But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him; Wherefore comfort ye one another with these words. 1 Thess. 4:13, 14, 18.C oncerning them which are asleep! What Christian delicacy breathes in these words! When writing to friends who are in bereavement, or conversing with them, we often catch ourselves feeling after some word which will gently intimate our meaning without rudely obtruding it. We allude to the departed, the friend who is gone, the absent one, etc.
How is it that we have not adopted that phrase which is the favourite expression in the New Testament, and which is at once so touching, so tender, and so true, Concerning Them Which Are Asleep?
The great truth out of which the apostle brings comfort is that they who are asleep in Jesus shall awake again, and that we shall share their company and be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we forever be with the Lord.
So fully has the gospel fixed in our minds the truth of the blessed immortality of those who have fallen asleep in Jesus that we hardly need to be comforted concerning them. We are sure that they are supremely happy. The loss is ours, not theirs; it is we who are mourners. We need to comfort our own hearts when we have been compelled to watch them falling asleep and tearfully lay them away where no sounds can disturb their slumber.
I wish to suggest some thoughts of comfort which we, who are alive and remain, may cherish concerning friends who sleep in Jesus.
First of all, it is comforting to think that as the gift of our friends was from God, so is the withdrawing. After all our solicitude and watchful care, and it may seem in denial of our prayers, they have been taken. It is one of the sweetest persuasives to submission to remind ourselves that it is the good pleasure of our Heavenly Father which has brought it all about and that He gives His beloved sleep. Disease could not have done it, nor weakness, much less the enemy of our peace. It is the Lord. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, and His love was as great and His mercy as eminent and his hand as tender in the taking as in the giving.
Does God care for sparrows, so that not one of them falls to the ground without our Father? And when a life in which the hope and joy of loving hearts are bound up, and around which the holiest interests of many of His faithful servants are gathered, in which, it may be, the welfare of praying households is involved; when the soul of one of his own children is struggling with disease, shall we imagine that our Father forgets, or fails to interpose in the right way? Does He allow one sigh to escape without his notice? Is it not to carry out some loving purpose by which to surprise us in due time, that He hushes the throbbing heart and gives the weary rest?
When beloved ones have fallen asleep we sometimes conjure up explanations why it was, and imaginations how it might have been otherwise. If this had been done, if that had not been allowed, if we had been more thoughtful to guard against some special exposure, we fondly imagine the stroke would have been averted.
Certainly we ought to blame ourselves for wilful and criminal carelessness. But when we have prayerfully endeavoured to do all we could, when we have sought in the best exercise of an anxious judgment and a loving heart to restore health to the sick, there is a want of submission to our Saviour's Will if we question whether the result might have been otherwise. If He had seen fit to prolong the precious life, would He not have overruled any mistakes which our affection made? Were we not praying to be guided right, and did He not purposely allow us to do what we did?
The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord. Not only is the resting place provided, but the way to it is all arranged. The providence of God reaches down to the little things by which events come to pass. When our vigilance endeavours to thwart His love and hold back in the sorrows of earth those he is preparing to translate to heaven, He may purposely allow us to be blinded, so that we do not see that the very things which our love prompts us to do are secretly hastening the end which we dread.
The Lord has given to us the companionship and joy of a beloved friend. He has endowed him with manifold graces and made him the channel of great blessings. He has given shaping to our whole earthly life, and it may be to our eternal destiny, by the discipline and by the moulding and interdependence of this minister of His mercy. Having done for us what He saw needful, and accomplished the special purpose in our behalf which this friend was intended to accomplish, He has withdrawn him for higher services and nobler ministries.
We have enjoyed the precious gift of God for many years and shall ever thank Him for it. The withdrawal is as wisely intended and is to answer as merciful purposes. We have nothing to reproach ourselves for. We have done what we could to retain it. He has said, Come up higher. We have nothing to reproach Him for. It is sweet to lie passive in His hands.
Is it not a thought of comfort that, far above and beyond all the causes we may conjure up by which to account for their departure, there was a divine and gracious purpose concerning them which are asleep? I will, said the Saviour in His prayer for the redeemed,I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory. Thy will, O Lord, be done!
It is a thought of comfort concerning them which are asleep that we now see them in their true light. Death reveals to us much we had not recognized in our friends, makes more vivid that which we had seen to be beautiful, and throws sunlight in among the shadows, so that we now appreciate their characters more thoughtfully.
Sculptors are sometimes unwilling to admit visitors to the penetralia of the studio where they are working out their ideals. They do not wish us to see a statue when it is but a rude semblance of what it is to be. They do not like to have profane eyes notice how rough and angular many parts are, and watch the process by which the chisel and the file reduce the stone and bring out the inlying beauty.
But God permits us to handle familiarly His uncompleted statues, and look on while He is working into shape the lives of His children. It would be very strange if we saw in them, when in the rough, what He sees and what He is bringing out. By His discipline, in due time, all will be brought into the form He intends. So long as friends are living their lives are incomplete. Death rounds them out to perfectness. They are not finished till then. And when finished they need to be lifted upward, in order to assume their just proportions and enable us to stand where we can see them in the proper light.
A statue intended for the cornice of a building, or to fill a niche in the archway of a cathedral choir, must not be judged by its appearance when it is lying on the pavement or set upon a temporary pedestal. We often misjudge those who are the closest to us because they are too near to be seen in the attitude God designs them to assume. When they are elevated so that we can walk around and look up to them, we may catch the true expression and discern perhaps an ethereal beauty unsuggested before.
In the sister art of painting it is still more important that a picture be hung in proper light. The only good light is light from above. The canvas needs to be pleasantly bounded also, the picture to be set in a suitable frame, that the shadows may be deepened and the different figures not be confused with surrounding objects. It is one office of death to set our pictures in golden frames and hang them up where the light of heaven shall fall upon them.
But how sad, one may say, that we should not come to know our friends truly till they have passed away! No, their having passed away is only a figure of speech and must not deceive us nor deprive us of the pleasant thought that they are still in our universe; that, in truth, they are only a few steps in advance of us, and we may overtake them at any moment.
They who are asleep to us are awake to the angels. They belong to our race, to our generation, still. They share with us the watchful government of the same God and Saviour.They participate with us in similar joyful services of worship and praise.
Finally, another fact implied, in order that we may take comfort, is that we ourselves are in Christ. We can have no thought of comfort in them that sleep in Jesus unless we also are in Jesus and share like precious faith. We have lost them forever unless we are preparing by God's grace to meet them. There is no other advantage so great as the death of friends may bring by making us true Christians, such Christians as we have never been before.
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