Interpreters for God

“O Earth 1 thou hast not any wind that blows Which is not music; every weed of thine Pressed rightly flows in aromatic wine. And every humble hedge-row flower that grows, And every little brown bird that doth sing, Hath something greater than itself, and bears A living word to every living thing, Albeit it hold the message unawares.”

GOD wants interpreters. He does not wall* the earth in form that we can see, nor speak to us in words that we can hear. Yet he is al ways with us, and he is always speaking to us. Once he sent his only begotten Son, and men saw his face — a face like their own, and heard his voice, a voice like their own. Now he has many sons; and in all of these, just in the measure in which they are true, God’s face beams its love upon the world, and God’s voice speaks its message to the world. ’35

Every one of us has something to do in interpreting God to men. If we are his friends, the “secret of the Lord” is with us. Not a secret, however, which we are to keep to our selves, but one which it is ours to declare. We are in this world to reveal God, and to make God’s words plain to others.

We have many illustrations of this in the Scriptures. For example, twice in the story of Joseph do we find him acting as an interpreter for God. Two of his fellow-prisoners had dreams. Joseph told them the meaning of the dreams. Pharaoh had a dream which Egypt’s wise men could not interpret, and Joseph was brought from his prison to tell its meaning. In both these cases the dreams were words of God, whose interpretation it was important to learn. In the case of the prisoners, the dreams were forecastings of the future of the two men. In the case of Pharaoh, they were revealings which the king needed to understand, in order that he might make provision for his people in the famine that was coming. It would have been a great calamity for Egypt and for the world if he had not learned the meaning of what God had spoken in his ear in the visions of the night. But without an interpreter he never could have known.

So we all stand in this world amid mysterious writings which we cannot read, having our dreams and visions, whose meanings we cannot ourselves interpret. Yet these writings and these visions are really God’s words to us, divine teachings which we ought to understand, whose meanings it is intended we should find out. They have their lessons for us, which we need to know. They hold messages of comfort for our sorrows, of guidance for our dark paths, of instruction for our ignorance, of salvation for our perishing souls. We can not live as we should live until we learn the meaning of these divine words. We need interpreters.

Take the little child. It comes into the world knowing nothing. On all sides are wonderful things — in nature, in its own life, in other lives, in books, in art, in providence. But the writings are all mysterious. The child understands nothing. Yet it is here to learn all it can of these writings. They are words of God which concern its own welfare. The child needs interpreters. And we are all only chil dren of various growths. Life is full of enigmas for us. We bend over the Bible and find texts we cannot understand. There are mysteries in providence; they come into every life at some time. Yet in these obscure texts and these dark providences there are words of God hidden, words of love, of wisdom, of mercy. We all need interpreters to read off for us the mysterious handwriting of God.

Then it is our office as Christians to be interpreters for others. Joseph found the two prisoners sad, and his heart was touched with sympathy. He became eager to comfort them. This revealed the true and noble spirit in him. He had a warm, gentle heart. No one can ever be greatly useful in this world who does not enter into the world’s experiences of need. Christ was moved with compassion when he saw human pain and sin. At once his love went out toward the sufferer, and he desired to impart help. Wherever we go we sec sad faces which tell of unrest, of broken peace, of unsatisfied longings, of unanswered questions, of deep heart hungerings. Sometimes it is fear that writes its lines on the pale cheeks. Sometimes it is perplexity which darkens the features. Sometimes it is baffled longing. Here it is desire to look into the future; again it is eagerness to learn more of God.

We are sent to be interpreters, each in his own way, and in the things which he knows. All the rich knowledge of the world has come down to us through human interpreters. All along the ages there have been men who have climbed to the mountain tops, where they saw the earliest gleams of light, while it was yet dark in the valleys of life below, and have then come down and spoken to men of what they saw. There have been seers in every age, gifted to look upon the scrolls of truth and read off the words written there. The scientific knowledge we have has come to us through many interpreters who have learned to read God’s words in nature. To most people nature’s wonderful writings mean almost nothing, — flowers, trees, rivers, lakes, seas, moun tains, the splendor of the skies, — people walk amid these divine works without awe, seeing nothing to touch their hearts or thrill their spirits. As Mrs. Browning says:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees takes off his shoes;

The rest sit round it, and pick blackberries.”

