| The Ministry of Comfort |
Chapter 8 |
Page 2 |
Many in bereavement, though believing the doctrine of the future resurrection, fail to get present comfort from it. Jesus assured Martha that her brother should rise again. “Yes, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day,” she said. The hope was too distant to give her much comfort. Her sense of present loss outweighed every other thought and feeling. She craved back again the companionship she had lost. Who that has stood by the grave of a precious friend has not experienced the same feeling of inadequateness in the consolation that comes from even the strongest belief in a far off rising again of those who are in their graves?
The Master’s reply to Martha’s hungry heart cry is very rich in its comfort. “I am the resurrection.” This is one of the wonderful present tenses of Christian hope. To Martha’s thought the comfort of resurrection was a dim far away consolation. “I am the resurrection,” said Jesus. The resurrection was something present, not remote. His words embraced the whole blessed truth of immortal life. “Whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall never die.” There is no death for those who are in Christ. The body dies, but the person lives on. The resurrection may be in the future, but there is no break whatever in the life of the believer in Christ. He is not here, our eyes see Him not, our ears hear not His voice, we cannot touch Him with our hands; but He still lives, thinks, feels, remembers and loves. No power in His being has been quenched by dying, no beauty dimmed, no faculty destroyed.
“He hath solved the sacred mystery,
He hath crossed the great divide:
Within the sacred city, far
Beyond the soundless tide,
He the Master’s face beholdeth
Whom unseen we all adore.
He praiseth Him rejoicing
On that bright celestial shore.
“Praises be to God the Father,
We all may live for aye,
Though, folded like a garment,
We lay our body by.
Eternal life we enter
By that full and swelling tide,
Within the Golden City
Where the gates stand open wide.”
This is a part of the comfort which Jesus gave to His friends in their bereavement. He assured them that for the believer there is no death. There remains for those who stay behind the pain of separation and of loneliness, but for those who have passed over we need have no fear.
Page 2