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TOPIC: MacDuff, John - The Pillar In The Night (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 04 Sickness Soothed
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SICKNESS SOOTHED
"The Lord went before them by night in a pillar of fire."
"I said, In the noontide of my days I shall go into the gates of the grave."—Isaiah 38:10 (R.V.).
"The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: You will make all his bed in his sickness."—Psalm 41:3.
"This sickness is…for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby."—John 11:4.
"O Lord, by these things men live."—Isaiah 38:16.
One desert experience to which we may well early advert, an experience to which truly may be given the designation of "Night," is the season of bodily pain and suffering. Is there no flash of the Pillar of Fire, in the shape of consolation and comfort, here?
Let none make light of physical prostration. Only those who have passed through the ordeal can tell of its severity; specially where prostration is combined with acute anguish. Afflictions cannot well be compared. It is wrong and needless to do so. But, while mental agony, the pang of bereavement, as well as other forms of unspoken suffering intenser still, have their terrible environments, the couch of sickness has a gloom all its own. In other phases of trial there are mitigations—lulls in the storm; the sweet influences of nature, the sympathy of friends, and so on. But calm rest is simply impossible when every nerve is racked with torture. Day and night seem to have no room for other than the one monotonous dirge—the passionate questioning—"When shall I rise and the night be gone?"—"Would God it were evening! would God it were morning!"
"All night I kept my lone and silent vigil,
And looked in vain
For kindly sleep to soothe my restless tossings
And set me free from pain.
I watched until the dawn's first doubtful glimmer
Stole through my curtained room,
And broke with pale grey lights and greyer shadows
Its formless gloom."—Caillard.
And then, say as we may, there is generally deepest mystery in these experiences. Bereavement has its appropriate, accepted solaces; the sweet memories of buried love; above all, the thought of the bright Beyond. But these weary vigils of throbbing pain seem to forbid respite. The world's pleasures, lavishly granted to others, seem strangely, I had almost said cruelly, denied and withdrawn. In many cases the poor flickerings of life are all that remain; the long fierce battle is too surely a losing one—
"And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave!"
Yes, to many, bereavement has its higher, loftier solaces: the Bible, with its promises; prayer, with its strengthenings; the House of God, with its teachings. But in the case of the sufferer on his couch, even Holy Scripture for the time is, in many cases, a sealed book: the gates of prayer are closed; the footpath to the Mercy-seat is weed-grown. The distant Sabbath bells only convey the remembrance of hallowed associations with "the multitude that kept holiday." There is around nothing but an immensity of darkness! Other broken harps have their surviving strings and lingering chords; but the sick man gazes only on "the harp on the willows"—life's sweetest music fails to charm, loving looks fail to be recognized, loving words wake up no responsive smile—the vital springs of being are shattered. In bereavement, God's righteousness is "like the great mountains": it is patent, visible. But often, in sickness, His judgments are hidden from human view in an unsounded "deep!" What then? After such an indictment as this, does light from the wilderness Column for the first time seem impossible? "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no Physician there?" Can we only discern the dismal side of the Pillar—all cloud, no brightness. If we see our Lord, is it only as the disciples saw Him in their midnight sea? Supposing Him to be an avenging angel, a spirit from the deep, "they cried out for fear!" Or, if the peril increases, can we do no more than hold our breath while life is trembling in the balance and the King of terrors passing by?
There is balm, not from Gilead and its mountains of myrrh, but from the everlasting hills of heaven. The flaming Presence is there; and "gives light by night to these." Let us seat ourselves under its gleam and gather a few thoughts of comfort.
Tried one, think of all you are now suffering as needed discipline—the strange but sure pledge of a Father's love. These weary days and nights, be assured, are "appointed," to train you for Himself, His work and service now, and for His beatific presence hereafter. Builders at times construct new houses out of ruins. God often does so. From ruined shattered frames He builds up new spiritual dwellings, everlasting habitations. Without that discipline you would miss precious lessons. You would willingly evade these; but the evasion would involve sensible loss—a deprivation of moral and spiritual strength. It is no mere hollow sentiment, but a proved experience from the memory of long sickness: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted" (Psalm 119:71). "O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so will You recover me, and make me to live" (Isaiah 38:16).
"If any of you have ever stood and watched moth or butterfly emerge from the cocoon, you will have noticed, after the first little opening, with what seemingly pained struggle the young wings are striving to free themselves. In your pity you take up the cocoon, and end the struggle by carefully cutting open the useless shroud and freeing the living winged creature. It is said that any such kindness simply means an undeveloped wing-power, by which the butterfly will never be able to soar and enjoy its life. That struggle is the needful condition of full wing-power. Men who cannot struggle can never soar" (Lovell).
To use a different illustration, no stroke of the chisel in the hand of the Great Craftsman is unnecessary. The soul, like the facets of the diamond, needs the best and sharpest tools to fashion it into a gem for the Redeemer's crown. This is specially true of those to whom the present meditation is addressed. Many an angel of resignation speeds up to heaven from the sick-couch with the message, "Made perfect through suffering."
