-day as when they first began. They hold up the greatest things with the same strength, and grasp the smallest with the same precision. Nor is love, God’s law in the other department of his administration, worn and weary because it has lasted long. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He feels your burdened spirit leaning on his heart to-day, as freshly as he felt the strain of Peter, and James, and John, in the time of their distress. It is not that they had to do with a real, personal, near, and loving Jesus then, and that you have to do with a distant, abstract, unsympathizing spiritual principle to-day; the same Jesus hears your cry, and feels the clinging of your faith about his heart. A thousand years is with the Lord as one day. In his view there is not, as in yours, a dim distance of dark ages, between the hold that those Galileans took of his love, and the hold that you take of it in your need. In his account, John, and James, and Peter leant on his arm yesterday, and you lean on it to-day. In yourselves you are as needy, and to the Lord you are as welcome as they. He puts himself in your power; “Lo, I am with you always.” Draw, and you will draw him from heaven for your help.

While the ailment of the world at large is its enmity against God, the true want of the Church in the world is the languor of its look unto Jesus. The measure of intensity to which it rises in a time of revival is marked with very peculiar emphasis in Psalm cxxx.: “My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning; they that watch for the morning.” Many of us have learned by experience, at some period of our lives, what it is to long for the morning as if it were life. A ship’s company, consisting of two hundred and seventy-six souls, learned it fully in the midst of the Mediterranean one night about eighteen hundred years ago. After thirteen days of continuous tossing, without observations, in a disabled ship, on the fourteenth about midnight the seamen deemed that they drew near to some country. The symptom, detected only by experienced ears, was probably the distant roar of breakers on a rocky shore. By repeated soundings they soon satisfied themselves that their fears were too well founded. The sea was breaking upon rocks, and their unmanageable bark was drifting before the wi.nd right upon the shore. If they could see the land, although they could not now save the ship, they might select the spot that she should dash upon, and select it so as to save their own lives. Then and there, accordingly, with life and death hanging on the chances of their cables holding out the night, “They cast four anchors out of the stern, and wished for the day.” That was wishing! Those men looked that night, as if by looking they would draw the dawning from the East before its time.

To them that look for Him thus, will he come; and his coming will be like the morning.