Part 13

For a little time they lost Him. The grave opened her gloomy portals; they laid Him down, and the gates were closed--for a little time. And yet He was just as really there, as really alive for evermore, as really theirs and ours, as really a victor--nay, a thousand times more so, than if He had never bowed Himself under the yoke of Nature. He was gone on before, just a little while, that was all.

Is not that the lesson of His burial for every one who sorrows for the loss of loved ones called up higher? Are they not buried with Him? Are they not gone on before? Are they not ours still? Are we not theirs as really as ever? He passed through that brief path of darkness and death out into the everlasting light of the Resurrection Glory. Do you think, then, that He will leave them behind? The grave could not contain Him. Do you think it has strength to hold them? You cannot think of Him as lying long in the garden of Joseph of Arimathaea; why, then, should you think of your dear ones as in the chilly clay of that poor garden in which you laid them? No--no! they are alive--alive for evermore; because He lives, they live also.

Yes! this was the meaning of that strange funeral of His--this was at least one reason why they buried Him. It was that He might hold a flaming torch of comfort at every burial of His people to the end of time. Sorrow not, then, as those that have no hope. He is hope. Your lost ones, perhaps, were strongly rooted in your affection, and your heart was torn when they were plucked up. You cried aloud with the Prophet: "Woe is me, for my hurt! my wound is grievous. But I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it; my tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken." Ah, but remember He was buried also. He knows about the way. He was there. He has them in His keeping. They are His, and yours still. You have no more need to grieve over their burial than over His. They live, they love, they grow, they rejoice. They are blessed for evermore.

And our dear dead will meet us again, if we are faithful, in those bodies which our Lord has redeemed. That also is the witness of His burial and resurrection. The corruptible shall put on incorruption. In the twinkling of an eye shall it be done. And we shall see them in the body once more, even as His disciples saw Him. They supposed at first that they saw a spirit, but He said: No! "Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself: handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have!"

This blessed hope is our hope. Love is indeed stronger than death; many waters, nay, the swellings of Jordan themselves, cannot quench it! Dear ones, gone on before, we shall embrace you again; hand in hand--the very same hands--we shall greet our King:--

Together we'll stand When escaped to the shore, With palms in our hands We Will praise Him the more; We'll range the sweet plains On the banks of the river, And sing of Salvation For ever and ever.

Yes--we know and love you still, because we know and love our Lord.

IX.

Conforming to Christ's Death.

"That I may know Him . . . being made conformable unto His death."--Phil. iii. 10.

"Conformable unto His death." At first sight the words are something of a surprise. "His death?" Has not the thought more often before us been to conform to His life? His death seems "too high for us"--so far off in its greatness, in its suffering, in its humiliation, in its strength, in its glorious consequences. How is it possible we should ever be conformed to such a wonder of love and power? And yet, here is the great Apostle, in one of those beautiful and illuminating references to his own experience which always seem to bring his messages right home to us, setting forth this very conformity as the end of all his labours, and the purpose in all his struggles. "What things were gain to me," he says, "those I counted loss for Christ; yea, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him*, having . . . the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death."

There are probably deeps of thought and purpose here which I confess that I cannot hope to fathom; which in the limits of such a paper as this I cannot even suggest. Is it possible, for example, that the sorrow and suffering which fall upon those who are entirely surrendered to God and His work are, in some hidden way, sorrow and suffering for others? Is this what Paul means when he says in his letter to the Colossians: I "fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ, in my flesh, for His body's sake, which is the Church"? It may be so. This would indeed be a glorious and a wonderful "fellowship of His sufferings."

Or, again, consider what an entirely new light might be thrown upon God's dealings with us in afflictions and pain, if it should appear, in the world to come, that, in much which is now most mysterious and torturing to us, we had but been bearing one another's burdens! Every one knows how often love makes us long to bear grief and pain for those dear to us; every one has seen a mother suffer, in grateful silence, both bodily pain and heart-anguish, in her child's stead, preferring that the child should never know. Suppose it should turn out, hereafter, that many of the afflictions which now seem so perplexing and so grievous have really been given us to bear in order to spare and shield our loved ones, and make it easier for them--tossing on the stormy waters--to reach Home at last? Would not this add a whole world of joy to the glory which shall be revealed? And would it not transform many of the darkest stretches of our earthly journey into bright memorials of the infinite wisdom and goodness of our God?

