By J.R. Miller
"What meaneth it that we should weep
More for our joys than for our fears,--
That we should sometimes smile at grief,
And look at pleasure's show through tears?
Alas! but homesick children we,
Who would, but cannot, play the while
We dream of nobler heritage,
Our Father's house, our Father's smile."
At last the end came. The end comes for every earthly friendship. The sweetest life together of loved ones must have its last walk, its last talk, its last hand-clasp, when one goes, and the other stays. One of every two friends must stand by the other's grave, and drop tears all the hotter because they are shed alone.
The friendship of Jesus with his disciples was very sweet; it was the sweetest friendship this world ever knew, for never was there any other heart with such capacity for loving and for kindling love as the heart of Jesus. But even this holy friendship in its earthly duration was but for a time. Jesus' hour came at last. To-morrow he was going back to his Father.
Very tender was the farewell. The place chosen for it was the upper room--almost certainly in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark. So full is the narrative of the evangelists that we can follow it through its minutest details. In the afternoon two of the closest friends of Jesus came quietly into the city from Bethany to find a room, and prepare for the Passover. All was done with the utmost secrecy. No inquiry was made for a room; but a man appeared at a certain point, bearing a pitcher of water,--a most unusual occurrence,--and the messengers silently followed him, and thus were led to the house in which was the guest-chamber which Jesus and his friends were to use. There the two disciples made the preparations necessary for the Passover.
Toward the evening Jesus and the other apostles came, and found their way to the upper room. First there was the Passover feast, observed after the manner of the Jews. Then followed the institution of the new memorial--the Lord's Supper. This brought the Master and his disciples together in very sacred closeness. Judas, the one discordant element in the communion, had gone out, and all who remained were of one mind and one heart. Then began the real farewell. Jesus was going away, and he longed to be remembered. This was a wonderfully human desire. No one wishes to be forgotten. No thought could be sadder than that one might not be remembered after he is gone, that in no heart his name shall be cherished, that nowhere any memento of him shall be preserved. We all hope to live in the love of our friends long after our faces have vanished from earth. The deeper and purer our love may have been, and the closer our friendship, the more do we long to keep our place in the hearts of those we have loved.
There are many ways in which men seek to keep their memory alive in the world. Some build their own tomb: few things are more pathetic than such planning for earthly immortality. Some seek to do deeds which will live in history. Some embalm their names in books, hoping thus to perpetuate them. Love's enshrining is the best way.
The institution of the Last Supper showed the craving of the heart of Jesus to be remembered. "Do not forget me when I am gone," he said. That he might not be forgotten, he took bread and wine, and, breaking the one and pouring out the other, he gave them to his friends as mementos of himself. He associated this farewell meal with the great acts of his redeeming love. "This bread which I break, let it be the emblem of my body broken to be bread for the world. This wine which I empty out, let it be the emblem of my blood which I give for you." Whatever else the Lord's Supper may mean, it is first of all a remembrancer; it is the expression of the Master's desire to be remembered by his friends. It comes down to us--Christ's friends of to-day--with the same heart-craving. "Remember me; do not forget me; think of my love for you." Jesus' farewell was thus made wondrously sacred; its memories have blessed the world ever since by their warmth and tenderness. No one can ever know the measure of the influence of that last night in the upper room upon the life of these nineteen Christian centuries.
The Lord's Supper was not all of the Master's farewell. There were also words spoken which have been bread and wine, the body and blood of Jesus, to believers ever since. To the eleven men gathered about that table these words were inexpressibly precious. One of them, one who leaned his head upon the Master's breast that night, remembered them in his old age, and wrote them down, so that we can read them for ourselves.
It is impossible in a short chapter to study the whole of this wonderful farewell address; only a few of its great features can be gathered together. It began with an exhortation, a new commandment,--"That ye love one another." We cannot understand how really new this commandment was when given to the Master's friends. The world had never before known such love as Jesus brought into its wintry atmosphere. He had lived out the divine love among men; now his friends were to continue that love. "As I have loved you, that ye also love one another." Very imperfectly have the friends of the Master learned that love; yet wherever the gospel has gone, a wave of tenderness has rolled.
Next was spoken a word of comfort whose music has been singing through the world ever since. "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me." Unless it be the Twenty-Third Psalm, no other passage in all the Bible has had such a ministry of comfort as the first words of the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel. They told the sorrowing disciples that their Master would not forget them, that his work for them would not be broken off by his death, that he was only going away to prepare a place for them, and would come again to receive them unto himself, so that where he should be they might be also. He assured them, too, that while he was going away, something better than his bodily presence would be given them instead,--another Comforter would come, so that they should not be left orphans.
Part of the Master's farewell words were answers to questions which his friends asked him,--a series of conversations with one and another. These men had their difficulties; and they brought these to Jesus, and he explained them. First, Peter had a question. Jesus had spoken of going away. Peter asked him, "Lord, whither goest thou?" Jesus told him that where he was going he could not follow him then, but he should follow him by and by. Peter was recklessly bold, and he would not have it said that there was any place he could not follow his Master. He declared that he would even lay down his life for his sake. "Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake?" answered the Master. "Wilt thou, indeed?" Then he foretold Peter's sad, humiliating fall--that, instead of laying down his life for his Lord.
After the words had been spoken about the Father's house and the coming again of Jesus for his friends, Thomas had a question. Jesus had said, "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." Thomas was slow in his perceptions, and was given to questioning. He would take nothing for granted. He would not believe until he could understand. "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?" We are glad Thomas asked such a question, for it brought a wonderful answer. Jesus himself is the way and the truth and the life. That is, to know Christ is to know all that we need to know about heaven and the way there; to have Christ as Saviour, Friend, and Lord, is to be led by him through the darkest way--home. Not only is he the door or gate which opens into the way, but he is the way. He is the guide in the way; he has gone over it himself; everywhere we find his footprints. More than that; he is the very way itself, and the very truth about the way, and the life which inspires us in the way. To be his friend is enough; we need ask neither whither he has gone, nor the road; we need only abide in him.
"Thank God, thank God, the Man is found,
Sure-footed, knowing well the ground.
He knows the road, for this the way
He travelled once, as on this day.
He is our Messenger beside,
He is our Door and Path and Guide."
Then Philip had a question. He had heard the Master's reply to Thomas. Philip was slow and dull, loyal-hearted, a man of practical common-sense, but without imagination, unable to understand anything spiritual, anything but bare, cold, material facts. The words of Jesus about knowing and seeing the Father caught his ear. That was just what he wanted,--to see the Father. So in his dulness he said, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." He was thinking of a theophany,--a glorious vision of God. Jesus was wondrously patient with the dulness of his disciples; but this word pained him, for it showed how little Philip had learned after all his three years of discipleship. "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me?" Then Jesus told him that he had been showing him the Father, the very thing Philip craved, all the while.
Jesus went on with his gracious words for a little while, and was speaking of manifesting himself to his disciples, when he was interrupted by another question. This time it was Judas who spoke. "Not Iscariot," St. John is careful to say, for the name of Iscariot was now blotted with the blotch of treason. He had gone out into the night, and was of the disciple family no more. Judas could not understand in what special and exclusive manner Jesus would manifest himself to his own. Perhaps he expected some setting apart of Christ's followers like that which had fenced off Israel from the other nations. But Jesus swept away his disciple's thought of any narrow manifestation. There was only one condition--love. To every one who loved him and obeyed his words he would reveal himself. The manifesting would not be any theophany, as in the ancient Shekinah, but the spiritual in-dwelling of God.
After these questions of his disciples had all been answered, Jesus continued his farewell words. He left several bequests to his friends, distributing among them his possessions. We are apt to ask what he had to leave. He had no houses or lands, no gold or silver. While he was on his cross the soldiers divided his clothes among themselves. Yet there are real possessions besides money and estates. One may have won the honor of a noble name, and may bequeath this to his family when he goes away. One may have acquired power which he may transmit. It seemed that night in the upper room as if Jesus had neither name nor power to leave to his friends. To-morrow he was going to a cross, and that would be the end of everything of hope or beauty in his life.
Yet he quietly made his bequests, fully conscious that he had great possessions, which would bless the world infinitely more than if he had left any earthly treasure. One of these bequests was his peace. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you." It was his own peace; if it had not been his own he could not have bequeathed it to his friends. A man cannot give to others what he has not himself. It was his own because he had won it. Peace is not merely ease, the absence of strife and struggle; it is something which lives in the midst of the fiercest strife and the sorest struggle. Jesus knew not the world's peace,--ease and quiet; but he had learned a secret of heart-quietness which the world at its worst could not disturb. This peace he left to his disciples, and it made them richer than if he had given them all the world's wealth.
