THE HOME SCENE
The curtain rises on a quiet Judean village, the
sanctuary of three holy hearts. Each of the residents have some
strongly-marked traits of individual character. These have been so often
delicately and truthfully drawn that it is the less necessary to dwell
minutely upon them here. There is abundant material in the narrative to
discover to us, in the sisters, two characters—both interesting in
themselves, both beloved by Jesus, both needful in the Church of God, but at
the same time widely different, preparing by a diverse education for
heaven—requiring, as we shall find, from Him who best knew their diversity,
a separate and peculiar treatment.
MARTHA, the elder (probably the eldest of the family),
has been accurately represented as the type of activity; bustling,
energetic, impulsive, well qualified to be the head of the household, and to
grapple with the stern realities and routine of actual life; quick in
apprehension, strong and vigorous in intellect, anxious to give a reason for
all she did, and requiring a reason for the conduct of others; a useful if
not a noble character, combining diligence in business with fervency in
spirit.
MARY was the type of reflection; calm, meek,
devotional, contemplative, sensitive in feeling, ill suited to battle with
the cares and sorrows, the strifes and griefs of an engrossing and
encumbering world; one of those gentle flowers that pine and bend under the
rough blasts of life, easily battered down by hail and storm, but as ready
to raise its drooping leaves under heavenly influences. Her position was at
her Lord's feet, drinking in those living waters which came welling up fresh
from the great Fountain of life; asking no questions, declining all
arguments, gentle and submissive, a beautiful impersonation of the childlike
faith which "bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things."
While her sister can so command her feelings as to be
able to rush forth to meet her Lord outside the village, calm and
self-possessed, to unbosom to Him all her hopes and fears, and even to
interrogate Him about death and the resurrection, Mary can only meet Him
buried in her all-absorbing grief. The crushed leaves of that flower of
paradise are bathed and saturated with dewy tears. She has not a word of
remonstrance. Jesus speaks to Martha—chides her—reasons with her. But with
Mary, He knew that the heart was too full, the wound too deep, to bear the
probing of word or argument; He speaks, therefore, in the touching pathos of
her own silent grief. Her melting emotion has its response in His own.
In one word, Martha was one of those meteor spirits
rushing to and fro amid the ceaseless activities of life, softened and
saddened, but not prostrated and crushed by the sudden inroads of sorrow.
Mary, again, we think of as one of those angel forms which now and then seem
to walk the earth from the spirit-land; a quiet evening star, shedding its
mellowed radiance among deepening twilight shadows, as if her home was in a
brighter sphere, and her choice, as we know it was, "the better part, that
never could be taken from her."
"What Mary fell short in words she made up in tears. She
said less than Martha, but wept more; and tears of devout affection have a
voice, a loud prevailing voice—no rhetoric like that." (Matthew Henry)
Of LAZARUS, around whom the main interest of the
narrative gathers, we have fewer incidental touches to guide us in giving
individuality to his character. This, however, we may infer, from the
poignant sorrow of the twin hearts that were so unexpectedly broken, that he
was a loved and lamented only brother, a sacred prop around which
their tenderest affections were entwined. Included too, as he was, in the
love which the Divine Savior bore to the household, for "Jesus loved
Lazarus." Is it presumptuous to imagine that his spirit had been cast into
much the same human mold as that of his beloved Lord, and that the
friendship of Jesus for him had been formed on the same principles on which
friendships are formed still—a similarity of disposition, some mental
and moral resemblances and idiosyncrasies? They were like-minded, so far as
a fallible nature and the nature of a stainless humanity could
be assimilated. We can think of him as gentle, retiring, amiable, forgiving,
heavenly-minded; an imperfect and shadowy, it may be, but
still a faithful reflection and transcript of incarnate loveliness.
May we not venture to use regarding him his Lord's eulogy on another,
"Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!"
Nor must we forget, in this rapid sketch, what a precious
unfolding we have in this home portraiture of the humanity of the Savior!
"The Man Christ Jesus" stands in softened majesty and tenderness before
our view. He who had a heart capacious enough to take in all mankind, had
yet His special likings (sinless partialities) for individuals and minds
which were more than others congenial and kindred with His own. As there are
some heart sanctuaries where we can more readily rush to bury the tale of
our sorrows or unburden our perplexities, so had He. "Jesus wept!"—this
speaks of Him as the human Sympathizer. "Jesus loved Lazarus"—this
speaks of Him as the human Friend! He had an ardent affection for all
His disciples, but even among them there was an inner circle of
holier attachments—a Peter, and James, and John; and out of this sacred trio
again there was one pre-eminently "Beloved." So, amid the hallowed haunts of
Palestine, the homes of Judea, the cities of Galilee, there was but one
Bethany.
It is delightful thus to think of the heart of Jesus, in
all but sin, as purely human, identical and identified with our own.
He was no hermit, dwelling in mysterious solitariness apart from His
fellows, but open to the charities of life—in all His refined and hallowed
sensibilities "made like unto His brethren." Friendship is itself a
holy thing. The bright intelligences in the upper sanctuary know it and
experience it. They "cry one to another." Theirs is no solitary voice—no
isolated existence. Unlike the planets in the material firmament, shining
distant and apart, the angels are rather clustering constellations,
whose gravitation-law is unity and love, this binding them to one another,
and all to God.
No! with reverence we say it—may not the archetype of all
friendship be found shadowed forth in what is higher still, those mystic
and ineffable communings subsisting between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
in a past eternity? We can thus regard the friendship of Jesus on earth—like
all ennobled, purified affections—as an emanation from the Divine; a sacred
and holy stream, flowing directly from the Fountain of infinite love. How
our adorable Lord in the days of His flesh fondly clung even to hearts that
grew faithless when fidelity was most needed! What was it but a noble and
touching tribute to the longings and susceptibilities of His holy soul
for human friendship, when, on entering the precincts of Gethsemane, He
thus sought to mitigate the untold sorrows of that awful hour—"Tarry here
and watch with Me!"
