S. THE NEW AND GREATER MIRACLE.

THE NEW AND GREATER MIRACLE. Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? — John 11:37.

It is interesting to remember how all which has happened to Christianity happened first to Christ. All the welcome and rejection, all the eager love, the passionate hatred, and the perplexed questionings which have greeted the religion of the Saviour greeted the Saviour first, and have left their record on the pages of the Gospels, in which the story of His earthly life is told. If men have always wondered whether the final salvation of this world has been attained in Jesus, has there not been in their questioning the echo of John the Baptist’s message, "Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another?" If men have taunted Christianity because with all its vast claims to mastery it still has been despised and trodden under foot of men, we can hear through their mockery the words which greeted Jesus in his agony, "If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." If men’s pride in their own self-sufficiency and in the competence of their earthly associations and traditions has been wounded, they have cried out to the Redeemer, who offered His redemption with such importunate insistence, "Art thou greater than our father Abraham? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us this well? " If the spiritual region from which Christianity issued has seemed too obscure, too remote from the great accredited interests of mankind, the voice which declared that such a religion could not save the world has only taken up again the old objections, "Can any good thing come out of :. Nazareth?" "Search and look, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet." It is a sign of the vitality and reality of Jesus, it is a sign of how Christianity is but the extension and perpetuation of Christ in the world, that all which is said of Christianity to-day was said years and years ago of Christ. An illustration of all this is found in the words which I have chosen for my text. A miracle of Jesus was fresh in people’s minds. He had touched a blind man’s eyes and given him his sight. Then some short time had passed, and a new need for help had come. Lazarus of Bethany was very sick. And Jesus had not healed him. He had not even come to him. He had let Lazarus die. And to the people, as they stood around the tomb where he was buried, there had inevitably come this question, "What does it mean? Why was there not another miracle? Surely it is strange that He who could restore the power of sight should have found any difficulty here. Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that this man should not have died?" Mary and Martha, the dead man’s sisters, felt the same wonder. "Lord, if thou hadst been here my brother had not died!" so each of them exclaimed as she came into the Master’s presence. It was evidently the feeling of the whole scene, — this wonder at the unrepeated miracle, at the unused power which might have prevented all this sorrow and kept the dear life alive. And we can imagine something of the questions which such a wonder must have started in the people’s minds. Some of them must have found themselves questioning the reality of the old miracle. "Did He indeed then open the blind man’s eyes? Could we have been mistaken?" To others it must have seemed as if Jesus could not have cared for Lazarus. "It must have been, if He had cared for him, that He would have helped him here." And then there must have been others to whom there came some better light. "Perhaps after all to have caused that this man should not have died would not have been the greatest mercy. Perhaps Jesus did love Lazarus and could have saved him, and did not choose to. Perhaps not the repetition of a former mercy but something new and different was best." At any rate the power and the love of Jesus were to them beyond all question; and so they waited.