Another of his possessions which he bequeathed was his joy. We think of Jesus as the Man of sorrows, and we ask what joy he had to give. It seemed a strange time, too, for him to be speaking of his joy; for in another hour he was in the midst of the Gethsemane anguish, and to-morrow he was on his cross. Yet in the upper room he had in his heart a most blessed joy. Even in the terrible hours that came afterwards, that joy was not quenched; for we are told that for the joy set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame. This joy also he bequeathed to his friends. "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you." We remember, too, that they really received this legacy. The world wondered at the strange secret of joy those men had when they went out into the world. They sang songs in the darkest night. Their faces shone as with a holy inner light in the deepest sorrow. Christ's joy was fulfilled in them.
He also put within the reach of his friends, as he was about to leave them, the whole of his own inheritance as the only begotten Son of God. He gave into their hands the key of heaven. He told them they should have power to do the works which they had seen him do, and even greater works than these. He told them that whatsoever they should ask the Father in his name the Father would give to them. The whole power of his name should thus be theirs, and they might use it as they would. Nothing they might ask should be refused to them; all the heavenly kingdom was thrown open to them.
These are mere suggestions of the farewell gifts which Jesus left to his friends when he went away,--his peace, his joy, the key to all the treasures of his kingdom. He had blessed them in wonderful ways during his life; but the best and richest things of his love were kept to the last, and given only after he was gone. Indeed, the best things were given through his death, and could be given in no other way. Other men live to do good; they hasten to finish their work before their sun sets. God's plan for them is something they must do before death comes to write "Finis" at the end of their days. But the plan of God for Jesus centred in his death. It was the blessings that would come through his dying that were set forth in the elements used in the Last Supper,--the body broken, the blood shed. The great gifts to his friends, of which he spoke in his farewell words, would come through his dying. He must be lifted up in order to draw all men to him. He must shed his blood in order that remission of sins might be offered. It was expedient for him to go away in order that the Comforter might come. His peace and his joy were bequests which could be given only when he had died as the world's Redeemer. His name would have power to open heaven's treasures only when the atonement had been made, and the Intercessor was at God's right hand in heaven.
There was one other act in this farewell of Jesus. After he had ended his gracious words, he lifted up his eyes in prayer to his Father. The pleading is full of deep and tender affection. It is like that of a mother about to go away from earth, and who is commending her children to the care of the heavenly Father, when she must leave them without mother-love and mother-shelter among unknown and dangerous enemies.
Every word of the wonderful prayer throbs with love, and reveals a heart of most tender affection. While he had been with his friends, Jesus had kept them in the shelter of his own divine strength. None of them had been lost, so faithful had been his guardianship over them--none but the son of perdition. He, too, had received faithful care; it had not been the Good Shepherd's fault that he had perished. He had been lost because he resisted the divine love, and would not accept the divine will. There must have been a pang of anguish in the heart of Jesus as he spoke to his Father of the one who had perished. But the others all were safe. Jesus had guarded them through all the dangers up to the present moment.
But now he is about to leave them. He knows that they must encounter great dangers, and will not have him to protect them. The form of his intercession for them is worthy of note. He does not ask that they should be taken out of the world. This would have seemed the way of tenderest love. But it is not the divine way to take us out of the battle. These friends of Jesus had been trained to be his witnesses, to represent him when he had gone away. Therefore they must stay in the world, whatever the dangers might be. The prayer was that they should be kept from the evil. There is but one evil. They were not to be kept from persecution, from earthly suffering and loss, from pain or sorrow: these are not the evils from which men's lives need to be guarded. The only real evil is sin. Our danger in trouble or adversity is not that we may suffer, but that we may sin. The pleading of Jesus was that his friends might not be hurt in their souls, in their spiritual life, by sin.
If enemies wrong or injure us, the peril is not that they may cause us to suffer injustice, but that in our suffering we may lose the love out of our heart, and grow angry, or become bitter. In time of sickness, trial, or bereavement, that which we should fear is not the illness or the sorrow, but that we shall not keep sweet, with the peace of God in our breast. The only thing that can do us real harm is sin. So the intercession on our behalf ever is, not that we may be kept from things that are hard, from experiences that are costly or painful, but that we may be kept pure, gentle, and submissive, with peace and joy in our heart.
