Our life is a mixture of joy and sadness. As the Wise man once said, “there is a time to weep and a time to laugh ; a time to mourn and a time to dance.”
I know that in many homes in this ecclesia this Sunday it is a time to weep : and I know that the tears shed, and the unshed tears of heartache are present. And as we meet together our heart goes out to those who have sadness in their midst. the sadness of losing a beloved sister.
At times like these, we wish our Master were here, and the longing for His return fills our hearts for we realize how helpless we are, how little we can actually do. Sometimes we wonder, like Job, why did this happen to me, and to those I love ?
Sometimes, also, when the adversity is so great our faith fails us. When the fierce rays of adversity beat upon us, and the storm of trial and tribulation, the edifice of faith we have built around us fails, because we have not built it right. We lack faith then and wonder why God has permitted these things to happen to us. Yes, we lack faith, but should we?
We are not given any burden too great for us to bear. Others before us have carried far greater burdens, have suffered far greater adversities, trials and tribulations. Let us today recall just one that happened many, many years ago. We all know it. How many times have we read it : But have we considered the great and enduring faith it required ? It’s the poignant narrative of a woman’s life. As a young woman, her very life was endangered when her intended husband found that she was going to have a child. Would he make her a public example or put her away?
Here was stark tragedy that faced her, at a time when loving care should be given her and at a time when joy and happiness should have been hers. The threat of public denouncement, of embarrassment, even death was hers. Hers was an ordeal that would fill the heart of any woman with dismay or fear. It required tremendous faith on her part.
These were troublous times in which she lived ; her country was in subjection to another powerful empire. As a citizen of a vanquished, impoverished nation, her life was hard. While yet with child she had to journey from the town in which she was living to her own city for the purpose of taxation. It was there her son was born in sad circumstances ; for there was no room for them at the inn, so her child was born, and his crib was a manger. Have any of us ever been subjected to trials like that? But worse was to follow.
She was forced to flee from her native land to become an outcast, a refugee in another country, for wicked men sought to destroy the little child she had. She fled to escape the purge that did destroy many, many small children and babies up to two years of age. We can imagine the fear and stark terror in her heart as she fled with her child, fled by night so that she might escape the evil—then those years in a foreign land, a refugee from her native land, from her home, her family.
It surely required faith to endure all these things, and shall we ask again, have any of us had to undergo trials like these ? After the death of the one who sought the life of her child, she returned to her land again, looking after her little boy knowing full well what lay ahead for him. This, my brethren and sisters, was part of the life of Mary the mother of Jesus, a woman we must never forget, who was subject to all the fears and worries of her sex. She was a woman with all a woman’s love for her child. She must have had her moments of anxiety and doubt. That was part of the trial of this woman, Mary ; not an immaculate being above all human fears and worries but a woman with all a woman’s instincts ; her all-embracing love for her child ; a woman who must have nearly been distraught with all the crises she had to undergo.
From that woman, Mary, Jesus was born, and as Job so concisely puts it “who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing, not one.” Jesus inherited from his mother her nature, for He, too, was subject to like passions as we are. As the child grew to manhood, the days of crises were far from over for Mary. She followed that son of hers, now about his Father’s business.
She witnessed the hatred the rulers, Scribes and Pharisees had for him. She knew the colossal task that he was attempting. She, of all those around him, must have known her son’s heartaches when those wayward children of Israel heeded not his call. She must have realized his anguish at times, as when he said,
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.”
She must have experienced his loneliness when he said,
“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests ; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.”
She must have suffered all the heartaches as she saw her son face the adverse comments and the scorn that was heaped upon him—”Is not this the carpenter’s son ? Is not his mother called Mary ? Whence then hath this man all these things ?” No, they did not believe. And finally at the young age of 33, they took him, their own Messiah, and amid a mockery of a trial, condemned him, the guiltless one, among the guilty and led him to be crucified.
Among those who followed was Mary, the one who had borne him and protected him in his early years, who had cared for him and loved him. Now as she stood beside the cross, her mother’s love must have caused her heart to break as she beheld her son crucified.
Yet, in the hour of suffering, He remembered her. In John 19 the tragic drama is unfolded :
“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son !
Then said he to the disciple, Behold thy mother ! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.”
In the extremity of his suffering, knowing that soon all things would be accomplished, Jesus remembered his mother.
My brethren and sisters, with all our trials and afflictions, none of us have had to endure what Mary endured. And remember this : she was a woman, just as all women are, she was our sister. She was subject to all the fears, doubts and anxieties, we have. She had the frailties of human nature just as we have. Remember, too, she was no being set apart as the church have her, and in so doing destroyed the full glory of her life.
She was a woman, and with all a woman’s instincts, she was capable of grief as indeed was her son also, for he wept too ; subject to the whole range of human emotion and even as God spared not His only son so spared He not the woman who bore him. Why then, should He spare any of us ? Which one of us could undergo what her son bore ? No, although, amid our grief, we sometimes think we are alone in the midst of our suffering —there are others who have borne far more than us.
Remember, too, when Jesus trod this vale of tears it was the days of preparation for him. He even now is sitting on the right hand of His Father. He knows our ills and wants, and he hears our prayers. He is our mediator there to incense faithful prayer. Never, my brethren, will we have too great a burden to carry ; never will we be called upon to undergo what he did. And let us remember, too. the greatest thing of all, that God in His infinite love and mercy has revealed unto His glorious plan of redemption. Each one of us has embraced the living hope ; some only a little while ; some for many long years. It is our faith, the “Truth” we term it—those great and precious promises that have been extended to each one of us.
It was the hope of our early brethren and sisters who died in faith.
If the Master tarries, others we know and love, may fall asleep. Let the words of Paul tell us :
“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”
This, my brethren, is our hope, the hope that sustained Jesus who rose triumphant from the grave, and the living hope that will bring us from the grave also. So, my brethren, in times of trouble which all of us will have in our lives, let us not grow weak in faith but press on courageously towards the goal of our high calling.
Remember that now is the time of probation! What we do now — how we react to our trials and tribulations will affect us when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Let us in love, one toward another, help each other amid the storms and trials of life so that all of us, brethren and sisters, young and old, in our Master’s service may hear those words : “Well done good and faithful servant,” and be with our beloved Lord and Master Jesus when he returns, until then —
“When gathering clouds around I view
And days are dark and friends are few
On him I’ll lean, who, not in vain,
Experienced every human pain.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One