Psalm 127:2 It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he gives his beloved sleep. Here there is a beauteous blending of two opposite yet not wholly dissimilar elements. The love of earth rises towards, and is crowned by, the love of heaven. The absent husband and father in his affection and gratitude sees not only the fond wife, or dutiful child fulfilling his wish in the work of the house, or the tillage of the field, or the care of the vineyard. He has another, a fairer, holier vision. When every voice in that distant home is hushed in the stillness of the night, when each busy hand or foot is at rest beneath the potent spell of sleep, he sees "the angel of God's presence" as constant in his guardianship of that sacred dwelling and of those loved ones as amid the busy hours or varied needs of the day. He sees how those sleeping ones are nestled beneath God's protecting wing more gently and faithfully in their defenceless, unconscious moments, than when they were astir in the house or diligent in the field. He learns how the God of all grace loves his wife and children more and better than he; that the Perfect Father sheltereth and blesseth His beloved even while they sleep, even when they cannot be actively doing His will, or returning His goodness, or chanting His praise. I. Let us try to realize a little more fully the beautiful significance of the fact that THOSE WHOM WE LOVE AND LIVE FOR ARE, IN DEED AND TRUTH, VERY MUCH MORE "GOD'S BELOVED." One of the deepest roots and sublimest fruits of the Christian religion is this: the conviction that all earthly things at their truest and best are but shadows, types, symbols of the heavenly; that the love of earth is hut the reflection or parable of the fairer, diviner love of heaven. Hence to a pure-minded, noble-hearted man, the love of wife or child is next to the influence of God's unspeakable gift — the Christ, the deepest baptism or sacrament in holy things which Heaven bestows. Statistics furnish many suggestive hints in this direction, telling how wedded life tends to lessen coarseness and crime in the homes of the people. Keen observers of life note these sacred facts, as did she who penned those almost idyllic words: "In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's." I say we trace these helpful conditions of the better life, but only the Searcher of hearts, only the Father of our spirits can fully know what founts of blessing, what angels of mercy, what sacraments of heaven are found amid marital, parental, filial ties, winning men from ways which are selfish, and hard, and low, and uplifting them towards whatsoever things are pure, and just, and true. And what follows, when men are thus sensible to these higher claims, alive to these holier voices? Do men interpret these messengers of good only in the light of their own welfare or gratification? Are they not rather prepared thereby to believe and understand how all these earthly affections are but the disclosure and the promise of those that are heavenly and eternal? II. Let us call to mind TWO OF THE CHIEF INDICATIONS THAT WE ARE "GOD'S BELOVED." 1. There is one which by its very nature stands foremost in all reasoning on this subject. I mean God's estimate of children. Jesus — the only adequate explanation of whose wondrous person seems to me to be this, that He was the very love of the. Father "manifest in the flesh" — Jesus in nothing gave so much God's estimate of our being, our nature, our destiny as in His tribute to the greatness and sacredness of each child. Now, what Jesus thought of the infancy or the childhood, that, by parity of reason, and the very nature of the deep underlying relationships, He thought equally of the youth, the manhood, the womanhood, the old age. 2. Again, we find the strongest assurance that we are "God's beloved" in the general scope and spirit of the Gospel of His Son. Every age that Gospel becomes more literally and explicitly "glad tidings" to the world. They are glad tidings which tell of endless ages upon ages, to which centuries are but as days or moments, in which God has means and room to satisfy the cravings of His good nature in the good of His children. Oh what founts of goodness, of care, of sympathy do these purposes reveal in the Divine nature! What confirmations they afford of the eternal love which shone so brightly in the face and cross of Jesus Christi What assurances they should inspire within our hearts that none among us, however unknown, however forlorn, however despised, will ever be able to reproach his Father with neglect or unkindness, or to charge God With having made him an outcast or an orphan! III. Let us seek to comfort one another with SOME OF THE PRACTICAL HOPES IN THE PRESENT WHICH THIS FACT OF OUR BEING "GOD'S BELOVED" ALLOWS AND DEMANDS. It tells of tokens, of alleviations, of compensations from the heart of the Perfect Father to the hearts of His needy, suffering children, far beyond the measure of our sympathies or the spirit of our prayers. The poor brain may be beclouded, and reason have lost its reign, yet what calm moments, what lucid intervals have been known to come at the hour of prayer, or at the mention of the name of God. The poor sufferer in his prostration may have become unconscious, and seem to be deaf to all around, or have passed beyond our power to comfort or to aid, and yet what endless communications there may be within the Soul, what soothing glances from "the angel of God's presence," what gentle foldings of the protecting wing, what sweet foreshadowings of the meaning and the end! (J. T. Stannard.) Parallel Verses KJV: It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep. |
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