IS IT COMFORT IN A SCENE OF DEATH, OR ENTRANCE INTO A SCENE OF LIFE?

IS IT COMFORT IN A SCENE OF DEATH, OR ENTRANCE INTO A SCENE OF LIFE?

Death gives a great reality to everything, it leads the soul into another region - Christ’s region, where life only is. The vanity of all nature is exposed, one breathes as it were on the other side of death, and even if it be but for a moment, that moment is to us of great advantage,

^[p. 182] for the sense of being where Christ is, in His life, is one that never can be imitated or erased from the soul. Mary tasted of life, I doubt not, as the Lord walked beside her on their way to the sepulchre, but she tasted of it as a comfort to her on her own side, where the wrench occurred, rather than as placing her on Christ’s side in heaven, where all is life and perennial bliss. We generally look for comfort on our side, and when it is vouchsafed to us, we are assured that we have One who feels for us in our sorrow; the bereavement is mitigated and assuaged by the sense that Jesus comes nearer to us, and though we are desolate here, He makes amends, and repairs the blank by manifesting His concern for us; but this is still our side. It is a necessary comfort but it only relieves and sustains in a scene of sadness and death. It is “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land” (Isaiah 32: 2), a refuge from the tempest, but I am still consciously in the land of tempest. It is Christ’s wing let down to shelter me where I am, it is a power and solace which meets me while I am still in the home of sorrow. I am comforted indeed, but as one in a deep dark dungeon would be comforted by the presence of a known friend who has light, and everything to cheer one; but the more this friend and his cheer were known, the more dreadful would be the thought of his leaving. The scene is not altered, I am comforted in it by the presence of this great friend, but I am still connected with the scene of sorrow, and any improvement in it would materially interest me. I am only sheltered in it; if the storms were to subside, I could renew my links with it, though I have gained one thing of great value, and that is, that I have found out how Christ can shelter me, and compensate me for all loss in it.

But if the wrench of death here has led to my entering consciously into the scene where He is, how differently everything here is seen! I am then not sheltered only, but I have in spirit got home, and such a home! where ^[p. 183] everything lovely, and every loved one, have their place for ever. When it is thus with me, my great bereavement is only the hinge on which the door into heaven turned, and by it I have entered and found my place there in Christ, and now I can walk in this scene in cheer of spirit, and vigour of heart, because I am at home outside it, and though sheltered in it, I never seek improvement in it, because I am no longer of it but of the scene where Christ dwells.