“Behold How He Loved Him”
By I. H. Evans
A HOME had been stricken with death; the black pall of desolation was covering the hearts of Mary and Martha. Their brother Lazarus was dead, and in yonder grave they had laid him, and placed the silent stone to guard his sleeping. To them the home circle had been broken forever, and they awaited the resurrection, ere the wound could be healed. Jesus had often been an inmate of that household; well did he know the sweet perfume of that loving family. None could feel the sting of death more keenly than he who had come to give life. Jesus stood outside the city while the sisters told the sad tale of their brother’s decease and burial, and how he longed to behold the face of Jesus before he died. Touched with the grief and sorrow of those he so tenderly loved, the heart of Jesus could no longer hold its sorrow, and he poured forth his soul in a flood of tears. “Jesus wept.” In all his earthly ministry, what event in the life of Christ has comforted more hearts than this? We see him in the wilderness amid temptations, and we triumph in his strength; we see him in the temple, overturning the tables of the money-changers, driving the extortioners thence, and we rejoice in his power; we behold him before the multitude, warning them against the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, and we adore his courage; upon yonder mountain we gaze with worshipful admiration as we behold his glory in his transfiguration; we see him before Pilate and Herod, and dying in agony upon the cross without a murmur, and we worship at his feet: but here,—here in a home of grief and sorrow, while our hearts are bleeding from the cruel wounds of death, and our flood-tide of tears will not stay their flowing, we see our blessed Jesus weeping, too, and now we love him. The Jews were touched as they saw the Son of God in tears, and they said, “Behold how he loved him!” For nineteen hundred years these words have echoed from heart to heart, “Behold how he loved him!” If all the tongues of all the ages should give voice to that one phrase, “Behold how he loved him!” still the half would be never told. The consciousness of sympathetic love is one of the strongest supports that can come to mortals’ aid, and is excelled only by love itself. Gold can not buy it, nor power nor honor among men equal it; it stands paramount to every outside consideration. What strength has been imparted to many a young man when once he has realized a mother’s love! Won by a mother’s devotion, how he has resolved to quit the life of sin, and walk in the paths of obedience. A clergyman’s wayward son was in a strong revival meeting; many were giving themselves to God. One servant after another had gone to this youth to win him to yield to the Spirit’s wooings, but all in vain. His mother, an invalid, and who soon must die, at last went to his side, and placed her hand of love upon his shoulder, and said to him, “My boy, you know I love you. While I live, let me have the unspeakable joy of seeing you give your heart to God.” A flood of tears ran down his cheeks, and he said, “Mother, your love compels me; I will be a different boy; I will serve God henceforth.” Who has not read the story of that nobleman’s son in France, who ran away and left his home? His father spent a fortune trying to find him, and when the mother had died, and the old man had spent all in vain in a search for his wayward son, he heard that he was in6America. He came to New York and wandered from city to city, making inquiry on every hand, endeavoring to find his boy, but all in vain. Year after year he wandered from city to city, and from hamlet to hamlet, and when he was about to die, he said, “I must do something to convey to my child my undying love.” Among the rocks and forests of the wild West, he wrote upon stone and tree, “Jean Baptiste, your father loves you.” One day his son was passing through the country, and he saw these words on a rock: “Jean Baptiste, your father loves you.” It went to his heart. He said, “That is my name, can it be that my father is still living, and still can love me?” He wrote to Paris, and found that his father had come to America years before in search of his son, and now he began the search for his father, and at last they met. Won by a father’s love. Dear reader, take your Bible, and read the whole of Isaiah 53, and tell me if there is not described in that chapter the heights and depths of unmeasurable love. It matters little about your failings and weaknesses, your Father loves you in spite of all these. Wanderer from the voice of God, only listen to these words of love: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands,” and again, “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.” “Wondrous words; how rich in blessing,
Deeper than the unfathomed sea;
Broader than its world of waters,
Boundless, infinite, and free.
Higher than the heavens above,
Is thine everlasting love.” To know that God loves, and to live in the sunshine of that love, is the privilege of every Christian. In the hour of temptation, it will be a tower of strength; in the time of storm and tempest, it will be a beacon light to guide our course; in the hour of grief and sorrow, when desolation has swept everything before it, and our lives seem but wrecks, then we are comforted to behold Jesus, weeping in sympathetic sorrow by our side, and we can say, “Behold how he loves us.” Who can see love unrequited without a tear? I have seen wives whose companions no longer loved them, and, as I saw their grief and sorrow chiseling its furrows in their brows my heart was stirred to pity. Have you never seen some one that truly loved, and yet that love and devotion found no response? How you have tried to comfort the aching heart. “O!” you say, “it breaks my heart to see love unanswered. I can not endure it.” But look at Jesus, and behold how much he loves you, not in a weak, passionate strain, but with a broad, deep, abiding love, a love so deep that no human heart has ever yet sounded its depths, and no human soul has ascended to its heights, and no life has ever yet measured its length and breadth. Before it we bow in adoration, and say, “Behold how he loves me;” and as we contemplate his unselfish, his undying love, our hearts cry out, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Is there not some service that we can render to show our appreciation of such unselfish love? “O Christ, Redeemer, Master! I who stand
Beneath the pressure of thy gracious hand,
What is the service thou wouldst have for me?
What is the burden to be borne for thee?
I, too, would say, though care and fear exhaust,
What matters it? Love counteth not the cost.”