But I pass away from matters of which we have, at best, but a gleam, to those concerning which "he that runs may read."

But if Christ upon His cross is meant for an object-lesson to His people, is it not reasonable to expect that His words spoken in those supreme moments should throw light upon that conformity to His death of which we are thinking? The words of the dying have always been received as revealing their true character. Death is the skeleton-key which opens the closed chambers of the soul, and calls forth the secret things--and in the presence of the "Death-Angel" men generally appear to be what they really are. Our Lord and Saviour was no exception to this universal rule.

To the latest breath, We see His ruling passion strong in death.

His dying words are filled with illuminating truth about Himself, and they throw precious light upon His death. Let us, then, tarry for a few moments before His cross, and look and listen while He speaks.

"Father, forgive them; they know not what they do."

Men were doing the darkest deed of time. Nothing was wanting to make it hateful to God and repulsive to mankind. All the passions to which the human heart is prone, and all that the spirits of Hell can prompt, had joined forces at Calvary to finish off, in victory if possible, the black rebellion which began in Eden. Everything that is base in human nature--the hate that is in man, the beast that is in man, the fiend that is in man--was there, with hands uplifted, to slay the Lamb. The servants of the Husbandman were beating to death the beloved Son whom He had sent to seek their welfare. It was amidst the human inferno of ingratitude and hatred that these words of infinite grace and beauty fell from the lips of Love Immortal. Long nails had just pierced the torn flesh and quivering nerves of His dear hands and feet; and while He watched His murderers' awful delight in His agony, and heard their jeering shouts of triumph, He lifted up His voice and prayed for them, "Father--forgive."

There are thoughts that lie too deep for words. The inner light of this message may be revealed--it cannot be spoken. But one or two reflections will repay our consideration. Here was a consciousness of sin. Here was the suggestion of pardon. Here was prayer for sinners.

A consciousness of sin--of theirs--ours--not His own. Infinite Love takes full account of sin. Boldly recognises it. Straightway refers to it as the source of men's awful acts and awful state. "O My Father, forgive!" On the cross of His shame, in the final grip with the mortal enemy, the dying Christ--looking away from His own sufferings, forgetful of the scorn, and curses, and blows of those around Him--is overflowing with this great thought, with this great fact--that men's first imperative, overwhelming need, is the forgiveness of their sin.

The suggestion of pardon. He prays for it. What a transforming thought is the possibility of forgiveness! How different the vilest, the most loathsome criminal becomes in our eyes the moment we know a pardon is on the way! How different a view we get of the souls of men, bound and condemned to die, given up to selfishness and godlessness, the moment we stand by the cross of Jesus, and realise, with Him, that a pardon is possible! The meanest wretch that walks looks different from us. Even the outwardly respectable and very ordinary person who lives next door, to whom we so seldom speak, is at once clothed with a new interest in our minds, if we really believe that there is a pardon coming for him from the King of kings.

He prays. Yes, this is the great prayer. What an example He has left us! It was not enough to die for the sinful--the ungrateful--the abominable--He must needs pray for them. Dear friend, you may have done many things for the ungodly around you--you may have preached to them, and set them also a lofty example of goodness; you may even have greatly suffered on their behalf; but I can imagine one thing still wanting: have you prayed the Father for them?

Remember, He pleaded for the worst: those very men who said, "Let His blood be on us, and on our children." He prayed even for those, and I do not doubt that He was heard. Indeed, it was, I earnestly believe, His prayer which helped on that speedy revival in Jerusalem; and among the three thousand over whom Peter and the rest rejoiced were some who had urged on and then witnessed His cruel death, and for whom His tender accents ascended to the Throne of God amid the final agony of His cross.

Dear friend, are you "becoming conformed unto His death"?

II.

"To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise."

"He saved others-He saved others--Himself He cannot save!" Amidst the din of discordant voices, this taunt sounded out clear and loud, and fell upon the ears of a dying thief. Perhaps, as so often happens now, the Devil over-reached himself even then, and the strange words made the poor criminal think. "'Others'--'others'--He saves others--then why not me?" Presently he answered the railing unbelief of his fellow-prisoner; and then, in the simple language of faith, said to the Saviour: "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom."