02 - The Grave
II. THE GRAVE!
"I know you will bring me down to death — to the house appointed for all the living!" Job 30:23 "It is appointed for men once to die — and after that the judgment!" Heb 9:27 In the center of ancient Rome was erected a gilded pillar — to which all the public ways, leading to that vast metropolis of the world, converged. Thus do the various walks and pursuits of human life, terminate alike in one outcome — the grave. Whether we join the band of holy pilgrims, or of lawless rebels — we shall reach at last a common resting-place’ in our journey. Whether we select the wide or the narrow way — there is a point where these tracks meet — a column to which they equally conduct.
Let us go forth in imagination for a moment among the mansions of silence, and contemplate the scene of desolation — the multiplied image of death. What do we find here? A surface of living vegetation, overspreading a soil of bodily decay. The ground has risen and swollen with the transmuted spoils of life — and its richness is the moldering corpse. The sinewy cords of manhood — the rosy light of youth — the blooming cheek of infancy — these — these supply the nutrients which feed this green turf, and those painted wild flowers whereon we tread. To give method to our reflections, we may regard the receptacle of all living, in four several points of view.
1st. As a monument recording the true estimate of terrestrial concerns.
2nd. As a place of rest.
3rd. As the porch of eternity.
4th. As the extreme boundary of probation.
What is worldly glory — when soon a few feet of earth shall bound the possessions of him, whose ambition embraced the globe?
What is the love of worldly wealth, when the cottager who rests beneath the grassy mold — sleeps there as soundly as the tenant of the mausoleum? How silent, how insensible are the ashes of our forefathers, who here repose within their narrow beds! Where are . . .
the passions that agitated their bosom,
the hopes that encouraged them,
the joys that delighted them,
the cares that at concerned them,
the desires which they pursued?
"Their love and their hatred and their envy have already perished; neither have they any more a share in anything that is done under the sun!" Ecc 9:6 A cemetery, with its population slumbering in the dust, and with all its marble monuments and visible records of mortality — speaks a solemn lesson — to the pride, and the jealousy, and the strife, which ever recur in the present scene. Like the scroll of the prophet, it is written within and without — with wailing, and lamentations, and woe. It is, in emblem, what the sentence prescribed by the wisest king, at the conclusion of his encyclopedia of knowledge, was, in words, "Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." Ecc 1:2
True, from the silent tenants, and from the sad memorials of the place, there issues no audible language. Nevertheless, their noiseless voices are heard among them — and passing from bitter sarcasm to solemn warning, they remind us, as we meditate amidst the field of desolation — what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!
Supposing that your Redeemer had never come forth from the tomb — or that an ulterior existence were scarcely even a matter of conjecture — it would yet charm the severer dispensation of distress; it would speak the breaking heart into a pensive tranquility, to reflect . . .
that every hour is taking a grain from the hour-glass of adversity;
that the author of calamity has erected the tomb as its bounding pillar;
that he has provided an asylum, a region of oblivion and of peace . . .
where woe shall cease to weep, and patience to suffer,
where poverty may at length find a refuge from the sorrows,
and shame find a refuge from the scoffings of the world.
But, thanks be unto Him who has brought immortality to light, we are not left with this sad solace of adversity
Men of other times, generations that have passed away — perpetual, and without a dawn is your night of stillness — we call, but you hear not our voices, nor shall you know that your names are remembered. Silent, forever silent are . . .
the patterns of piety,
the luminaries of wisdom,
the idols of renown,
heroes of ancient and of modern days,
warriors who spread dismay, or opposed injustice on the earth,
statesmen, whose councils influenced the fate of empires,
orators, who chained the attention, and swayed the will of multitudes,
philosophers, writers, poets, artists, whether your impulse were philanthropy, or your own passion were fame
— here are mingled your remains with those of the obscure peasant,
alike the food of the worm,
the tenants of the dungeon,
and ignorant of what is passing but a few feet above you! Of what avail are now the flights of your genius, or the monuments of your pride — the works of your munificence, or the story of your deeds? To you, all these things are now, as though they had never been! What though here the wicked does indeed cease from troubling, and the slave is free from his master — and the prisoners repose together — and the weary be at rest? — while consciousness, motion, life, have utterly ceased.
We tread over the bodies of a blended multitude . . .
the throngs of cities,
the hermits of deserts,
the instructors of our childhood,
the companions of our toils,
the sharers of our secret counsels,
the aged relative,
the speechless babe.
Mournful going forth! vast family of death! The earth that is heaped over you, cannot be disturbed from within. On the eyes that have closed upon the cheerful light of day — its rays are never again to beam. To the same land of forgetfulness we are ourselves proceeding — pushed forward with a certainty which cannot be shunned; and a celerity which it is impossible to slacken. The day is not distant, and may be now about to come forth — when we shall be added to this vast heap of desolation, and forgotten — when the earthly frame will crumble among its kindred clods of the valley — and the unbound breath of life, having finished its work, will "vanish into thin air." In light of our soon and certain death — how lighter than vanity seem the attainments of life! O, how doubly oppressive all life’s burdens — when we think, that after we have borne about, for a few short and evil days, this frail and feverish being — the hillock of turf will alone mark out our place; the head shall be laid down on the bed of forgetfulness, and we shall go there, whence we shall not return!
Away all romantic desires of higher attainments in this life — in the estimation of a corrupt and a surface-seeing world! Away! for what remains but to make the most of present time, to eat and to drink and be happy, since tomorrow we die — and then all the rest is darkness, and is nothing.
Such, such would be the dreary condition of man, if unapprized, if unassured of futurity — and here would close, in gloom and in horror, all the sorrowful reflections which a visit to the sepulcher could suggest. Wherever, under these views, he should cast his eyes for consolation — all would to him appear blasted and unpleasurable. Walking abroad in the spring, he would but deplore those happier days, of an innocence, no more to return — of which the budding foliage, and the fresh creation spoke — but would not there trace the analogy of resurrection. Listening to the voice of music, he would lose those promises of heavenly choirs, and of a brighter world, which constitute its highest charm. Under the loss of friends, he could know nothing of re-union. And in deciphering the mystic characters of the starry heavens, he would be utterly dissevered from all purer information.
Wandering along the shore of a dark ocean, to which no certain boundary of coast could be descried — he would proceed as the slave of impulse, the idolater of the present; and satisfied, even in his best moods and moments, with the scantiest acquisitions in holiness. To us, however, whom divine revelation has certified, that when dust returns unto dust — the unfettered soul shall remount on a wing of insoluble identity, unto the presence of him who gave it — an ampler, nobler range of thought and of hope is opened. To us, the ground of the cemetery yet teems with animation, and the ashes of our forefathers glow with their usual fires. We wait for a morning, when the earth, to which they are committed, shall render back her invaluable deposit — when travailing, as does the mother, she shall, at one fruitful pang, restore all her children unto a second life.
"And he said unto me — Son of man, can these dry bones live? and I answered, O Lord God, you know." To God, the Builder of the living fabric, it is an easy labor to gather together and rearrange its scattered fragments. To you, the great Gardener, who has summoned from the earth the first fruits — it is but the breath of your will to bring to life the whole harvest. How gladly do we listen to the voice of your holy prophet announcing beforehand the errand of your Divine Son — the deliverer from the dungeon, and the grand atoning sacrifice for sin, "I will ransom them from the power of the grave — I will redeem them from death. O death! I will be your plague! O grave! I will be your destruction!"
How gladly, after the announcement had been verified, the deliverance completed, and the atoning sacrifice offered up — do we listen to the exulting echo, responding from the voice of your holy apostle, "O death, where is now your sting! O grave, where is your victory!" Thus assured, it is ours to interrogate the grave concerning its hidden treasures, and to unravel many mysterious dealings of Providence. The sorrower can now traverse the field of death, the place of desolation — with calmness. He can mark the green sod, which covers his earthly pleasures and hopes — with a soul resigned and satisfied. There, he can say, reposes my beloved relative — that shorter span of earth marks out where an infant is laid. Silent, beneath this hallowed urn, is the friend that loved me as a brother.
Here are the spoils of mortality, awaiting the resurrection. For know, O grave, that you shall render back your trust — and your clods shall leap into life; and be filled with a new animation — and I shall know once more those whom I have known; and the clasp of resurrection shall be indissoluble.
It was a dim surmise respecting future life, suggested by lofty inquiry, or by weeping friendship, that dictated, even among heathen nations, a reverence for the abodes of the departed. No greater affliction could be conceived than the lack of burial — nor severer cruelty than the denial of it — nor heavier imprecation than the wish that it might not be obtained. The great Athenian legislator devoted to the infernal furies, the impious violators of the sepulcher. Indeed the place of graves is secure under the protection of government — if that asylum of the dead were ever disturbed. It was, no doubt, the hope of rejoining beloved friends in a world to come; and a desire to mitigate the bitterness of inevitable present separation, which created this veneration for the dead.
Survivors delight, in most parts, to decorate these resting-places, with the fairest sculptures of art, and the tenderest effusions of affection. They adorn the churchyard with flowers, emblematic of future animation; and with evergreens, significant either of perpetual remembrance in the living, or of imperishable life in the departed. There broods the melancholy evergreen, casting its protection over the interred body. The departed are conceived to delight in these honors; and to rejoice when "the clods of the valley are thus made sweet unto them." And let modern and spurious liberality say what it will — this general respect for the remains of the deceased, is well deserving of being kept up, as connected with Scriptural truth. Let the humble believer be left in the enjoyment of his notion, that rudely to violate the abodes of mortality, is but part of an infidel plan for teaching that nothing survives the destruction of their mortal being, and that death is an eternal sleep. The tomb in which the Author of Christianity was laid, was constructed at once for ornament and security. "There was a garden, and in the garden a sepulcher: and it was hewn out of a rock, and guarded by a ponderous stone." Nay, "I now rest in peace" was admired even by an Infidel, as the most affecting of all monumental inscriptions. It is the voice which imagination would conceive as coming from the grave, provided the dead could speak.
4. But though the grave is not, to our consciousness, the furthest verge of the universe — though we know it to be the gate by which we and all men pass from the visible to the invisible world — it is still entitled to attention, as the extreme boundary of life. Where the tree falls — there it lies. We bid adieu forever to the shores which we are passing; for when the vessel has once reached its destined port, it neither returns nor repeats its course. "Lazarus, come forth!" was a miracle; a deviation from the course of nature. The tomb heard, in its cavities, the solemn mandate. It heard — it obeyed — it gave back its prey; then immediately closed its gates, and shut up its secrets, until the time of the restitution of all things.
We, when we have once descended there, cannot return to the land of the living, to amend what we have done amiss, or to perform what we have neglected. No change of heart can take place there.
He who is unjust — must be unjust still.
He who is condemned — is condemned forever.
He who is lost — cannot be found.
He who tastes the second death — cannot be spiritually alive again. "For when you go to the grave, there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom" — nor repentance.
Let us not evade the truth — we know that our appointed labor — a labor to be performed on earth, or not to be performed at all — is no easy, no trivial task of an hour. It is comprehensive and difficult — embracing . . .
our duties to God;
sincere repentance;
the crucifying of the old man;
faith, worship, holiness, perseverance;
our duties to our brethren;
activity and usefulness;
and love to God and man. For fulfilling this circle of various offices — the time allowed is brief: a portion of it gone, and what remains uncertain. What, then, is the inference? If such is the character of what our hand finds to do, and such the character of the time assigned for doing it — then surely wisdom counsels that we ought to do it with our might. This is certain, whether we speak with reference to temporal, or to our more strictly spiritual concerns. Even in the labors of our calling, in the accomplishment of worldly schemes, so far as they may comport with holiness, or constitute duty — the impending night incites us not to be slothful in business. He who puts his hand to the plough, will do well to beware of looking back, or of loitering in his toil. And he who goes late into the field of industrious exertion, must hasten to redeem the time. Now to redeem the time, is to use what remains of it to good purpose — to make a proper arrangement and distribution of our days. It is to intersperse moments of meditation among the hours of bodily or mental toil; and to give no more to pleasure, than is needful for the recruiting of the spirits. It is to resolve in the morning — to act in the day — to reflect at night. It is to desist from the chase of objects which are frivolous and contemptible in themselves — or irrelevant to the main business of our calling. Whatever we take in hand, we may never do amiss — and by proposing the divine glory as the scope and mark of our undertakings, to consecrate the whole routine of life, as a series of acts of service towards God. This is to redeem the time. But if wisdom dictate such prudence and diligence with respect to the vain schemes, and perishable acquisitions of the present life; which however innocent and beneficial in themselves, are not immediately and directly connected with salvation — by how imperious a voice are we exhorted to execute with our might, without hesitating, without procrastination — the great, the all-important, the indispensable work of preparing the spirit for eternity. This is the thing eminently and essentially belonging to our peace — it is the work, of which the neglect in this our day, deprives us of happiness and of hope forever. You may leave the stately mansion which you have founded, unfinished; and your heir will render it habitable for himself. You may leave the agriculture of your estate uncompleted, and fare never the worse for it in futurity. Blamelessly may you relinquish your plans of profit, pleasure or honor — for there may be humility in poverty, and modesty in seclusion — and both conditions are favorable to piety and perseverance. Your income may be little — your industry moderate — and all may nevertheless continue prosperous and well with you.
Overstrained frugality is the idolatry of covetousness; and Martha may be too careful and troubled about many things. If you have neglected the care of your health — if you have fallen into difficulties or distress — you may even yet hope for a favorable change, or at the worst, look to death as a deliverance from suffering. But if you now neglect the one thing needful — if you suffer this irrecoverable opportunity to pass unimproved — if you unhappily procrastinate the interests of immortality — then you are cut off from all hopeful expectation — bereft of all solace — and destitute of all happiness. You fling into the wide ocean, the pearl of great price. You cast away an advantage which it is impossible to retrieve — and forfeit a felicity of which you never can supply the absence.
While an hour yet remains then — arise and be doing.
While you still live and move upon the surface of this earthly ball,
while you are not yet mingled with the thousands who sleep within its bosom,
while you walk above graves, which yet you do not occupy,
while you yet tread upon the worm, by which you will speedily be devoured
— beg for repentance and faith in the glorious gospel.
Avoid the inactivity, in order to escape the fate of the unprofitable servant. Hasten to work the work of him who has sent you — who commands the grave to yawn before each step of your path in life — but whose calls subside as it were into the summer breeze — when he invites you with the still small voice within, "Why do you stand here idle all the day — go into the vineyard, though it be now the eleventh hour — and what is right I will give you."