There was a pleading also that the disciples might be led into complete consecration of spirit, and that they might be prepared to go out for their Master, to be to the world what he had been to them. This was not a prayer for a path of roses; rather it was for a cross, the utter devotion of their lives to God. Before the prayer closed, a final wish for his friends was expressed,--that when their work on earth was done, they might be received home; that where he should be they might be also, to behold his glory.
Surely there never has been on earth another gathering of such wondrously deep and sacred meaning as that farewell meeting in the upper room. There the friendship of Jesus and his chosen ones reached its holiest experience. His deep human love appears in his giving up the whole of this last evening to this tryst with his own. He knew what was before him after midnight,--the bitter agony of Gethsemane, the betrayal, the arrest, the trial, and then the terrible shame and suffering of tomorrow. But he planned so that there should be these quiet, uninterrupted hours alone with his friends, before the beginning of the experiences of his passion. He did it for his own sake; his heart hungered for communion with his friends; with desire he desired to eat the Passover, and enjoy these hours with them before he suffered. We may be sure, too, that he received from the holy fellowship comfort and strength, which helped him in passing through the bitter hours that followed. Then, he did it also for the sake of his disciples. He knew how their hearts would be broken with sorrow when he was taken from them, and he wished to comfort them and make them stronger for the way. The memory of those holy hours hung over them like a star in all the dark night of their sorrow, and was a benediction to them as long as they lived.
Then, who can tell what blessings have gone out from that farewell into the whole Church of Christ through all the centuries? It is the holy of holies of Christian history. The Lord's Supper, instituted that night, and which has never ceased to be observed as a memorial of the Master's wonderful love and great sacrifice, has sweetened the world with its fragrant memories. The words spoken by the Master at the table have been repeated from lip to heart wherever the story of the gospel has gone, and have given unspeakable comfort to millions of hearts. The petitions of the great intercessory prayer have been rising continually, like holy incense, ever since they were first uttered, taking into their clasp each new generation of believers. This farewell has kept the Christian hearts of all the centuries warm and tender with love toward him who is the unchanging Friend the same yesterday and to-day and forever.
CHAPTER XIV
JESUS' FRIENDSHIPS AFTER HE AROSE.
"Our own are our own forever--
God taketh not back his gift;
They may pass beyond our vision,
but our soul shall find them out
When the waiting is all accomplished,
and the deathly shadows lift,
And the glory is given for grieving,
and the surety of God for doubt."
We cannot but ask questions about the after life. What is its character? What shall be the relations there of those who in the present life have been united in friendship? What effect has dying on the human affections? Does it dissolve the bonds which here have been so strong? Or do friendships go on through death, interrupted for a little time only, to be taken up again in the life beyond? Surely God will not blame us for our eagerness to know all we can learn about the world to which we are going.
True, we cannot learn much about this blessed life while we stay in this world. Human eyes cannot penetrate into the deep mystery. We are like men standing on the shore of a great sea, wondering what lies on the other side. No one has come back to tell us what he found in that far country. We bring our questions to the word of God, but it avails little; even inspiration does not give us explicit revealings concerning the life of the blessed. We know that the Son of God had dwelt forever in heaven before his incarnation, and we expect that he will shed light upon the subject of life within the gates of heaven. But he is almost silent to our questions. Indeed, he seems to tell us really nothing. He gives us no description of the place from which he came, to which he returned, and to which he said his disciples shall be gathered. He says nothing about the occupations of those who dwell there. He satisfies no human yearnings to know the nature of friendship after death. We are likely to turn away from our quest for definite knowledge, feeling that even Jesus has told us nothing. Yet he has told us a great deal.
There is one wonderful revelation of which perhaps too little has been made. After Jesus had died, and lain in the grave for three days, he rose again, and remained for forty days upon the earth. During that time he did not resume the old relations. He was not with his disciples as he had been during the three years of his public ministry, journeying with them, speaking to them, working miracles; yet he showed himself to them a number of times.
The remarkable thing in these appearances of Jesus during the forty days is that we see in him one beyond death. Lazarus was brought back to earth after having died, but it was only the old life to which he returned. The human relations between him and his sisters and friends were restored, but probably they were not different from what they had been in the past. Lazarus was the same mortal being as before, with human frailties and infirmities.
