John 11:57

REFLECTIONS

What a blessed thing it is, when at any time, upon the sickness of our friends or ourselves, we are enabled to tell Jesus, as those sorrowful sisters did: Lord! behold he whom thou lovest is sick! Oh! the privilege of knowing the Lord, and knowing that we are beloved by him! Reader! do you know the sweetness of thus daily, yea, sometimes hourly, going to the court of this gracious heavenly King, and receiving a look, a love-token, from Jesus himself, amidst the crowds which attend his Levee? And my soul observe: Reader do you also observe, how graciously the Lord proposed to visit the sorrowful family of Lazarus, under their bereaving providence. And although two days elapsed before he went, yet this delay was all in greater mercy, as the sequel of the history proved. Learn then from hence, how to interpret silence in the Lord. It is for the greater glory of the Lord, and the greater good of his people.

Reader! look, and look again, to the Lord, as he approached the grave of him whom he loved. Oh! that I had the power of persuasion, methinks I would call all whom Jesus loves, and who love Jesus, to take their stand there, and by faith, and behold the Son of God in our nature, shedding tears and groaning in spirit, over the sad consequence of sin, in our death. And didst thou, dearest Lord, mingle thy tears with ours, at such a sight. Didst thou indeed give such a proof, that because the children were partakers of flesh and blood, thou thyself hast taken part of the same? Oh! for grace to have it always in remembrance. Jesus wept. Jesus knows, and hath felt, what human sorrows are. Never, never my soul be thou afraid to go to him, in all thy afflictions, He that wept at the grave of Lazarus, and took part in the weepings of the sorrowful sisters, will take part in thine. He knoweth thy frame, and remembereth that thou art dust.

Hail! thou that livest and wast dead; and behold thou art alive forevermore. Still by the ear of faith, I hear thy soul-reviving, body-quickening words: I am the resurrection and the life! Lord Jesus! give me that sweet earnest and pledge of the first resurrection in grace, here below; and sure I am that in thee, and from thee, I shall have part in the resurrection to glory hereafter. And dearest Lord! while my soul rejoiceth in hope of the glory of God; in the awful character of this High Priest Caiaphas, and in all the awful characters beside in every generation, which like those who went their way to the Pharisees, unconvinced at the resurrection of Lazarus; most fully deciding that grace alone makes all the difference; teach me to whom to look, and to whom to ascribe the source of all my mercies. Though one arose from the dead, such will not believe. And wherein Lord do I differ from them, but what grace hath made? Oh! prepare me, by living wholly upon thee, deriving all from thee, and ascribing all to thee; for the great and awful day of my God, when the dead shall hear thy voice, and come forth; some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting shame and contempt. In that all-decisive hour, be thou to me the resurrection and the life, and my portion forever.