The Supremacy of Duty
‘At even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.’ — Ezekiel xxiv. 18.
THESE words in themselves constitute a powerful sermon. The text carries its interpretation upon the surface. It is full of practical and pathetic suggestions. ‘At even my wife died, The light of the home went out. Darkness brooded over the face of every familiar thing. The trusted companion, who had shared all the changes of the ever-changing way, was taken from my side. The light of our fellowship was suddenly extinguished, as by some mysterious hand stretched forth from the unseen. I lost ’ the desire of mine eyes, I was alone. ‘At even
my wife died,... and in the morning ’
Aye, what about the next morning, when the light broke almost obtrusively upon a world which had changed into a cemetery containing only one grave? ‘In the morning I did as
I was commanded.’ And what was the command? Perhaps it was something peculiarly appropriate and soothing, something that would not jar upon the most sensitive grief. What was the command? It was a command to go out and awake a morally torpid and filthy city. The prophet had to bestir himself, and proclaim divine indignation and judgement against a city whose life, both civic and personal, was like foul and poisonous scum. 1 Woe to the bloody city ... in thy nlthiness is lewdness... according to thy doings shalt thou be judged, saith the Lord God.’
That was the prophet’s message. The command had been laid upon him in the days before his bereavement. When his home-life was a source of inspiring fellowship, he had laboured to discharge the burdensome task. In the evening-time he had turned to his home, just as weary, dustchoked pilgrims turn to a bath; and, immersed in the sweet sanctities of wedded life, he had found such restoration of soul as fitted him for the renewed labour of the morrow. But 1 at even my wife died.’ The home was no longer a refreshing bath, but part of the dusty road; no longer an oasis, but a repetition of the wilderness.
How now shall it be concerning the
prophet’s command? ‘At even my wife died, and in the morning’ the commandment? How does the old duty appear in the gloom of the prophet’s bereavement? Duty still, clamant and clamorous now in the shadows as it was loud and importunate in the light. What shall the prophet do? Take up the old burden, and faithfully trudge the old road. Go out in his loneliness, and go on with the old tasks. But why? You will find the secret of it all in the last clause of the chapter: — 1 Thou shalt be a sign unto them, and they shall know that I am the Lord.’ A broken-hearted prophet patiently and persistently pursuing an old duty, and by his manner of doing it, compelling people to believe in the Lord 1 That is the secret motive of the heavy discipline.
The great God wants our conspicuous crises to be occasions of conspicuous testimony. He wants our seasons of darkness to be opportunities for the unveiling of the Divine. He wants duty to shine more resplendently because of the environing shadows. He wants tribulation only to furbish and burnish our signs. He wants us to manifest the sweet grace of continuance amid all the sudden and saddening upheavals of our intensely varied life. This was the prophet’s
triumph. He made his calamity witness to the Eternal. He made his very loneliness minister to his God. He made his very bereavement intensify his calling. He took up the old task, and in taking up he glorified it. ‘In the even my wife died, and in the morning I did as I was commanded.’
The evening sorrow will come to all of us: what shall we be found doing ‘in the morning ‘? We shall have to dig graves, and have burials; how shall it be with us when the funeral is over?