THE DIVINE PLEADER
The stone is rolled away, but there is a solemn pause
just when the miracle is about to be performed. Jesus prays! The God-Man
Mediator—the Lord of Life—the Abolisher of Death—the Being of all Beings—who
had the boundless treasures of eternity in His grasp—pauses by the grave of
the dead, and lifts up His eyes to heaven in supplication! How often in the
same incidents, during our Lord's incarnation, do we find His manhood
and His Godhead standing together in stupendous contrast. At His
birth, the mystic star and the lowly manger were together; at His death, the
ignominious cross and the eclipsed sun were together. Here He weeps and
prays at the very moment when He is baring the arm of Omnipotence. The
"mighty God" appears in conjunction with "the man Christ Jesus." "His name
is Immanuel, God with us."
The body of Lazarus was now probably, by the rolling away
of the stone, exposed to view. It was a humiliating sight. Earth—the
grave—could afford no solace to the spectators. The Redeemer, by a
significant act, shows them where alone, at such an hour, comfort can be
found. He points the mourning spirit to its only true source of consolation
and peace in God Himself, teaching it to rise above the mortal to the
immortal—the corruptible to the incorruptible—from earth to heaven.
Ah! there is nothing but humiliation and sadness in every
view of the grave and corruption. Why dwell on the shattered casket, and not
rather on the jewel which is sparkling brighter than ever in a better world?
Why persist in gazing on the trophies of the last enemy, when we can
joyfully realize the emancipated soul exulting in the plenitude of purchased
bliss? Why fall with broken wing and wailing cry to the dust, when on
eagle-pinion we can soar to the celestial gate, and learn the unkindness of
wishing the sainted and crowned one back to the nether valley?
It is Prayer, observe, which thus brings the eye
and the heart near to heaven. It is Prayer which opens the celestial
portals, and gives to the soul a sight of the invisible.
Yes; you who may be now weeping in unavailing sorrow over
the departed, remember, in conjunction with the tears, the prayers
of Jesus. Many a desolate mourner derives comfort from the thought "Jesus
wept." Do not forget this other simple entry in our touching narrative,
telling where the spirit should ever rest amid the shadows of death—"Jesus
lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank You that You have heard me.
And I know that You hear me always."
Let us gather for a little around this incident in the
story of Bethany. It is one of the many golden sayings of priceless value.
That utterance has at this moment lost none of its preciousness; that voice,
silent on earth, is still eloquent in heaven. The Great Intercessor still is
there, "walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;" loving to
note all the needs and weaknesses, the necessities and distresses, of every
Church, and every member of His Church. What He said of old to Peter, He
says to every trembling believer—"I have prayed, and am praying for you,
that your faith fail not!" "For you!" We must not merge the interest
which Jesus has in each separate member of His family, in His
intercession for the Church in general. While He lets down His censer, and
receives into it, for presentation on the golden altar, the prayers of the
vast aggregate; while, as the true High Priest, He enters the holiest of all
with the names of His spiritual Israel on His breastplate—carrying the
burden of their hourly needs to the foot of the mercy-seat—yet still, He
pleads, as if the case of each stood separate and alone!
He remembers you, dejected mourner, as if there were no
other heart but yours to be healed, and no other tears but yours to be
dried. His own words, speaking of believers, not collectively, but
individually, are these—"I will confess his name before my Father and his
angels." "Who touched me?" was His interrogation once on earth, as
His discriminating love was conscious of some special contact amid the press
of the multitude—"Somebody has touched me!" If we can say, in the language
of Paul's appropriating faith, "He loved me, and gave Himself for
me," we can add, He pleads for me, and bears me! He bears this very
heart of mine, with all its weaknesses, and infirmities, and sins, before
His Father's throne. He has engraved each stone of His Zion on the "palms of
His hands," and "its walls are continually before Him!"
How untiring, too, in His advocacy! What has the
Christian so to complain of, as his own cold, unworthy prayers—mixed so with
unbelief—soiled with worldliness—sometimes guiltily omitted or curtailed.