Jesus, however, after his return from the grave, was a man beyond death. He was the same person who had lived and died, and yet he was changed. He appeared and disappeared at will. He entered rooms through closed and barred doors. At last his body ascended from the earth, and passed up to heaven, subject no longer to the laws of gravitation. We see in Jesus, therefore, during the forty days, one who has passed into what we call the other life. What he was then his people will be when they have emerged from death with their spiritual bodies, for he was the first-fruits of them that are asleep.
As we study Jesus in the story of those days, we are surprised to see how little he was changed. Death had left no strange marks upon him. Nothing beautiful in his life had been lost in the grave. He came back from the shadows as human as he was before he entered the valley. Dying had robbed him of no human tenderness, no gentle grace of disposition, no charm of manner. As we watch him in his intercourse with his disciples, we recognize the familiar traits which belonged to his personality during the three years of his active ministry.
We may rightly infer that in our new life we shall be as little changed as Jesus was. We shall lose our sin, our frailties and infirmities, all our blemishes and faults. The long-hindered and hampered powers of our being shall be liberated. Hidden beauties shall shine out in our character, as developed pictures in the photographer's sensitized plate. There will be great changes in us in these and other regards, but our personality will be the same. Jesus was easily recognized by his friends; so shall we be by those who have known us. Whatever is beautiful and good in us here,--the fruits of spiritual conquest, the lessons learned in earth's experiences, the impressions made upon us by the Word of God, the silver and golden threads woven in our life-web by pure friendships, the effects of sorrow upon us, the work wrought in us by the Holy Spirit,--all this shall appear in our new life. We shall have incorruptible, spiritual, and glorious bodies, no longer mortal and subject to the limitations of matter; death will rob us of nothing that is worthy and true, and fit for the blessed life.
"We are quite sure
That he will give them back--
Bright, pure, and beautiful.
He does not mean--though heaven be fair--
To change the spirits entering there
That they forget
The eyes upraised and wet,
The lips too still for prayer,
The mute despair.
He will not take
The spirits which he gave, and make
The glorified so new
That they are lost to me and you.
I do believe that just the same sweet face,
But glorified, is waiting in the place
Where we shall meet.
God never made
Spirit for spirit, answering shade for shade,
And placed them side by side--
So wrought in one, though separate, mystified,
And meant to break
The quivering threads between."
It is interesting, too, to study the friendships of Jesus after he came from the grave. He did not take up again the public life of the days before his death. He made no more journeys through the country. He spoke no more to throngs in the temple courts or by the Seaside. He no more went about healing, teaching, casting out demons, and raising the dead. He made no appearances in public. Only his disciples saw him. We have but few details of his intercourse with individuals, but such glimpses as we have are exceedingly interesting. They show us that no tender tie of friendship had been hurt by his experience of dying. The love of his heart lived on through death, and reappeared during the forty days in undiminished gentleness and kindness. He did not meet his old friends as strangers, but as one who had been away for a few days, and had come again.
The first of his friends to whom he showed himself after he arose was Mary Magdalene. Her story is pathetic in its interest. The traditions of the centuries have blotted her name, but there is not the slightest evidence in the New Testament that she was ever a woman of blemished character. There is no reason whatever for identifying her with the woman that was a sinner, who came to Jesus in Simon's house. All that is said of Mary's former condition is that she was possessed of seven demons, and that Jesus freed her from this terrible bondage. In gratitude for this unspeakable deliverance Mary followed Jesus, leaving her home, and going with him until the day of his death. She was one of several women friends who accompanied him and ministered to him of their substance.
Mary's devotion to Jesus was wonderful. When the tomb was closed she was one of the watchers who lingered, loath to leave it. Then, at the dawn of the first day morning she was again one of those who hurried through the darkness to the tomb, with spices for the anointing of the body--last at his cross, and earliest at his tomb. Mary's devotion was rewarded; for to her first of all his friends did Jesus appear, as she stood weeping by the empty grave. She did not recognize him at once. She was not expecting to see him risen. Then, her eyes were blinded with her tears. But the moment he spoke her name, "Mary," she knew him, and answered, "Rabboni." He was not changed to her. He had not forgotten her. The love in his heart had lost none of its tenderness. He was as accessible as ever. Dying had made him no less a friend, and no less sympathetic, than he was before he died.
Soon after Mary had met Jesus, and rejoiced to find him her friend just as of old, he appeared to the other women of the company who had followed him with their grateful ministries. They also knew him, and he knew them; and their hearts suffered no wrench at the meeting, for they found the same sweet friendship they thought they had lost, just as warm and tender as ever.
