| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 4 |
Page 6 |
Our friends make us strong. In fear and danger they are a refuge to us. In suffering they comfort us, perhaps, not by what they say to us or do for us, but just by what they are. Ofttimes our friend is a hiding place for us, and this is one of the offices of Christ as our Friend – we may hide in him. Christ’s companionship is a refuge in which we may find shelter in loneliness.
You are in some great sorrow. The words of the people who are trying to console you seem only empty echoes. Then one comes in who has been with you in deep experiences of trial in the past, one who knows you and loves you and whom you love. There is sympathy in his eye; there is comfort in his words. You have found a refuge, and hide away in your friend’s presence. So Christ is a hiding place for us in whatever experiences of trouble, loneliness, or sorrow we may ever find ourselves.
An old prophet gives a picture of a glorious sheltering manhood. “A man shall be a hiding place for the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade of a great rock in a weary land.” There are some men who are, indeed, all this in a measure to their fellows. Nearly every one of us knows some one who is a hiding place to us from the fierce winds of life, a covert to us from the wild tempest, like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, like a well of water in a place of thirst. But this wonderful picture is realized in full measure in only one Man who ever lived. We thank God for the human friends who mean so much to us, in whose strong friendship we may hide ourselves in all the bitter hours of life, and who never fail us. But we thank God most of all for the Man Jesus Christ, in whose friendship we find fullness of sympathy, of strength, of tenderness.
What a fearful thing sin is! How it imperils our lives! We may hide our secret sins from our human friends. We would not want to have our hearts photographed, with all their spots and evils, their jealousies, envies, meannesses, suspicions, bad motives, all our secret life, and then have the photograph held up before the eyes of our neighbours. We would not dare trust even our nearest loved ones to see all this and be sure that they would still be our friends. But Christ sees this picture all the while, sees all the evil that is hidden in us – sees all, knows all, and is still our Friend. We do not need to try to hide our weaknesses, our failures, from him. Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe, absolutely safe, with Christ, fro whose live nothing can separate!
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