What the Man Can Be
“A man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind
and a cover from the tempest; as rivers of water in
a dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in a
weary land.”
ISA. xxxii. 2.
Y 7HAT a revelation is here of the wants of men! The very supply indicates the depths and urgency of the need which craves for satisfaction. “Hiding Place!” “Covert!” “Fountains of Water!” “The shadow of a great Rock!” Each of these beautiful images serves to accentuate the impression of urgent and pitiful need. Lighthouses and harbors are always terribly suggestive.
If a hiding-place is provided, it is evident that the bleak moor-land, or “1be rebufte& the MiuS,” t47
desert-waste is being swept by pitiless blasts, which search the traveller and catch up the sand-atoms in blinding whirlwinds. If there is a covert, it is clear the storms must be frequent. If rivers of water ‘, then there is every fear of thirst. If “the shadow of a great rock, then there is likelihood of weariness in the scorching glare of the sun.
And surely all these have their analogies and correspondences in our lives.
Wind. — Once when the Lord and His apostles were sailing together across the lake, there came down a great storm of wind on the water, which became suddenly and ominously ruffled, flecked with white foam, and dashed ever more tumultuously against the sides of the little shell that carried the Hope of the world. It would seem as if the prince of the power of the air, whose empire is in some way mysteriously associated with the ariel regions, sought to vent his hate on his glorious Antagonist by raising this terrible and dangerous storm around the men who loved Him, and Himself. Surely Satanic agency is more than hinted at when we are told that He rebuked the wind and the waves — rebuke would hardly avail for a mere element.
But how apt a symbol of our lives is here! Often when all seems fair, when the winds are confined in their chambers, when there is the hush of perfect calm in our lives, whilst we are confident and unsuspecting of alarm — all suddenly a wild storm envelopes us in a furious melee. A calumnious story is circulated, which is absolutely without foundation; a well-meant act is misconstrued; a love suddenly cools; a dam which had warded off the wild north sea breaks; a life which had been dearer than our own fails; our whole nature is plunged “H>n? places,” 149
into a bath of agonizing pain; the mind is cast into a tumult of perplexity; the heart is rent. Ah, then we know bitterly the spiritual side of the words, “a small tempest lay upon us.” Storm. — Storms sweep the floor of the desert of all the loose sand that may be lying there, and gathering it together hurl it against the traveler or the caravan, stinging, blinding, and threatening to overwhelm. But a covert is an enclosure of canvas, or a nook formed by bowlders of rock leaning together, and against it the storm beats in vain, piling up the dust atoms in hillocks without, whilst the cowering refugees escape. Thus it is with human life. We are exposed not only to great and crushing sorrows, which threaten to suddenly engulf us, as it is said the old seats of human life were engulfed in the midst of the Indian ocean; but we have to suffer from the accumulations of little stinging 15° Wbat the flDan can be*
irritations, which are like the grit or sand grains of the desert. The rasping temper of some one with whom we have to live; the annoyances and slights which are daily heaped on us; petty innuendoes and insinuations that sting; trifles which we could not put into words, but which hurt us like acid dropped into a sore — it is hard to stand against these.
A Dry Place. — Our lot is sometimes cast, as David’s was, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. There are few helps in our religious life; we are cast into a worldly family; we are obliged to attend an uncongenial ministry; we are too driven with occupation to have quiet times for fellowship with God, and communion with His saints; or we are so lonely that we long unutterably for some kindred soul, some one to love or to be loved — all these are dry places. The eye ranges day after day over the same monotonous landscape; no well of water, no living spring, no sign of fresh green verdure. And, indeed, it is remarkable to think how many are daily passing over this arid waste, some unloving, some unloved, some scorched by the fierce quick heat of passion, all feeling the parching thirst, in which the tongue cleaves to the roof of the mouth.
A Weary Land. — The whole expanse of desert lies beneath the glare of the noontide sun. The lizards and beetles revel in it, but every living thing pants in exhaustion, or creeps into the shade; and the traveler paces wearily on, ready to throw himself down under the shadow of the veriest bush and ask for death. Weary people! there are plenty of them. Weary of life, with its poverty from which there is never a moment’s respite! Weary of life, with the love of the life unrequited! Weary of life, with the light of life hidden beneath a bushel! Weary of life, with its common-place duties and monotonous routine! Weary, weary, so weary! The demands are so incessant; the pressure is so constant; the heartache is so wearing; the pain is so cruel; the sorrow that eats out the heart is so bitter. Ah, me! the eyes weary of looking for one who never comes! the ears weary of listening for a step that never greets them; the hearts weary of waiting for a love that never comes forth from the grave, though they call never so loudly. But all these many-sided needs may be met and satisfied in “The Man Christ Jesus.” No one man could perfectly meet even them all. And He is prepared to meet them all, not only in the case of one or two of the children of men, but for every one of the vast population of our globe; yea, and abundantly beyond all that any ask or think.
We can never forget our Lord’s essential Deity; the Second Person, in the ever-blessed Trinity; the Fellow of Jehovah; the only-begotten Son of the Father. But we must never magnify His Deity at the expense of His humanity. He emptied Himself of His Divine prerogative when He assumed human nature. God with God, He is also Man with man. And it is of Him in His true humanity that the prophet speaks in these rapturous words. Let men with their indefinable aspirations, and women with their yearnings for love, and sympathy, and strength, and ownership, bring all to that Man, whom God hath ordained, and concerning whom He has given assurance to all men in raising Him from the dead. There is no hunger or thirst in our nature that does not bring a beatitude with it, when it leads us to His royal and glorious nature, to find there both solace and supply.
