By John MacDuff
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest; and this is the place of repose"--
"All power in heaven and earth has been given to Me." Matthew 28:18
Such was among the last whispers of the Heavenly Palm--while still rooted in the midst of the earthly encampments, and when about to be transplanted--the all-glorious 'Tree of Life'--into the midst of the Paradise of God!
What more precious farewell truth, what more blessed Keepsake could the Savior have confided to His people than this; that to Him has been committed the Scepter of universal Empire! Many, among the multitude He was then addressing on one of the mountains of Galilee, had witnessed His poverty, His humiliation, His cruel buffetings, His bitter death. But now these were all past. His head was about to be "crowned with many crowns." As King of His Church, "all things had been delivered to Him by His Father" (Matthew 11:27). He knew that "the Father had given all things into His hands" (John 13:3). He would impart the comfort of this ennobling truth to the orphaned Church He was to leave behind Him. When the chariots of God had borne Him away from their sight, they could still think of Him as boundless in His resources; that He who so often had spoken to them "in righteousness" was still "mighty to save." To these very hands that were pierced on Calvary's Cross had been entrusted the sovereignty of the universe!
John, in his exile, sixty years later, beheld in striking vision a Book or roll "sealed with seven seals." Tears came to the aged eyes of the Evangelist, because no one in heaven or in earth was found "worthy to take the book" and decipher its mysteries. All at once, one of the redeemed from the earth conveys to him the joyous assurance that he need no longer "weep" for "the Lion of the tribe of Judah had prevailed to open the book," and unveil its contents (Revelation 5:7). What was this but the announcement, in significant figure, of the Savior's own last utterance, that He had committed to His keeping the roll of Providence; that roll in which is inscribed not only the fate of kingdoms, the destinies of nations--but whatever concerns the humblest and lowliest member of His Church on earth; with Him rests the unfolding of the roll--the breaking of the seals--the pouring out of the vials--the bursting of the thunders.
Need we wonder that, in taking "the Book" into His hands, the ransomed myriads in the Apocalyptic vision should be seen falling down at the feet of the Lamb, with their "harps and golden vials full of incense;" and exulting in the thought that the Great Ruler of all was a Brother of the human race; that they should attune their lips to the lofty ascription, "You are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."
Yes, who will not exult in the thought that this vast world of ours is committed to the rule of JESUS--that it was created "for Him"--that "by Him all things are held together." I look up to the spangled dome of heaven with its myriad constellations. I am told these lamps, hung in the sky, are burning incense-fires to His glory; that they march at His word, and their eternal music is an anthem to His praise. I look at the landscape below; that vast furniture in the Palace of Nature is His providing. It is He who covers it in its robe of light, who wreathes the brow of Spring in living green, and decks the valleys in Summer glory. Not a breeze murmurs through the forests, nor a dewdrop sparkles on its leaves--the sun shoots not one golden arrow through its glades, but by His permission. It is He who pencils the flowers, and intones the thunder, and gives voice to the tempest, and wings to the lightning.
But these manifestations of His power in nature, are subordinate to a nobler sovereignty with which He is invested in the moral and spiritual world. There, too, nothing can happen but by His direction, nothing can befall us but what is the dictate and result of His loving wisdom. Often, indeed, as we have frequently said, that wisdom and love are veiled behind gigantic clouds of permitted evil. But, when we remember the pledge, in His own life's-blood, which He has given of His love to His people, dare we challenge the rectitude of His dealings or arraign the wisdom of His ways?
No! this Savior-God "reigns, let the earth be glad." From the heart stripped of its beloved gourd by the gentle hand of death, to the more terrible cry of perishing thousands by famine, or pestilence, or "the grievousness of war," what truth more sublime, what syllables fall with more soothing music on the soul than these, HE (the Savior, who died for me, who now lives for me), "does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth!"
"Life's mystery--deep, restless as the ocean,
Has surged and wailed for ages to and fro;
Earth's generations watch its ceaseless motion
As in and out its hollow moanings flow.
Shivering and yearning by that unknown sea,
Let my soul calm itself, O Christ, in Thee!
"Between perplexities of death and life,
You stand, loving, guiding, not explaining:
We ask, and You are silent; yet we gaze,
And our charmed hearts forget their drear complaining.
No crushing fate, no stony destiny,
O 'Lamb that has been slain!' we rest in Thee.
"The many waves of thought, the mighty tides,
The ground-swell that rolls up from other lands,
From far-off worlds, from dim, eternal shores,
Whose echo dashes over life's wave-worn strands;
This vague, dark tumult of the inner sea
Grows calm, grows bright, O Savior-God, in Thee.
"Your pierced hands guide the mysterious wheels,
Your thorn-crowned brow now wears the Crown of pow'r,
And when the dark enigma presses sore,
Your voice has said, 'Keep watch with Me one hour'
As sinks the moaning river in the sea,
In silent peace, so sinks my soul in Thee."
"Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of Your kingdom."
