XXXV.
“DOMINE, ECCE QUEM AMAS INFIRMATUR.”
--_John_ xi. 3.
How many Bethanies, Lord Jesus, have there been in the world since the day You stood with Martha and Mary by the grave of Lazarus! How many there are at this hour! And each with all its pain is known to Your pitying Heart. Every detail known--the fear, the anxiety, the weary yet unwearied prayer, the long, long waiting for Your coming; the hope that rises and falls and clings the faster for its less foothold to Your promises, Your mercy, Your dear human Heart. You know it all. You have seen all, heard all for years. And still You wait, just as You waited beyond the Jordan whilst the sisters wept beside their brother’s bed, beside his grave.
“Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus. When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He still remained in the same place two days.”[109] Why, Lord, why--with Your heart so tender and Your arm so strong, and danger near, and time short, and those You love so fearful and so sad? Why did you still remain, O Lord?
Truly Your thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor Your ways as ours. Our love stands sentry round its dear ones, to ward off pain or sorrow: “Far be it from Thee, Lord, this shall not be unto Thee”.[110] Your love, seeking rather to sanctify than to spare, assigns to sorrow a definite work in behalf of Your beloved. “Whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth, and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.”[111] “Now Jesus loved Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus. When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He still remained in the same place two days.”
“Our Lord Himself was perfected by His passion.”[112] And in that passion it was not the nails which tore the flesh, but the anguish which rent the spirit, that drew forth His bitter cry. It was the passion of His Heart that was the hardest. It is by the crucifixion of the heart that Christ is perfected in us. Therefore He stays away and leaves us to suffering harder far to bear than physical pain. We cry out. We send our messages to Him. And He does not come. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me!” He hears and does not come. The echo of His own cry of desolation moves His Heart. And still He does not come. It is because Jesus loves that He does violence to His heart and lets the cross do for His friends what it alone can do. This is His way of showing love. He expects us to understand it.
In the cross, as in the sacred mystery of the altar, His love puts on strange disguises. But puts them on so regularly, so frankly, that losing by this time their power of disguise, they ought to reveal instead of hiding Him.
We must be patient and wait. The time of His coming, with its ways and means, we can leave to His wisdom and His love. Our work is to send urgently and perseveringly the message whose trust vanquished His Heart at last and made Him say, “_Let us go to him_”.
* * * * *
“_Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick._” Before a thousand tabernacles that cry is rising. No prayer, but pleading more potent than any prayer. Its perseverance is its power. Can it but hold out, ignore neglect, support delay, it is sure to hear in God’s own time: “Thy brother shall rise again.... Lazarus, come forth.”
Listen, Lord Jesus, to that cry. By the pity it woke in Your sacred Heart--listen! By the tears You shed with the weeping sisters--listen! Not for one Lazarus only, but for each and every one throughout the world, do we entreat You: _Domine, ecce quem amas infirmatur!_ If a miracle is needed, we ask it with confidence. Is there one You would work more gladly? O Lord, make haste to help us. To-day, to-day--to-morrow, perhaps, it will be too late. _Ecce quem amas infirmatur!_
[109] John xi.
[110] Matt. xvi.
[111] Heb. xii.
[112] Heb. ii.