But to return. Such was the home around which the
memories of its residents and our own, love to linger. Mary, Martha, and
Lazarus—all three partakers of the same grace, fellow-pilgrims Zionward, and
that journey sanctified and hallowed by a sacred fellowship with the Lord of
pilgrims. The Savior's own precious promise seems under that roof of lowly
unobtrusive love to receive a living fulfillment: "Where two or three are
gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." Though many
a gorgeous palace was at that era adorning the earth, where was the spot,
what the dwelling, half so consecrated as this? Solomon had a thousand years
before, two miles distant, in presence of assembled Israel, uttered the
exclamation, "But will God in very deed dwell with men upon earth?"
He was now verily dwelling! Nor was it under any gorgeous
canopy or magnificent temple. He had selected Three Human Souls as
the shrines He most loved. He had sought their holy, heavenly converse as
the sweetest incense and costliest sacrifice. How or where they first saw
Jesus we cannot tell. They had probably been among the number of those pious
Jews who had prayerfully waited for the "consolation of Israel," and who had
lived to see their fondest wishes and hopes realized. The Evangelist gives
no information regarding their previous history. The narrative all at once,
with an abruptness of surpassing beauty, leaves us in no doubt that the
Divine Redeemer had been for long, a well-known guest in that sunlit home,
and that, when the calls and duties of His public ministry were suspended,
many an hour was spent in the enjoyment of its peaceful seclusion.
We can imagine, and no more, these often happy meetings,
when the Pilgrim-Savior, weary and worn, was seen descending the rocky
footpath of Olivet, Lazarus or his sisters, from the flat roof of their
dwelling, or under the spreading fig-tree, eager to catch the first glimpse
of His approach. When seated in the house, we may picture their converse:
Themes of sublime and heavenly import, unchronicled by the inspired penmen,
which sunk deep into those listening spirits, and nerved two of them for a
future hour of unexpected sorrow. If there be bliss in the interchange of
communion between Christian and Christian, what must it have been to have
had the presence and fellowship of the Lord Himself! Not seeing Him, as we
see Him, "behind the lattice," but seated underneath His shadow, drinking in
the living tones of His living voice. These "children of Zion" must, indeed,
have been "joyful in their King."
One of these hallowed seasons is that referred to in the
10th chapter of Luke's gospel, where Martha, the ministering spirit, and
Mary the lowly disciple, are first introduced to our notice. That visit is
conjectured to have occurred when Jesus was returning to the country from
the Feast of Tabernacles. The Bethany circle had not yet dreamt of their
impending trial. But, foreseen as it was by Him who knows the end from the
beginning, may we not well believe one reason (the main reason) for His
going there was to soothe them in the prospect of a saddened home? So
that, when the stroke did descend, they might be cheered and consoled with
the remembrances of His visit, and of the gracious words which proceeded out
of His mouth.
And, is not this still the way Jesus deals with His
people? He visits them often by some precious love-tokens—some special
manifestations of His grace and presence before the hour of trial. So that,
when that hour does come, they may not be altogether incapacitated or
overwhelmed with it. Like Elijah of old, they have their miraculous food
provided before they encounter the sterile desert. When they come to speak
of their crushed hearts, they have solaces to tell of too. Their language
is, "I will sing of mercy and judgment!"
We may be led to inquire why a character so lovely as
that of Lazarus was not enlisted along with the other disciples in the
active service of the Apostleship. "Why should Peter and Andrew, John and
James, be summoned from their boats and nets on Lake Gennesaret to follow
Jesus, and this other, imbued with the same spirit and honored with the same
regard, be left alone and undisturbed in his village home?"
"To every man there is a work." Some are more peculiarly
called to active duty, and better fitted for it; others for passive
obedience and suffering. Some are selected as bold standard-bearers of the
cross, others to give their testimony in the quiet seclusion of domestic
life. Some are specially gifted, as Paul, to appear in the halls of Nero or
on the heights of Mars' Hill, and, confronting face to face the world's
boasted wisdom, maintain intact the honor of their Lord. Others are required
to glorify Him on beds of sickness, or in homes of sorrow, or in the holy
consistent tenor of their everyday walk. Some are called as Levites to
temple service; others to give the uncostly cup of cold water, or the
widow's mite. Others to manifest the meek, gentle, unselfish, resigned,
forgiving heart, when there is no cup or mite to offer!
Believer! rejoice that your path is marked out for you.
Your lot in life, with all its "accidents," is your Lord's appointing. Dream
not, in your own short-sighted wisdom, that, had you occupied some other or
more prominent position—had your talents been greater, or your worldly
influence more extensive—you might have glorified your God in a way which is
at present denied to you. He can be served in the lowliest as well as in
the most exalted stations! As the tiniest leaf or smallest star in the
world of nature reflects His glory, as well as the giant mountain or blazing
sun, so does He graciously own and recognize the humblest effort of lowly
love no less than the most lavish gifts which splendid munificence and
costly devotion can cast into His treasury. Let it be your great aim and
ambition to honor Him just in the position He has seen fit to assign you.
"Let every man," says the Apostle, "wherein he is called,
therein abide with God." However limited your sphere, you may become a
center of holy influences to the little world around you. Your heart
may be an incense-altar of love and affection, kindness and gentleness to
man—your life a perpetual hymn of praise to your Father in Heaven;
glorifying Him, like Martha, by active service; like Mary, by
sitting at His feet; or, like Lazarus, by holy living and happy
dying, and leaving behind you "the Memory of the Just" which is "blessed."