SECOND CAUSES
With a bounding heart, Mary was in a moment at her
Master's feet. She weeps! and is able only to articulate, in broken accents,
"Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." It is the
repetition of Martha's same expression. Often at a season of sore
bereavement some one poignant thought or reflection takes possession of the
mind, and, for the time, overmasters every other. This echo of the other
mourner's utterance leads us to conclude that it had been a familiar and
often-quoted phrase during these days of protracted agony. This independent
quotation, indeed, on the part of each, gives a truthful beauty to the whole
inspired narrative.
The two sisters, musing on the terrible past, gazing
through their tears on the vacant seat at their home-hearth, had been every
now and then breaking the gloomy silence of the deserted chamber by
exclaiming, "If He had been here, this never would have happened! This is
the bitterest drop in our cup—all might have been different! These hot tears
might never have dimmed our eyes; our beloved Lazarus might have been a
living and loving brother still! Oh! that the Lord had delayed for a brief
week that needless journey, or anticipated by four days his longed-for
return; or would that we had dispatched our messenger earlier for Him. It is
now too late. Though He has at last come, His advent can be of little avail.
The dreadful destroyer has been at our cottage door before Him. He may
soothe our grief, but the blow cannot be averted. His friend, and our
brother, is locked in sleep too deep to be disturbed.
Ah! is it not the same unkind surmise which is still
often heard in the hour of bereavement and in the home of death?—a
guilty, unholy brooding over second causes? "If such and such had been
done, my child would still be alive. If that means, or that remedy, or that
judicious caution had been employed, this terrible overthrow of my earthly
hopes would never have occurred; that loved one would have been still
walking at my side; that chaplet of sorrows would not now have been girding
my brow; the Bethany sepulcher would have been unopened—"This my brother,
would not have died!"
Hush! hush! these guilty insinuations—that dethroning of
God from the Providential Sovereignty of His own world—that hasty and
inconsiderate verdict on His divine procedure.
"If You had been here!" Can we, dare we doubt it?
Is the departure of the immortal soul to the spirit-world so trivial a
matter that the life-giving God takes no cognizance of it? No! Mourning one,
in the deep night of your sorrow, you must rise above "untoward
coincidences"—you must cancel the words "accident" and "fate" from your
vocabulary of trial. God, your God, was there! If there are
perplexing accompaniments, be assured they were of His permitting; all was
planned—wisely, kindly planned. Question not the unerring rectitude of His
dealings. Though apparently absent, He was really present.
The apparent veiling of His countenance is only what
Cowper calls "the severer aspect of His love." Kiss the rod that
smites—adore the hand that lays low. Pillow your head on that simple, yet
grandest source of composure—"The Lord reigns!" It is not for us to
venture to dictate what the procedure of infinite love and wisdom should be.
To our dim and distorted views of things, it might have been more for
the glory of God and the Church's good, if the "beautiful bird of light" had
still "sat with its folded wings" before it sped to nestle in the eaves of
Heaven.
But if its earthly song has been early hushed; if those
full of promise have been allowed rather to fall asleep in Jesus, "Even so,
Father; for it seems good in Your sight!" It was from no lack of power or
ability on God's part that they were not recalled from the gates of death.
"We will be silent—we will open not our mouths, because You did it."
Afflicted one! if the brother or friend whom you now
mourn be a brother in glory—if he be now among the white-robed multitude—his
last tear wept—forever beyond reach of a sinning and sorrowing world—can you
upbraid your God for his early departure? Would you weep him back if you
could from his eternal crown?
Fond human nature, as it stands in trembling agony
watching the ebbing pulses of life, would willingly arrest the pale
messenger—stay the chariot—and have this wilderness re-lighted with
his smile. But when all is over, and you are able to contemplate, with calm
emotion, the untold bliss into which the unfettered spirit has entered, do
you not feel as if it were cruel selfishness alone that would unclothe that
sainted pilgrim of his glory, and bring him once more back to earth's cares
and tribulations?
We sadly watched the close of all,
Life balanced in a breath;
We saw upon his features fall
The awful shade of death.
All dark and desolate we were;
And murmuring nature cried
'Oh! surely, Lord! had You been here,
Our brother had not died!'
But when its glance the memory cast
On all that grace had done;
And thought of life's long warfare passed,
And endless victory won,
Then faith prevailing, wiped the tear,
And looking upward, cried,
'O Lord! You surely have been here,
Our brother has not died!'
We have already had occasion to note the impressive and
significant silence of the Savior to Mary. We may just again revert
to it in a sentence here. Martha had, a few moments before, given vent to
the same impassioned utterance respecting her departed brother. Jesus had
replied to her; questioned her as to her faith; and opened up to her sublime
sources of solace and consolation. With Mary it is different. He responds to
her also—but it is only in silence and in tears! Why this distinction? Does
it not unfold to us a lovely feature in the dealings of Jesus—how He
adapts Himself to the peculiarities of individual character. With those
of a bolder temperament He can argue and remonstrate—with those of a meek,
sensitive, contemplative spirit, He can be silent and weep!
The stout but manly heart of Peter needed at times a bold
and cutting rebuke; a similar reproof would have crushed to the dust the
tender soul of John. The character of the one is painted in his walking on
the stormy water to meet his Lord; of the other, in his reclining on the
bosom of the same Divine Master, drinking sacred draughts at the
Fountain-head of love!
So it was with Martha and Mary, "the Peter and John of
Bethany;" and so it is with His people still. How beautifully and
considerately Jesus studies their case—adapting His dealings to what He sees
and knows they can bear—fitting the yoke to the neck, and the neck to the
yoke. To some He is "the Lion of the tribe of Judah, uttering His thunders,"
pleading with Martha-spirits "by terrible things in righteousness." To
others (the shrinking, sensitive Marys) whispering only accents of
gentleness; giving expression to no needless word that would aggravate or
embitter their sorrows.
Ah, believer! how tenderly considerate is your dear Lord!
Well may you make it your prayer, "Let me fall into the hands of God, for
great are His mercies!" He may at times, like Joseph to His brethren, appear
to "speak roughly," but it is in secret kindness. When a father
inflicts on his wayward child the severest and harshest discipline, none but
he can tell the bitter heart-pangs of yearning love that accompany every
stroke of the rod.
So it is with your Father in Heaven; with this
difference, that the earthly parent may act unwisely, arbitrarily,
indiscreetly—he may misjudge the necessities of the case—he may do violence
and harm to his offspring. Not so with an all-wise Heavenly Parent. He will
inflict no unessential or unneeded chastisement. Man may err, has erred, and
is ever erring—but "as for God, His way is perfect!"