Between these last and the other two groups there evidently is a clear distinction. These last believe in Jesus; to the others Jesus is still on test and trial. Here is the parting of the ways. Here is where some turn this way and some that, and some stand hesitating at the fork. Here is where men either go up to greatness and full faith, or rest in partialness and skepticism which yet often calls itself faith. Oh, strange clear scene outside the tomb at Bethany, where men stood wondering why Christ did not do what they expected Him to do, and giving their faithful or their faithless explanations! And now has not the same scene been repeated ever since? This is what I want to speak of to you this morning. Some miracle is wrought; some manifestation of the strength of the spiritual power of Christ is made. The whole world which recognizes the miracle shouts for joy. "How strong Christ is!" it cries, and seems to feel as if for all time to come there could be nothing again like difficulty or doubt or lack of faith. Then by and by a new emergency occurs. Men say "There is no danger; we know exactly what to do. The Christ who saved us yesterday will come again." They watch and listen confidently, but He does not come. The emergency works itself out to its catastrophe. Then comes dismay. "Has Christ grown powerless or pitiless?" or, "Were we then mistaken, and was that no Christ which saved us yesterday? If He did really open the eyes of the blind, surely He could have caused that this man should not have died. "So spring suspicions and misgivings; so is skepticism born. But some souls stand serene and patient, with more spiritual insight into Christ and what He will do. "He will not Work the same work twice; He will do something new and greater. Let us wait and see." And by and by such faith is justified, and He who did not choose to cause that this man should not have died cries, "Lazarus, come forth;" and the greater miracle has taken place where the smaller miracle seemed to fail. No doubt in all times the illustrations of this truth have been abundant, but it would seem as if they were especially plentiful to-day. For now the new is everywhere opening out of the old, and the methods of God’s treatment of His world are manifestly and bewilderingly changing. Take the whole subject of the difficulties of religious thought. How often in the past it has seemed at least to be the case that when difficult questions arose men were raised up to answer them! In the great crises of the Church’s life great souls like Athanasius, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, have stood forth, and with some great and timely word have seemed to satisfy men’s souls and set their questionings at rest. But how is it to-day? There never was more doubt or tumult. Never was the great human heart, seeking for truth, more bewildered and distracted. How natural then is the cry which here and there breaks forth, "Where is the mighty champion of truth who is to come to-day and answer all these questions, as other champions have answered the hard questions of other days? Where is the malleus hoeretieorum who is to beat into fine dust these hard and puzzling adversaries of the truth? "Now and then we hear reports that he has come. The rumor runs about that some book has been printed, or some voice has been raised which is to settle and make plain forever all that has grown so mixed and unintelligible. The rumor always ends in disappointment. The book or the teacher clears up perhaps some special point, or calms perhaps some corner of the tempest, but the great tumult of cloud still fills the sky. And then there comes to many men, there has come to very many men in these our days, another possibility, another hope. "What if it be that God has for His people in these days a better blessing than any which He gave to them of old? What if instead of sending them a subtle and ingenious leader who can answer questions and put doubts to rest, He chooses by the very process of unanswered questions and unresting doubts to bring the whole soul of man onto a higher level, into a broader light, and make it ready for a larger and completer faith? "The difference between the old faith patched and made habitable and a new faith where men with hearts wide open to the truth may go in and live without a fear, — this is the difference between the two sets of dreams which men are dreaming. One man expects to see old forms of faith restored, and thinks that doubt and all disturbance will be looked back on by and by as a mere dreadful cloud through which the human soul has passed, coming out from it finally just as it entered in. Another man looks for a great re-birth of faith and expects to see mankind grateful forever that out of the very grave of unbelief there came a resurrection to a fuller spiritual life. All men who think at all about the strange condition of religious things to-day belong to one or other of these classes. Which is the nobler dream? Which dream is the more worthy both of God and man? Which opens the more hopeful prospect for the years to come? Nor is this true only about religious things. The real question everywhere is whether the world, distracted and confused as everybody sees that it is, is going to be patched up and restored to what it used to be, or whether it is going forward into a quite new and different kind of life, whose exact nature nobody can pretend to foretell, but which is to be distinctly new, unlike the life of any age which the world has seen already. Men say, "The world has been disturbed before. Classes have clashed with one another. Governed and governors, employed and employers, rich and poor, have come to blows in other days, but things have always adjusted themselves again. The stronger have grown kinder; the weaker have grown humbler; the paternal governor has grown more fatherly; the obedient subject has grown more filial, and things have gone on again as smoothly as before." "So shall it be again," men say. That is what they expect as the outcome of all this conflict. But other men see clearer. It is impossible that the old conditions, so shaken and broken, can ever be repaired and stand just as they stood before. The time has come when something more than mere repair and restoration of the old is necessary. The old must die and a new must come forth out of its tomb. It is not going to be enough that the strong should once more grow kinder and the weak grow humbler. The balance and distribution of strength and weakness is being altered, must be altered more and more. The sources of artificial strength and artificial weakness are being dried up. Governors and governed, employers and employed, are coming to be co-workers for the same ends. Not the old mercies repeated, but new mercies going vastly deeper than the old, — these are what men are beginning to see that the world is needing and that God is giving to the world He loves.

We think of the world’s misery. Our souls are sick with the sight of hunger and nakedness and want. We cry out for the miracles of old; we remember the manna falling from the skies; we see the loaves and fishes multiplied beside the lake; we wonder where is the miracle-worker now. Cannot He who fed the hungry Jews feed these hungry Americans? We are ready to doubt \ the old story of His mercy, or to think He has forgotten to be gracious and ceased to care for these modern nations whom He has not " chosen. " And then, just as we are ready to give up to despair in one or other of these forms, we catch a glimpse of something better, of something which makes us see that the manna and the miraculous loaves and fishes, made perpetual, would be demoralizing and degrading. Some light comes on the necessity and nobility of struggle. We see the greater glory of the new miracle, — the miracle of the advancing civilization, whose purpose is not to do away with struggle but to make the conditions of struggle fair and the prospects of struggle hopeful. Into the spirit of that miracle we cast ourselves, not expecting to see the world’s misery suddenly removed, but sure that at last the world, in and through its misery, will triumph over its misery by patience and diffused intelligence and mutual respect and brotherly kindness and the grace of God. To expect the miracles of the present and the future, not the miracles of the past, — is not that the secret of all living and progressive life? There is no other life for a true man to live to-day. The man is weak and useless who, however devoutly, looks only for the repetition of past miracles, good and great as those miracles were in their own time. Solemnly and surely — to some men terribly and awfully, to other men joyously and enthusiastically — it is becoming clear to men that the future cannot be what the past has been. The world of the days to come is to be different from the world that has been. Every interest of life is altered; government, society, business, education, all is altered, all is destined to alter more and more. Only these two elements remain the same, — God and man! What then shall we expect? That God will guide man and supply him as He has in all the times which are past and gone, but that the new government and guidance will be different for the new days. He who believes that, looks forward to changes of faith and changes of life without a fear, for underneath all the changes is the unchangeableness of God. The ship looks forward fearlessly to the new ocean with its new stars and new winds, for the same captain will sail her there who has sailed her here, and the fact that he will sail her there otherwise than he sails her here will be only the sign of how sleepless and watchful is his care. Is it not very interesting to see how sometimes in the typical life of Jesus there had to be the same struggle with which we are familiar, — to let go of one kind of mercy and pass on into another? Twice especially the Lord cried out to be saved from the future which was just upon Him. "Father, save me from this hour!" "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." Both of these are cries for deliverance. "Father, thou hast saved me, save me again!" It is a cry for the repeated miracle. But — how wonderful it is! — Both times, before the words are fully spoken, comes a fuller light; the glory of a new and better miracle appears.