How manifold is the character of Christ! No one metaphor can set forth all His beauty. Creation has to be ransacked, for metaphors to unfold the mysteries of loveliness and power which lie hid within Him, waiting to be unfurled: —
“The whole creation can afford But some faint shadows of my lord; Nature, to make his beauties known, Must mingle colors not her own.”
In all men there is a fatal incompleteness. One quality seems to have grown rich at the expense of others. The soil of their soul has given all its nutriment to some exquisite flower or fruit of the Christian character but just in proportion as it has poured itself in one direction, it has been drained away in others. Have you not often wished to take the characteristic qualities from the men in whom they are strongest, and put them all together into one nature, making one complete man out of the many broken bits, one chord of the many single notes, one ray of the many colors? But this that you wish to do is done in Him — in whom the faith of Abraham, the meekness of Moses, the patience of Job, the strength of Daniel, the love of the apostle John, blend in one complete symmetrical whole.
And this is the further thought — that He completes our incompleteness. We are but partial segments of the circumference. He makes up the perfect sweep of the circle. We bring to Him but a tiny scrap of the Christian character; but He sweetly steps in and fills up the deficiency, adding to our few lines a whole Paradise of warm color, so that the picture is perfected in beauty. Whatever, then, be your need, my reader, seek its complement (i. e., its completement) in Him; and as you do so, claim that God your Father should fulfill in you the good pleasure of His goodness, and the
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work of faith with power, teaching you what Jesus can be to the soul that comes to Him for all. “My God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” “In Him ye are made full” (R. V.).
Are you driven by the wind, “tossed with the tempest, and not comforted?” Hide in Him! Get into Him, as the bark, strained and leaking, gets within the shelter of the mole or harbor-bar. Look out on the fury of the storm from the protecting environment of His presence. Often we have been hidden from the strife of tongues, or the sharp arrows of cruel and unjust scandal, in the thought of the love of some one for whom we have suffered, and one smile from whom has made us impervious to the assault. And how often have we retired within the strong and tender advice or succor of some noble, and wealthy, and capable friend, making our refuge with him until certain calamities have passed by! And why should we not do this with the Man of men, of whom all other men are suggestions and hints, and partial representations? Why should not those words of David fit us more literally, and be more frequently on our lips? — “The Lord is my rock, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation and my high tower.’7
Are you being blinded by the drift of the tempest, as it drives the sleet of the northern gale, or the dust of the southern sirocco into your face? Jesus will be a covert from it. Standing before you with His face to the pitiless blast, He will screen you: “He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust; His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.” Remember how of old He went forth to meet the bands that entered the garden, beneath the leadership of the traitor, and said of the disciples cowering behind Him, “if ye seek Me let these go their way.” so will He fight for you, and defend you. The Shepherd shall go before you; and you, as His sheep, shall follow, safe from harm.
Are you in a dry place? The Lord Jesus knows what it is to be athirst. “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” The cry with which He expired must have been often on His lips, “I thirst.”
Oh, precious human love! of which, in His earthly life, the supreme Lover knew but little; that out of the experiences of His own pilgrimage over the waterless waste, He might be able to supply the thirst of souls. What was meant by that Rock, whose streams followed the pilgrim host, except that Jesus would set forth in parable and type His willinghood and ability to “HMfce in 1bim,” 159
quench all thirst, and appease the fever of desire? Let us cease from the labor of hewing out our own cisterns, which soon get exhausted of the brackish water which they contain; and let us ask of Him to give us to drink of those living springs which are Himself, and of which, if a man drink, he shall never thirst again.
Are you in a weary land? Listen to Him who bids the weary come to Him for rest. Sit beneath His shadow with great delight. He will give rest from the consciousness of unforgiven sin; rest from the inward strife; rest from conflict with men and things around; rest from chafe and fret against the will of God. What a contrast there is between the angry surf that flings itself on the coral reef, and the lagoon of Stillwater; between that strong, insect-built wall, and the frail, palm-shaded islet which lies within. And if the former represent the fret of outward circumstance, the other is a picture of the calm rest which is experienced by the life hidden with Christ in God. See how the weary caravan hastens to escape from the piercing swords of an almost unbearable sunshine, to throw itself down to rest beneath the blue shade of a great rock, in whose recesses a small frond of green here and there betrays the presence of moisture and comparative cool. So, O weary souls, fling yourselves down at the feet of the Man who is a High Priest touched with the feeling of sorrow, acquainted with grief, strong, tender, true, combining in His glorious person every attribute that can make life blessed, and learn how He can be the shadow of a great Rock. Breathe His name over and over a thousand times a day. Tell Him again and again that you choose and prefer His will, even though as yet you cannot say that you delight in it. Hand over the whole responsibility of the things that press you to Him, and then by a loving faith claim His rest. You may not experience any rush of emotion, any tidal wave of rapture, any remarkable alternation of feeling; but there will steal into you a sense of rest, of calm, of peace, as when sleep steals over a tired frame, and wraps it insensibly in its tender embrace.
May the Holy Spirit unfold to each soul that reads these lines that sense of the all-sufficiency of Jesus, that blessed satisfaction with Him, that unbroken fellowship of communion, which are the charm of heaven, and which tinge earth’s experiences with a heavenly glory; as dull, leaden clouds will gleam in the light of a setting or rising sun!
“Oh, the little birds sang east, the little birds sang
west; And I said, in under-breath, ‘All our life is mixed
with death!
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And who knoweth which is best?’
Oh, the little birds sang east, the little birds sang west; And I smiled to think God’s greatness flows around our incompleteness: Round our restlessness His rest!”