That same day Jesus appeared to Peter. A veil is drawn by the evangelists over the circumstances of this meeting. The friendship of Jesus and Peter had continued for three years. He had often given his Master pain and trouble through his impulsive ways. But the culmination of it all came on the night of the betrayal, when, in the hall of the high priest's palace, Peter denied being a disciple of Jesus, denied even knowing him. While for the third time the base and cowardly words were on his lips, Jesus turned and looked upon his faithless disciple with a look of grieved love, and then Peter remembered the forewarning the Master had given him. His heart was broken with penitence, and he went out and wept bitterly. But he had no opportunity to seek forgiveness; for the next morning Jesus was on his cross, and in the evening was in his grave. Peter's sorrow was very deep, for his love for his Master was very strong.
We can imagine that when the truth of the resurrection began to be believed that morning, Peter wondered how Jesus would receive him. But he was not long kept in suspense. The women who came first to the tomb, to find it empty, received a message for "the disciples and Peter." This singling out of his name for special mention must have given unspeakable joy to Peter. It told him that the love of Jesus was not only stronger than death, but also stronger than sin. Then, sometime during the day, Jesus appeared to Peter alone. No doubt then, in the sacredness of love, the disciple made confession, and the Master granted forgiveness. Several times during the forty days Jesus and Peter met again. The friendship had not been marred by death. The risen Lord loved just as he had loved in the days of common human intercourse.
One of the most interesting of the after resurrection incidents is that of the walk to Emmaus. Cleophas and his friend were journeying homeward with sad hearts, when a stranger joined them. His conversation was wonderfully tender as he walked with them and explained the Scriptures. Then followed the evening meal, and the revealing of the risen Jesus in the breaking of bread. Again it was the same sweet friendship which had so warmed their hearts in the past, resumed by the Master on the other side of death.
It was the same with all the recorded appearances of Jesus. Those who had been his friends previous to his death found him the same friend as before. He took up with each of them the threads of affection just where they had been dropped when the betrayal and arrest wrought such panic among his disciples, scattering them away, and went on with the weaving.
May we not conclude that it will be with us even as it was with Jesus? His resurrection was not only a pledge of what that of believers will be, carrying within itself the seed and potency of a blessed immortality, but it was also a sample of what ours will be. Death will produce far less change in us than we imagine it will do. We shall go on with living very much as if nothing had happened. Dying is an experience we need not trouble ourselves about very much if we are believers in Christ. There is a mystery in it; but when we have passed through it we shall probably find that it is a very simple and natural event--perhaps little more serious than sleeping over night and waking in the morning. It will not hurt us in any way. It will blot no lovely thing from our life. It will end nothing that is worth while. Death is only a process in life, a phase of development, analogous to that which takes place when a seed is dropped in the earth and comes up a beautiful plant, adorned with foliage and blossoms. Life would be incomplete without dying. The greatest misfortune that could befall any one would be that he should not die. This would be an arresting of development which would be death indeed.
"Death is the crown of life;
Were death denied, poor man would live in vain;
Were death denied, to live would not be life;
Were death denied, e'en fools would wish to die.
Death wounds to cure: we fall; we rise; we reign;
Spring from our fetters; hasten to the skies,
Where blooming Eden withers in our sight.
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost;
The king of terrors is the prince of peace."
There is need for a reconstruction of the prevalent thoughts and conceptions of heaven. We have trained ourselves to think of life beyond the grave as something altogether different from what life is in this world. It has always been pictured thus to us. We have been taught that heaven is a place of rest, a place of fellowship with God, a place of ceaseless praise. The human element has been largely left out of our usual conceptions of the blessed life. Not much is made of the relations of believers to one another. That which is emphasized in Christian hymns and in most books about heaven is the Godward side. Much is made of the glory of the place as suggested by the visions of St. John in the Apocalypse. In many of these conceptions the chief thought of heavenly blessedness is that it is a release from earth and from earthly conditions. There is no sorrow, no trouble, no pain, no struggle, no toil, in the home to which we are going. We shall sit on the green banks of beautiful rivers, amid unfading flowers, and sing forever. We shall lie prostrate before the throne, and gaze and gaze on the face of God.