"No! I cannot be saved from this hour," "No! I cannot see this cup pass from me except I drink it;" but "Father, glorify thy name," "Father, not my will but thine be done!" The miracle of escape is abandoned; V the miracle of victory is taken up. Thenceforth not to be saved from suffering but to save the world by suffering is His hope and prayer. Is He not the type of the world He saved? Is it not growing evident that there are many things which the world thus far has striven to escape which now it must strive, not to escape, but to overcome? Duties which it has ignored, tasks which it has counted too great for its strength, problems for which it has thought that there was no answer, which, now it must take up, with which it must grapple, by its victory in the struggle with which it must be judged. The best part of the world, seeing its new history before it, is saying just as Jesus said, first fearfully, "Father, save me from this hour," and then bravely, "But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name!"

It does not prove that the old miracle was not real, or that it was not the best miracle for its time; but a new time is worthy and capable of a new miracle, and if it rises to its full privilege it does not ask that the old shall be preserved, but rather that out of the death of the old a better new may come to life.

I bid you think what is the different and higher kind of faith which such a change involves? They who, hearing that Lazarus was ill, believed that Christ would come and heal him as He had opened the blind man’s eyes, had faith in the old miracle. They who were willing that Lazarus should die, knowing that death could not take him out of Christ’s power, and that Christ would still do for him what was best, had faith in Christ. That is the difference. That is the great, everlasting difference of faiths. There is the faith in what God has done, which believes that He can do it again, and there is the faith in the God who did it, which believes that He can do whatever else is needed in any day to come. Some men only let us believe in their actions; other men’s actions open to us themselves and make us believe in them. Some men, dealing with God, are satisfied to get at His ways of acting and fix their faith on them; other men cannot be content unless through everything they come to God Himself, and knowing Him in His omnipotence, are ready to see ever new miracles issuing from His power as ever new sunbeams come streaming from the sun. The first man only looks to see the old machinery of the world and the Church repaired and kept in order; the other man looks to see world and church ever made new, ever bearing new testimony that they are fresh and living utterances of Him who has always deep and richer manifestation of Himself to make. My friends, do not be content with believing in God’s ways of action. Insist on believing in God. Then the future will not take you by surprise. Then you will be ready not merely for the repetition of the miracles of the past, but for ever new and richer miracles, for you will feel above you and beneath you and around you the inexhaustibleness of the God in whom you believe.

I have spoken mostly — perhaps too much — about the way in which one truth affects the larger expectations of the world; but it is no less true concerning each man’s own personal career. Let me turn for a little while to that. For years you have lived, it may be, a secluded and protected life. "Lead me not into temptation," so you have prayed every morning, and every day has brought the answer to your prayer. But some day all that breaks and goes to pieces. A great temptation comes and is not hindered. Then you cry out for the old mercy and it is not given. What does it mean? Was the old mercy no mercy? Was it by mere accident that you so long escaped being tempted? Or has God grown tired of protecting you? Has He ceased to care? Could not He who saved you so often save you again? And then, behold what comes! A new mercy! You go into the temptation. Your old security perishes, but by and by out of its death comes a new strength. Not to be saved from dying but to die and then to live again in a new security, a strong and trusty character, educated by trial, purified by fire, — that is what comes as the issue of the whole. Not a victory for you, preserving you from danger, but a victory in you, strengthening you by danger, — that is the experience from which you go forth, strong with a strength which nothing can subdue." And if it is so with you, why shall it not be so also with the soul for which you care? Here is your brother or your child. You have prayed that he might be shielded, and God has shielded him. The wickedness of the world has been for him as if it went on in another planet. The unbelief of men has never found him out, wrapped as he is in the unquestioned and unquestionable truth which you have taught him. Every night you have thanked God for the miracle of preservation safely continued for another day. And then some day all that is over. The safe walls seem all to give way together; the lurid flames burst in on the bewildered soul; the unbelief, shouting and arrogant, lifts itself up, and all the peace of settled, unquestioned faith is gone. You cry out for the old familiar miracle and it does not come. Oh, terrible day! Oh, bitter anxiety! Happy and wise and brave are you if, knowing that the day for the old miracle is past, you hope and wish and pray for it no longer, but make ready for the new miracle and for the help which it will be yours to render to the soul in the new life upon which it is to enter through its temptation and its doubt. Happy and wise and brave are you if, discerning that Jesus has something better to do for Lazarus than to save him from dying, you stand ready to receive him as he comes out of the tomb, to loosen and take off his grave-clothes, to give him the raiment and the food of living men, and to welcome him into the new and larger life which has become possible to him through death.

Suppose it is the death to which we more literally give that great and awful name. You have prayed that your child may live, and God, once and again, has spared his life. "Can He not spare it again?" you cry upon some dreadful night as you stand by your child’s sick-bed, counting the pulse, watching the feebler and feebler flutter of the breath. The morning comes and he is dead! Has God been then deaf to your prayer? Oh, if there is a new miracle, if beyond the miracle which saves from dying there is the miracle which brings through death to life beyond, then God has not been deaf! Your child living with Him speaks back to you and says, "He who has saved me often has saved me now completely. I am alive; not from death but through death He has saved me. The last, best, greatest miracle has come, and I am alive, I am saved; I am alive and safe forever. " To that last miracle we must all come. A thousand times, yea, every perilous moment, God saves us from dying. There is a moment on the way for every one of us when that preservation will be possible no longer. We shall pray, our friends will pray for us, "Again, Father, spare him; let him live." And then the answer which is looked for will not come, and he who has been so often saved from dying at last will die. Will it be a sign of God’s forgetfulness? If so, then God has forgotten all His children, and let them every one, either in childhood or as life-worn veterans, slip through His careless hands; for all have died or will die. But, no; if, as we know is true, the real life lies beyond, and can be reached only through death, then the old miracles are nothing to this new one. They are to it as little as was the miracle by which at Nazareth Christ walked through the hostile multitude and went His way unharmed to the great miracle of resurrection, in which through Death the Lord of Life came forth to be alive for evermore. Could not Christ have saved Lazarus from dying? Could not Christ save you or me from perplexity or from temptation or from doubt? Surely those are questions which have their lower and their higher answers. He could, because the power of life and death was in Him. But the power to use the power depended upon other things. It depended on the necessity which lay back of all things in Jesus to do the absolutely best thing, — not the second-best, but the absolutely best of all. If it were best for Lazarus to die, then Christ could not have caused that he should not have died. That is a sublime incapacity; to stand with the gift of life in the all-powerful hands, to see the cry for life in the eager eyes, to hear it in the dumb appeal of the terrified lips, and yet to say, " No, not life but death is best, " and so to be unable to give life, — that is a sublime, a divine incapacity! Could not Christ have answered your prayer? No, He could not; not because the thing you asked for was not in His treasury, but because behind the question of His giving or refusing it there lay the fundamental necessity of His nature and His love, that He should do for you only the absolutely best. The thing you asked for was not absolutely best, therefore He could not give it. Back of how many unanswered prayers lies that divine impossibility! Is it not true again that we must know not only God’s way of acting but God Himself before all this can be perfectly accepted into our life? Oh, how we make God a method, a law, a habit, a machine, instead of a great, dear, live, loving Nature, all afire with affection, all radiant with light, quick as light to discriminate and choose and shine with His own color on every nature where He falls! This was what Jesus was so full of, — the living God. He would not let God seem a method or a law. God was a life. And our theology, our ecclesiasticism, our religion is always trying to beat and trample Him down into a law again. How we have taken that great word Faith and made it mean the holding of set dogmas, when really what it means is the wide openness of a whole life to God! How we have limited and stereotyped the range and possibility of miracle till only what God has done we think that God can do, and so do not stand ready for the ever new light and mercy and salvation which the Infinite Love, the Infinite Power, the Infinite God has to give!

Open your hearts to-day. God cannot merely do for you over and over again what He has done in the past. He must do more, — a new and deeper sight of His truth, a new and deeper obedience to His will. Oh, by and by, when Lazarus sat with them all at Bethany and the house was solemn with the resurrection life, how good then it seemed that Christ had not caused that this man should not have died! And the day will come sometime, somewhere for you when it will be your everlasting thankfulness that your Lord refused to just repeat the old familiar mercies of the past, but forced you through everything to let Him do for you the larger and larger mercies which your soul required. When He so tries to bless you with His largest blessing, may He make you ready to submit to be blessed!