But there have been interpreters — men with eyes which saw, with ears which heard, and they have told us something of the meaning of the wonderful things God has written in his works. Or take the literature of the world. It is the harvest of many centuries of thought. In every age there have been men who have looked into truth with deeper, clearer vision than their fellows, and heard whispers of God’s voice; then coming forth from their valleys of silence they have told the world what they heard. Take the treasures of spiritual truth which we possess; how have they come to us? Not through any scrolls brought from heaven by angels, but through human interpreters. God took Moses up into the mount and talked with him, as a man talks with his friend, revealing to him great truths about his being and character, and giving him statutes and laws for the guidance of men; then Moses became an interpreter to the world of the things which God had spoken to him. David was an interpreter for God. God drew him close to his own heart and breathed heavenly songs into his soul; then David went forth and struck his harp and sang — and the music is breathing yet through all the world. John was an interpreter for God. He lay in Christ’s bosom, heard the beatings of that great heart of love, and learned the secrets of friendship with his Lord; then he passed out among men and told the world what he had heard and felt and seen; and the air of this earth has been warmer ever since, and more of love has been beating in human hearts. Paul was an interpreter for God. God took him away from men and revealed himself to him, opened to him the mystery of redemption as to no other man in all

Christian history; and Paul wrote the letters of his which we have, which have been marvellous in their influence all these Christian centuries.

But not alone have these inspired men been God’s interpreters; many others since have taken up the word of God and have found new secrets, blessed truths, precious comforts, that had lain undiscovered before, and have spoken out to men what they have found. Evermore new light is breaking from the Bible.

God gives to every life that he sends into this world some message of its own to give out to others. To one it is a new revealing of science. Kepler spoke of himself as thinking over God’s thoughts, as he discovered the paths of the stars and traced out the laws of the heavens. To the poet God gives thoughts of beauty, revealings of the inner life, which he is to interpret to the world; and the world is richer, sweeter, and better for hearing his messages. Even to the lowliest man God whispers some secret of truth which he wants that man to impart by word or act to others. We cannot all make books, or write poems or hymns which shall bless men; but if we live near the heart of Christ there is not one of us into whose ear Christ will not speak some fragment of truth, some revealing of grace and love, or to whom he will not give some experience of comfort in sorrow, some glimpse of light in darkness, some glimmering of heaven’s glory in the midst of this world’s care. God forms a close personal friendship with each of his children, and tells each some special secret of love which no other ever has learned before. That now is your message — God’s own peculiar word to you; and you are God’s prophet to forth-tell it again to the world. Each one should speak out what God has given him to speak. If it be but a single word, it will yet bless the earth. Not to speak it will leave the world a little poorer.

Says Mozoomdar: “If the flowers should no longer be in the world, if the sun should no longer shine, how great would be our distress! If the bird no longer twittered on the budding bough of the tree, how greatly we should miss it! Everything is so closely connected with us that we cannot do without it. Everything has

144 /y//’ HVIt’MNG OF CHARACTER.

its corresponding fact in human nature, and every little thing has a destiny, a message. Orientals believe that each man and woman has a message, and the man or woman who accomplishes it is a true man or a true woman, but one who does not is an anomaly — one to be pitied.” We dare not hide in our heart the message that God gives us to utter to the world. Suppose that Joseph, knowing by divine teaching the meaning of Pharaoh’s dreams, had remained silent, think what his silence would have cost the world. Or suppose that John, having leaned upon the Lord’s breast and having learned the inner secrets of his love, had gone back to his fishing, after the ascension, and had refused or failed to be an interpreter for Christ, what would the world have lost! If one only of the million flowers that bloom in the summer days, in the fields and gardens, refused to bloom, hiding its gift of beauty, the world would be a little less lovely for the failure of the one flower. If but one of the myriad stars in the heavens should refuse to shine some night, keeping its beam locked in its own breast, the night would be a little darker. Every human life that fails to hear its message and learn its lesson, or that fails to interpret its own secret, keeping it locked in the silence of the breast, in some measure impoverishes the earth, and withholds that which would have enriched earth’s life. But every life, even the lowliest, that learns its word from God and then interprets it to others, adds something, at least, to the world’s sum of blessing and good. We need only to be pure in our purpose and strong in our struggle, and all life shall be purer and stronger through our faithfulness.

“There’s never a rose in all the world
But makes some green spray sweeter;
There’s never a wind in all the sky
But makes some bird wing fleeter;
There’s never a star but brings to heaven
Some silver radiance tender;
And never a rosy cloud but helps
To crown the sunset splendor;
No robin but may thrill some heart,
His dawnlight gladness voicing.
God gives us all some small sweet way,
To set the world rejoicing.

It is our mission then to live near the heart of Christ, that we may catch the spirit of his life, and then to go forth among the people to interpret to them the things of Christ which we have learned. Then it is not our words that the world needs, so much as the sweet life that we can live. Let us get into our heart the word and spirit and love of Christ, and then interpret in our daily walk among men the beauty of Christ.

44 The dear Lord’s best interpreters

Are humble human souls;
The gospel of a life

Is more than books or scrolls.

From scheme and creed the light goes out —

The saintly fact survives;
The blessed Master none can doubt

Revealed in holy lives.”