“Oh never, till the clouds of time
Have vanish’d from the ken of man,
And he from yonder heaven sublime
Look back where mystic life began,
Will gather’d saints in glory know
What blessings men to angels owe.
“This earth is but a thorny wild,
A tangled maze where griefs abound,
By sorrow vex’d, by sin defiled,
Where foes and friends our walk surround;
But does not God in mercy say,
Angelic guardians line the way?
“Sickness and woe perchance may have
Ethereal hosts whom none perceive,
Whose golden wings around us wave
When all alone men seem to grieve;
But while we sigh or shed the tear,
Their sympathies may linger near.
“When gracious beams of holy light
From heaven’s half-open’d portals play,
And from our scene of suffering night
Melts nigh its haunted gloom away;
Each doubt perchance some angel sees,
And hovers o’er our bended knees!
“And when at length this wearied life
Of toil and danger breathes its last,
Or ere the flesh, with parting strife,
Is down to clay and coldness cast;
The struggling soul can learn the story,
How angels waft the blest to glory.”[47]
But, after all, can Angels really impart comfort? They cannot. They are but servants and delegates of a Mightier than they. Like all ministers and messengers, if they can dry a human tear and soothe a human sorrow, it is by pointing, not to themselves, but to their glorious and glorified Lord. What was their message now? Was it, “We are come to supply the place of your Ascended Redeemer—we are henceforth to be your appointed helpers—the objects of your faith, and hope, and confidence, in the house of your pilgrimage?” No! The eyes of the disciples are gazing upwards and heavenwards. The Angels tell them not in anywise to alter the direction of their thoughts and affections. They are musing (as in vain they still wistfully look for any relic of the chariot-cloud) on “Jesus only.” They are to think of “Him only” still! The Celestial Visitants seem to say, “Ye men of Galilee, we cannot comfort you;—we would prove but poor solaces and compensations for the Adorable Saviour who has left you. We come not to take His place—but to speak to you still regarding Him. He has left you! but it is only for a season; and better than this, although He has left you, He loves you as much as ever. Even in that distant glory to which He has sped His way, His heart is unchanged and unchangeable—His name is ‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.’”
Here then was their first theme of comfort. It was the name of Jesus. That “name of their Lord” was still to be their “strong tower!” Oh, there is something touchingly beautiful about this angelic address. What a simple but sublime antidote for these stricken Spirits, “That same Jesus.” “That same Jesus,”—He who laid His infant head on the manger at Bethlehem—He who walked on the Sea of Tiberias, and hushed its angry waves—He who spoke comfort to a stricken spirit at the well of Sychar, and at the gate of Nain—He who, in yonder palm-clad village sleeping in quiet loveliness at their feet, soothed the pangs of deeply afflicted hearts, and made death itself yield its prey—He who had first shed His tears and then His blood over the city He loved—He who so freely forgave, so meekly suffered, so willingly died! “That same Jesus” was still on High! The Brother’s form was still there! The Kinsman-Redeemer’s sympathy was still there! Though all heaven was then doing Him homage—though He had exchanged the chilling ingratitude of earth for the glories of an unsullied world of purity and love—yet nothing could blot out from His heart the names of those whom He had still left for a little season behind, to be bearers of His cross before they became sharers of His crown!
What a comfort, amid all earth’s vicissitudes and changes, this motto-verse! Earth may change. Since the Lord ascended, earth has changed! There are “Written rocks”—manifold more than those of Sinai—that bear engraven on their furrowed brows, “The world passeth away.” Ocean’s old shores have transgressed their boundaries—kingdoms have risen and fallen—thronging cities have sprung up amid desert wastes—and proud capitals have been levelled with the dust. Friends may change; our very lot and circumstances, in spite of ourselves, may change. Our fondly planned schemes and cherished hopes may vanish into thin air, and the place that now knows us know us no more! But there is One that changeth not—a Rock which stands immutable amid all the ceaseless heavings and commotions of this mortal life—and that Rock is Christ!
Has he ever failed us? Ask the tried Christian. Ask the aged Christian. That gray-haired believer may be like a solitary oak in the forest—all his compeers cut down—tempest after tempest has sighed and swept amid the branches—tree by tree has succumbed to the blast—there may be nothing but wreck and ruin and devastation all around. Friend after friend has departed; some have altered towards him; kindness may have given way to alien looks and estranged affection; others are removed by distance—old familiar faces and scenes have given place to new ones;—others have been called away to the silent grave—sleeping quiet and still in “the narrow house appointed for all living.” That aged lonely Christian can clasp his withered hands, and exclaim, through his tears, “But Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end.” “Heart and flesh do faint and fail, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”
“My God, I thank thee, Thou dost care for me;
I am content rejoicing to go on,
Even when my home seems very far away;
And over grief, and aching emptiness,
And fading hopes a higher joy ariseth.
In nightliest hours one lonely spot is bright,
High over head, through folds and folds of space;
It is the earnest star of all my heavens,
And tremulous in the deep-well of my being,
Its image answers. * * * * I will think of Jesus.”[48]