Not the fervid prayers of those feelingly alive to their spiritual
exigencies, but listless, unctionless, the hands hanging down, the knees
feeble and trembling!
But notwithstanding all, Jesus pleads! Still the Great
Intercessor "waits to be gracious." He is at once, both Moses on the
mountain, and Joshua on the battle-plain—fighting with us in the one,
praying for us in the other. No Aarons or Hurs needed to sustain His sinking
strength, for it is His sublime prerogative neither to "faint nor grow
weary!" There is no loftier occupation for faith than to speed upwards to
the throne and behold that wondrous Pleader, receiving at one moment,
and at every moment, the countless supplications and prayers which are
coming up before Him from every corner of His Church. The Sinner just
awake from his moral slumber, and in the agonies of conviction, exclaiming,
"What must I do to be saved?"—The Procrastinator sending up from the
brink of despair the cry of importunate agony.—The Backslider wailing
forth his bitter lamentation over guilty departures, and foul ingratitude,
and injured love.—The Sick man feebly groaning forth, in undertones
of suffering, his petition for support.—The Dying, on the brink of
eternity, invoking the presence and support of the alone arm which can be of
any avail to them.—The Bereaved, in the fresh gush of their sorrow,
calling upon Him who is the healer of the brokenhearted. But all
heard! Every tear marked—every sigh registered—every suppliant
supported!
Amalek may come threatening nothing but disaster; but
that pleading Voice on the heavenly Hill is "greater far than all that can
be against us!" He pleads for His elect in every phase of their spiritual
history—He pleads for their in-gathering into His fold—He pleads for their
perseverance in grace—He pleads for their deliverance at once from the
accusations and the power of Satan—He pleads for their growing
sanctification—and when the battle of life is over, He uplifts His last
pleading voice for their complete glorification.
The intercession of Jesus is the golden key which unlocks
the gates of Paradise to the departing soul. At a saint's dying moments
we are too often occupied with the lower earthly scene to think of the
heavenly. The tears of surrounding relatives cloud too often the more
glorious revelations which faith discloses. But in the muffled stillness of
that death-chamber, when each is holding his breath as the King of Terrors
passes by—if we could listen to it, we would hear the "Prince who has power
with God" thus uttering His final prayer, and on the rushing wings of
ministering angels receiving an answer while He is yet speaking—"Father, I
will that they also, whom you have given Me, be with Me where I am, that
they may behold My glory!"
Reader! exult more and more in this all-prevailing
Advocate. See that you approach the mercy-seat with no other trust but in
His atoning work and meritorious righteousness. There was but ONE solitary
man of the whole human race who, of old, in the Jewish temple, was permitted
to speak face to face with Jehovah. There is but ONE solitary Being in the
vast universe of God who, in the heavenly sanctuary, can effectually plead
in behalf of His Spiritual Israel. "Seeing, then, that we have a Great High
Priest passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us come boldly to
the throne of grace."
If Jesus delights in asking, God delights in bestowing.
Let us put our every need, and difficulty, and perplexity, in His hand,
feeling the precious assurance that all which is really good for us will be
given, and all that is adverse will, in equal mercy, be withheld. There is
no limitation set to our requests. The treasury of grace is flung wide open
for every suppliant. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatever you shall ask
the Father in my name He will give it you." Surely we may cease to wonder
that the Great Apostle should have clung with such intense interest to this
elevating theme—the Savior's intercession—that in his brief, but most
comprehensive and beautiful creed, he should have so exalted, as he does,
its relative importance, compared with other cognate truths, "It is Christ
who died, yes rather, who has risen again, who is even at the right hand of
God, who also makes intercession for us."
Climbing, step by step, in the upward ascent of Christian
faith and hope, he seems only to "reach the height of his great argument"
when he stands on "the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense."
There, gazing on the face of the great officiating Priest who fills all
heaven with His fragrance, and feeling that against that intercession the
gates of hell can never prevail, he can utter the challenge to devils, and
angels, and men, "Who shall separate as from the love of Christ?"