But this is not the kind of heaven and heavenly life which the teachings of Jesus Would lead us to imagine. True, he speaks of the place to which he is going, and where, by and by, he would gather all his disciples, as "my Father's house." This suggests home and love; and the thought is in harmony with what we have seen in the life of Jesus during the forty days,--the continuance of the friendships formed and knit in earthly fellowships. But the vision of home life thus suggested need not imply a heaven of inaction. Indeed, no life could be more natural and beautiful than that which the thought of home suggests. We have no perfect homes on earth; but every true home has in it fragments of heaven's meaning, and always the idea is of love's service rather than of blissful indolence.
We may get many thoughts of the heavenly life from other teachings of Jesus. Life is continuous. Whosoever liveth and believeth shall never die. There is no break, no interruption of life, in what we call dying. We think of eternal life as the life of heaven, the glorified life. So it is; but we have its beginnings here. The moment we believe, we have everlasting life. The Christian graces we are enjoined, to cultivate are heavenly lessons set for us to learn. If we would conceive of the life of heaven, we have but to think of ideal Christian life in this world, and then lift it up to its perfect realization. Heaven is but earth's lessons of grace better learned, earth's best spiritual life glorified. Therefore we get our truest thoughts of it from a study of Christ's ideal for the life of his followers, for it will simply be this life fully realized and infinitely extended.
For example, the one great lesson set for us, the one which includes all others, is love. God is love, and we are to learn to love if we would be like him. All relationships are relationships of love. All graces are graces of love. All duties are parts of one great duty--to love one another. All worthy and noble character is love wrought out in life. All life here is a school, with its tasks, its struggles, its conflicts, its minglings with men, its friendships, its experiences of joy and sorrow, its burdens, its disappointments and hopes, and the final education to be attained is love. Browning puts it thus in "Rabbi Ben Ezra":--
Our life, with all it yields of joy or woe,
And hope and fear,--believe the aged friend,
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,
How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is.
What is this love which it is the one great lesson of life to learn? Toward God, it may express itself in devotion, worship, praise, obedience, fellowship. This seems to be the chief thought of love in the common conception of heaven. It is all adoration, glorifying. But love has a manward as well as a Godward development. St. John, the disciple of love, teaches very plainly that he who says he loves God must prove it by also loving man. If the whole of our training here is to be in loving and in living out our love, we certainly have the clew to the heavenly life. We shall continue in the doing of the things we have here learned to do. Life in glory will be earth's Christian life intensified and perfected. Heaven will not be a place of idle repose. Inaction can never be a condition of blessedness for a life made and trained for action. The essential quality of love is service--"not to be ministered unto, but to minister;" and for one who has learned love's lesson, happiness never can be found in a state in which there is no opportunity for ministering. In heaven it will still be more blessed to give than to receive; and those who are first will be those who with lowly spirit serve most deeply. Heaven will be a place of boundless activity. "His servants shall serve him." The powers trained here for the work of Christ will find ample opportunity there for doing their best service. Said Victor Hugo in his old age, "When I go down to the grave, I can say, like so many others, 'I have finished my day's work;' but I cannot say, 'I have finished my life.' My day's work will begin again next morning. My tomb is not a blind alley, it is a thoroughfare; it closes with the twilight to open with the dawn."
Whatever mystery there may be concerning the life that believers in Christ shall live in heaven, we may be sure at least that they will carry with them all that is true and divine of their earthly life. The character formed here they will retain through death. The capacity they have gained by the use of their powers they will have for the beginning of their activity in the new life. There can be no doubt that they shall find work commensurate with and fitted to their trained powers.
So heaven will be a far more natural place than we imagine it will be. It will not be greatly unlike the ideal life of earth. We probably shall be surprised when we meet each other to find how little we have changed. The old tenderness will not be missing. We shall recognize our friends by some little gentle ways they used to have here, or by some familiar thoughtfulness that was never wanting in them. The friendships we began here, and had not time to cultivate, we shall have opportunity there to renew, and carry on through immortal years.
Even at the best, human friendships only begin in this life; in heaven they will reach their best and holiest possibilities. There are lives which only touch each other in this world and then separate, going their different ways--like ships that pass in the night. There will be time enough in heaven for any such faintest beginnings of friendship to be wrought out in beauty. Friendships with Jesus here touch but the shore of an infinite ocean; in heaven, unhindered, in uninterrupted fellowship, we shall be forever learning more of this love of Christ which passeth knowledge.