Remember this, you who are now undergoing the desert experience, wandering through the wilderness "in a solitary way." There is no place, no occasion (just because of its dreariness and weariness) where God can be more glorified than on a couch of pain, or where more real spiritual strength is imparted. In the words of one of our motto-verses, "The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing. You will make all his bed in his sickness" (Psalm 41:3). To use the familiar earthly phrase, how many in that peculiar school of suffering have "graduated with honors." They came out of "great tribulation." Tribulation—the threshing-flail—the grain-sifter, as the root-word imports, winnowing the husk from the seed. And this "tribulation" (taking the Apostle's words in his great chapter) "works" (not impatience, as we would have expected, but) "patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope."
It was the smitten rock of the desert that yielded the refreshing waters. Your own feeling, perhaps, may be that with you there can be no such stream; that pent up in that couch of disease and suffering, life is useless—effort for good is denied. You are like the wounded bird with broken wing struggling in the furrow; envying those around you in their capacity of flight and soaring. Perhaps, though reluctant to own it, you may be among the faithful toilers who have broken down, by reason of your very fidelity to duty. The bow was overstrained, and the bowstring has snapped; the harp-chord was overstrained, and the music has ceased. This is the history of many an arrested ministry at home or in the Mission-field. The life of excessive consecration has only paid its martyr penalties. Many a sick-bed sufferer reminds one of the Marechal Niel rose that flowers so luxuriantly as often to bloom itself to death. By the very profusion of goodness the root becomes weakened, the overloaded blossom exhausts the mortal energy. But, be still; God has work for you to do, when the wings are clipped and the eye is filmed. If activities are impossible, not so the exercise of the passive virtues.
While you may be bewailing curtailed opportunities and baffled purposes, you can in other ways "glorify Him in the fires." You may see in that shattered body of yours only the house in ruins of which I have spoken, while, in His sight and under His loving discipline, you may in truth be noiselessly rearing an angel-visited temple. Yours is a shadowed couch; but it is in "the shadow of His hand" He has "hidden you." You may be able to say nothing and to do nothing; yet you can remember, in your very helplessness, Milton's noble line—"They also serve who only stand and wait."
"The Lord is good to those who wait for Him." Thus have many stricken souls, by patience and resignation under protracted anguish, been made preachers of righteousness; the chamber of suffering and the bed of languishing made as the House of God and the Gate of heaven! They have been unconsciously singing "Songs without words," and if called to depart, have left a trail of light behind them. The bereft, who long loved to watch that couch, will recall the "patience with joyfulness" of its occupant.
The following verses are from the "Swan-Song"—written on his death-bed, and found after his departure—of one of the best and best known of our hymn-writers. The place where Horatius Bonar penned the words gives emphasis to the silent farewell testimony—
"Long days and nights upon this restless bed
Of daily, nightly, weariness and pain!
Yet You are here, my ever-gracious Lord,
Your well-known voice speaks not to me in vain
'In Me you shall have peace!'
"The darkness seems long, and even the light
No respite brings with it, no soothing rest
For this worn frame; yet, in the midst of all,
Your love revives. Father Your will is best.
'In Me you shall have peace!'
"Sleep comes not, when most I seem to need
Its kindly balm. Oh, Father, be to me
Better than sleep; and let these sleepless hours
Be hours of blessed fellowship with Thee.
'In Me you shall have peace!'
"Father, the hour has come; the hour when I
Shall with these fading eyes behold Your face,
And drink in all the fullness of Your love.
Until then, oh, speak to me Your words of grace—
'In Me you shall have peace!'"
Above all, look, suffering one, to Him who among His other experiences as the Man of Sorrows knew, as no one else did, the combination of mental and bodily anguish. "He Himself bore our sicknesses." He, the Great Physician, has, in His Divine-human Person, walked the wards of the Hospital of humanity. If, as we believe, the strongest natures feel deepest—are often most sensitive to pain, surely in a Divine sense was this true of the Ideal Man—the Prince of sufferers—who alone could make the challenge, "Was there ever any sorrow like unto My sorrow?" "Can you drink of the cup that I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" "Yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." "The Lord," said Savonarola on the morning he was led out to execution, "suffered as much for me."
We cry in our agony, in weakness, failure, perplexity of heart, that there is no hope nor help. No hand seems to direct the storm, no pity listens. "God has forsaken us," we say. Do we say so and not recall the words which fell on that great victory on Calvary—fell from the Conqueror's lips, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" "Blackness of darkness and despair, and feebleness sinking without a stay: these are not failures. In these characters was written first the character of our deliverance: these are the characters in which it is renewed" (Hinton).
There is no verse in all the Bible that carries with it a more wondrous message of consolation to the couch of sore suffering than this—it identifies you with the suffering Christ—"Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you, as though some strange thing had happened to you: but rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when His glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy" (1 Peter 4:12, 13).
"O trust yourself to Jesus,
When you are tried with pain,
No power for prayer—the only thought
How to endure the strain.
"Then is the hour for proving
His mighty power in thee;
Then is the time for singing,
'His grace suffices me.'"
Come, O sufferer! and like the peasant woman of Galilee touch the hem of His garment. Listen, O sufferer! to the dual chimes floating across the river, under the last gleam of the Wilderness Pillar—"Neither shall there be any more pain." "The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick."