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Luk_2:43
An easy application makes this illustrative of the condition of the soul which loses sight of Jesus in any part of this earthly pilgrimage. “O dear Savior!” cries one of old, “who can miss and not mourn for Thee! Just is that sorrow, and those tears seasonable, that are bestowed upon thy loss. What comfort are we capable of while we want Thee! What relish is there in these earthly delights without Thee! What is there to mitigate our passionate discomforts, if not from Thee! Let thyself loose, O my soul, to the fulness of sorrow when thou findest thyself bereaved of him, in whose presence there is fulness of joy; and deny to receive comfort from anything save from his return.” Note: Bishop Hall’s Contemplations, Book ii. Con. 1.
But why should the Lord’s presence be at any time wanting to us?—why should we be at any time exposed to the misery of his absence from us? We know that it is so—but why should it be thus with us?
Often does it happen that after the most spiritual employments, and the services we count most holy, God seems to absent himself from us, and to withdraw the sensible evidence of his presence. This seems hard; yet our Lord is not a hard Master. He means our good; and it is good that we should not be allowed to rest in fixed and stagnating contentments; but should be excited by the pain of his absence and by the fear of losing Him, to seek after Him with the same diligence, the same cares, the same fears, as those with which this sorrowing mother sought her lost Jesus. God means it not, we may well believe, in anger, but in mercy, when for a while He removes the light from before the eyes of a holy person, that he may not fall into a condition of too great complacency in his spiritual condition and estates before God. Even in the things of the spirit, it is too much our tendency to look to the present, to rely too much upon present comforts and exaltations. We judge well or ill of our devotions and services by the measure of our own apprehensions and expectations; and if we feel a present rejoicing of spirit, all is well with us, and the smoke of our sacrifice seems to have ascended right upward in a holy cloud to God. But if we fail to realize a present sense of comfort, then we count it ominous of spiritual loss and evil to us, and are led to look narrowly into our own hearts; which is of itself a good and salutary exercise; and we seldom need to look much further for the real cause of our discomfort. It is not always in anger that these seasons of gloom are suffered to fall upon us. When the guiding pillar of fire withdrew from the front of the Hebrew host, doubtless the chosen people were perplexed, as they looked into the dark wilderness of waters that lay before them. But presently they found that, although no longer before but behind them, it there became a sign of safety to them and of ruin to their enemies. So it is that if the bright irradiations from the Lord’s presence, that are wont to guide and cheer our pilgrim way, do sometimes remove from our sight, and stand behind us, this is no sure ground of fear that his anger has gone forth against us; for such failures of sensible enjoyment, such cloudings of spirit, are well suited to keep us in humbleness of mind, and to restrain those vain and intemperate thoughts to which we are often tempted in the days of our gladness.
But let its not too readily take comfort from the thought that the withdrawment of our Lord’s presence is not always a sign of his displeasure; for it is often that. Too often do we give Him cause, by our offences and alienations, to hide for a while his face from us. Sometimes we are puffed up with vain conceits; sometimes we have been remiss in our waiting upon Him and looking to Him; sometimes pride invades the dark corners of our heart; sometimes we cherish some secret sin, or nourish some unholy thought, concerning which He would have us diligently examine ourselves. Then it is, that when by our ceasing to enjoy his presence with our spirits, we have been led to look narrowly into our own souls, and have been brought, by what we find there, into a proper state of self-abasement, a ray of light breaks through the dusk which has hung around us, and we know once more that He is there.
It is well remarked by a master in Israel, whose suggestions we have here been mainly following, Note: Jeremy Taylor. Great Exemplar, Part i. Sect. 3. Edit. 1653. that “although the visible remonstrance and face of things in all the absences and withdrawings of Jesus be the same, yet, if sin be the cause of it, the withdrawing is a taking away of his favor; but if God does it to secure thy piety and inflame thy desires, or to prevent a crime, then He withdraws a gift only, nothing of his love; and yet the darkness of the spirit and sadness seem equal.”
The sincere soul that misses the presence of Christ, can know no joy without Him; can find interest in no employment but in seeking Him; can take no rest till it has found Him. Blessed they who know how to seek Him, and where to find Him; for this knowledge spares them much hazardous and fruitless quest. The church, in the Song of Songs (Son_3:2) resolves, “I will rise and go about the city, and will seek Him whom my soul loveth.” That was an ill place to seek Him; and she is constrained to confess—“I sought Him, but I found Him not.”
“I searched this glorious city; He’s not here;
I sought the country; she stands empty handed.
I searched the court; He is a stranger there;
I asked the land; He’s shipp’d: the sea; He’s landed.
I moved the merchant’s ear; alas! but he
Knew neither what I said, nor what to say.
I asked the lawyer; he demands a fee,
And then devours me with a vain delay:
I asked the schoolman; his advice was free,
But scored me out too intricate a way:
I asked the watchman (best of all the four),
Whose gentle answer could resolve no more,
But that he lately left Him at the temple door.
Thus having sought, and made my great inquest
In every place, and searched in every ear;
I threw me on my bed; but, oh! my rest
Was poisoned with th’ extremes of grief and fear,
Where, looking down into my troubled breast,
The magazine of wounds, I found Him there.”—Quarles.