S. MATT.
viii. 25.
“His disciples came unto Him, and awoke Him,
saying, Lord, save us we perish.”
IN the three first Advent collects we look on distinctly to the Day
of Judgement, the final Coming of our Lord, and we beseech Him to prepare
us for it. In the collect for the first Sunday, we ask Him in general
that we may be ready; the works of darkness cast away, and the armour of
light put on. In the second collect, we beseech God to bless us in
our use of Holy Scripture, as one of the chief helps which He has given
to bring us to heaven. In the third, we speak to Him of the holy
ministry, the succession of Bishops and priests in His Church, and pray
that it may prosper in the work whereunto He ordained it, i.e. the conversion
of men’s hearts, that we may he found “an acceptable people at His second
Coming to judge the world.” All these petitions you see refer expressly
to that second Coming. But this which is appointed for the fourth
and last week in Advent takes rather a different tone.
It speaks, not so much of a future deliverance which the faithful hope
for at the end of the world, but of relief wanted immediately, from urgent,
overwhelming distress. “O Lord, raise up, we pray Thee, Thy power
and come among us, and with great might succour us.” As if the Almighty
had, as it were, gone to sleep, and left us for a time to ourselves: as
He did once go to sleep in a vessel, on the sea of Galilee, and when a
great storm rose, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now
full, the disciples came to Him, and awoke Him, saying, “Master, Master,
we perish: carest Thou not that we perish ?“ Upon which our gracious Lord
arose, and “rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still; and
the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” That short, and earnest prayer
of the Apostles, “Lord, save us, we perish,” is the very pattern of a prayer
for a Christian man to use when troubles and temptations come thick upon
him, so that he scarcely knows which way to turn. It is a good prayer
for the whole Church, in the time of persecution, decay, or distress.
She knows that her Lord is with her; for He has promised to be with her
always. So far the Christians of all times are like the Apostles.
But as He was asleep, so it often seems to our timid eyes and minds, as
if He had forsaken us, and were gone to sleep: and then we naturally betake
ourselves to earnest prayer, as the Apostles did, “Lord, save us, we perish:”
“O Lord, raise up, we pray Thee, Thy power, and come among us, and with
great might succour us.” It is not only a prayer, but a cry; the
cry of helpless creatures, in overpowering distress and anguish, to Him
Who alone can help and deliver them. It answers to the cry of the
Israelites by the shore of the Red Sea, the sea before and the Egyptians
behind; to the prayer of Jonah when he was in the whale’s belly, when he
said, “I am cast out of Thy sight; yet will I look again,” just once more
will I look again, “toward Thy holy temple.” (Jonah ii. 4.)
It is like Hezekiah’s prayer in his sore sickness, when he seemed at
the point of death: " 0 Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me:” (Isa.
xxxviii. 14.) or still more is it like the sharp and eager cries of many
who came to our Lord, as their only hope of healing from violent or wasting
complaints, “Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief:” (S. Mark ix. 24.)
“Lord, come down ere my child die:” (S. John iv. 49.) “Lord, if Thou wilt,
Thou canst make me clean:” (S. Matt. viii. 2.) “Jesus, Master, have mercy
on us.” (S. Matt. xvii. 13.) These, and many more outcries of those
who came to our Lord in distress are in effect the same as the collect
for this week: they are petitions, “that He would raise up His power, and
come among us, and with great might succour us.” That is what we
pray for: and the time seems long to us, because of our great need; as
it seemed long to the children of Israel in the wilderness; as it seemed
long, no doubt, to Jonah whilst he waited in the whale’s belly; to Martha
and Mary, while Christ tarried, and did not come directly to heal their
brother Lazarus; and to S. Peter after his denial, until he saw his Lord
again, thoroughly to humble himself, and to turn that way ever after.
Just so the time seems long both to the bereaved Church, and to particular
Christians in affliction. The souls of the martyrs, pleading for
the Church, cry out, “Lord, how long dost Thou not avenge her cause?”
So the afflicted agonizing Christian calls out, “O Lord, make haste
to help me.” But here the question might well arise; How comes all this
pain, and distress, this fear and anxiety in the Church, now for so many
years the chosen and happy Bride of Christ? and how is it that Christian
people, long since baptized and put in reach of so high graces, find themselves
yet in so great straits? Why, the collect itself gives the answer.
It is, “through our manifold sins and wickedness.” Our sins, and nothing
else, are the cause, why we are “sore let and hindered in running the race
that is set before us.” It is our own sins then, my brethren, from which
we ask to be delivered; and that speedily. Whether we consider the
whole Church or the soul of each one of us in particular; our sin is so
great an evil, and we so frail and helpless, that we know not how to be
delivered from it, except by Christ’s coming especially, by His grace and
providence, to deliver us. For this therefore the Church has instructed
us to pray, now that we are so near the very hour of His first coming.
