| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 12 |
Page 2 |
Christ’s friends were in great sorrow, sorrow which seemed inconsolable. Yet their Master’s first word to them was, “Let not your heart be troubled.” This seemed a strange word to say to them that night. How could they help being troubled in such experiences as theirs? Think of all Jesus had grown to be to them. For three years they had been members of his personal family, enjoying the most intimate relations with him. How much a friend can be to us in our life depends on the friend. If he has a rich nature, a noble personality, power to love deeply, capacity for friendship, the spirit of unselfish helpfulness; if he is able to inspire us to heroism and to worthy living; what he can be to us is simply immeasurable. Think of what the best, strongest, richest hearted human friend is to you in the way of cheer, inspiration, guidance, courage, and atmosphere. Think what Jesus, with his marvelous personality, must have been as a friend to his disciples. Then you can understand something of what his going from them meant to them.
Then he was more than a friend to them. They had believed in him as their Messiah, who was to redeem their nation and to lead them to honour and power. Great hopes rested in him. His death, as it seemed to them, would be the failure of all these hopes. The announcement swept away, as they now thought, all that made life worth while to them. There are human friends whose death seems to leave only desolation in the hearts and lives of those who have loved them and leaned on them. But the death of Christ was to his personal friends and followers the blotting out of every star of hope and promise. Their sorrow was overwhelming. Yet Jesus looked into their faces and said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” Jesus is always an encourager, a minister of cheer. Some people come to us in trial, thinking to comfort us, but their words fail to give any strength. They weep with us, they sympathize with us, but they do not make us any braver, any more able to endure. If we would be comforters like our Master, we must inspire others to endurance. We must bring them something that will make them stronger. Mere condolence will not do it. We must have something to give which will impart strength and courage.
Page 2