That our prayer may not be in vain, let us think a little, how it is,
that the sins and wickedness of Christians do so hinder them in their Christian
task, in doing God’s work, and running His race. It does not always
seem so to themselves. On the contrary, when a man is in the way
of indulging any one bad desire, which has come to be a favourite with
him, he is apt to fancy that he does not go on the worse for it in other
respects. The angry, the covetous, the proud and vain, nay oftentimes
even the dishonest and the unclean, not only say, but really think, that
they are in earnest in their devotions, and that on the whole they are
getting on, in the way towards heaven. But it is not so; it cannot
be so indeed. Our sins and wickedness really do hinder us.
Any one of them, if willfully indulged; is enough to stop us altogether,
and even those which come upon us by surprise, those which we are ashamed
of and strive against, are all in their measure sore lets and hindrances
to us; and the further men get on in the way of goodness, so much the more
do they feel this, so much the more do they grieve even for their lesser
and more pardonable sins.
Good and sincere people know this very well. But even the ordinary
sort may know it, if they will. I will try and put it before you
by a plain example. Suppose one should go to any person who is leading
an irregular indevout life; irregular, I mean, in his duties towards God,
making no point of going to Church, and quite neglecting Holy Communion.
If one should go to such a man, and ask him about himself, he might perhaps
begin to answer about his distance from Church, his worldly troubles, his
much business, or the like. But, in the end, it would be sure to
come out, that it is some sin which is hindering him: he is often provoked
to anger, or tempted to take dishonest or unclean liberties, or at any
rate his worldly cares haunt and trouble him; he cares too much for this
world, to say his prayers in earnest to God; and for these causes he cannot
serve God aright. The waiting on Church and Communion are the race
set before him, but these sins and wickednesses hinder him from running
it. Thus you see, the collect speaks the truth, when it lays the
chief part of the blame of each man’s imperfection on himself. It
is not outward things, but our own unmortified desires, which let and hinder
us from running our Christian race. We are not so good as we ought
to be, because we do not earnestly desire to be so. If we would open
our hearts to the good thoughts, which Almighty God from time to time puts
into them: if we would let those drops of heavenly dew sink deep; if we
would refresh and renew them by prayer; the difference would very soon
appear in our conduct. The evil is great; but how thankful ought
we to be, that the remedy is, by God’s mercy, in our own hands. Why
should not each one of us, this very evening, begin to apply that remedy?
What should hinder us, first of all, from joining with all our hearts in
the collect which will presently be offered up, in which we are to beseech
God that, in consideration of His Son’s being born among us and of our
being new born into Him, He would daily renew us with His Holy Spirit?
If we ask Him heartily so to raise up His power, and come among us and
with great might succour us, without all doubt He will do so. Of
all evenings in the year, this Christmas Eve is not the one, in which our
good Lord will turn away from the prayer of any poor penitent, or of any
one who but desires to be a penitent. The Angels, we know, came down
on Christmas night, to rejoice with us, and teach us to rejoice at the
wonderful Incarnation and Birth of our Divine Saviour; and we trust that
they are not far from the hymns and carols of good Christian people, indoors,
and out of doors, even on this very night. Now they are the same
Angels, of whom the Truth has told us, “There is joy in their presence”
and among them, “over one sinner that repenteth.” If then in any
house, where the Christmas bells or Christmas carols are heard to-night,
there be any person, who is in earnest grieved and wearied with the burthen
of his sins, whatever those sins have been: let such an one look up and
lift up his head, when he hears the joyful sound, let him take it as a
sure token that the Lord is even now raising up His power, and coming to
him, in His great and loving might, to succour him against those sins,
which he now feels to have so sadly hindered him in running the race which
was set before him. Let him make sure that the blessed Angels, who
are even now keeping Christmas with us, are rejoicing in these his devout
fears and misgivings: and not the Angels only, but the God of the Angels,
the Blessed Babe Himself, Who this night laid Himself for us all in the
lowly manger. As surely as He was conceived at Nazareth and born
at Bethlehem, so surely will He help and deliver us, and that speedily,
if we do but go on sincerely desiring and striving and praying to be delivered
from our sins. He will help each one of us, and He will help His
whole Church, now of a long time divided and distressed for no other reason,
but that Christians will not be good.
With thoughts like these, let us go home, examine ourselves, say our
prayers, and lie down on our beds; and when we awake on Christmas morning,
let us endeavour to go back to these same good thoughts: and so on morning
by morning. He will speedily help and deliver us: to us it may seem
slowly, but by and by all our trials will seem to have lasted but the twinkling
of an eye, if once, by His inconceivable mercy, we may be admitted to His
Eternal Joy.
