OUR fathers have banished the crucifix also from the sick-room and from the deathbed; and this notwithstanding the fact that already for so long centuries it had been in use among all Christians.
They did this, not as though by itself there was something wrong or sinful in the possession of a small cross; nor as though they denied, that the sight of such a cross could direct the otherwise distracted thoughts again to “Christ and him crucified”; but because it was evident, that such crucifixes could lead to unspiritual abuse.
Neither in the Gospels, nor in the other Scriptures of the New Testament did they read anything, that suggested orders to make use of such crucifixes; on the contrary, every time again souls were directed to look “upward, where Christ is,” “Whom we no longer know after the flesh.”
And when it was observed, how the crucifix was put up in all sorts of places; not least in inns and bar-rooms, where blasphemies, drunken bouts and revelries were the order of the day, it was perceived but all too painfully, how the crucifix had become a sort of magical expedient, that had been loosened from its spiritual background.
Sense and tendency to hold high the spiritual character of our Christian religion, has then led among us to the entire dismissal of the crucifix.
Also our sick and dying should not look with sensual eye to a cross of ebony, but fix the spiritual eye upon the Christ in the heavenly sanctuary; and the means every time again to lead up to that Christ in the heavens, was not the crucifix, but the Word.
ONLY let us herewith be on our guard against one very serious danger, not arrogantly to look down upon Roman Catholics because of their crucifix, and meanwhile, do, not only without crucifix, but also without Savior.
And yet, alas, to this it has come in many of our families that call themselves Protestant, that one objects to a crucifix, but feels no compunction whatsoever, when there is a long sick-bed and sometimes even a deathbed at which Christ Himself in the love of His Mediatorship is not known.
So first the crucifix is removed, and afterward the soul estranged from Christ, and it is no more understood, that many a lover of a crucifix will go into the Kingdom of heaven before you, who even on your sick-bed could deny the Savior.
Our fathers have never opposed Romish practices merely to help these practices out of the world. Their purpose always was in the place of the lower and questionable use that had crept in, to put something of higher spirituality. And you also, you are not worthy to call yourselves sons of the church of the martyrs, when you are strong in opposing Romish misuse, but ignore that revelation of higher, richer, fuller spiritual life, in which glistens the honor of Christ.
No crucifix, but then also Christ Himself at your sick-bed. And when you die not clasping with your hands a cross of ebony, but clasping Christ with all the love of your soul.
REGARDING all suffering, including therefore also suffering on sick-bed and dyingbed, the holy apostle exhorts you in so touching a manner: “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto the chief Leader and Finisher of the faith, JESUS CHRIST!” (Hebr. 12, 2, Dutch version).
Had not that Christ Himself testified through Isaiah (53) that He would take our sicknesses upon Himself, and that He would carry our sorrows?
And does there not unravel itself from the combination of these divine utterances an holy mystery of comfort, in which he who is sick or is at the point of death can so blessedly refresh himself?
For what is your most serious illness else than one single drop from that cup of God’s wrath, which your Savior has emptied to the dregs, emptied also for you?
The words of eternal retribution and hellish doom are so readily spoken, but have you ever thought painstakingly, what unexpressed weight of suffering and of distress of soul would come upon you, if for but one moment God’s holy anger would spend its full strength upon the sinful in your heart and against the guilt of your past?
And yet, that deep suffering and that soul-cutting anguish your Jesus has borne for you, and whatever as after-effect operates in your illness and in your dying, is nothing save the little crumbs of anguish, which you gather up after Him.
And does it not already comfort and cast upon your suffering an altogether other light, when also in your suffering you see that chief Leader go out before you, to carry for you and in your place the real sorrow which would consume you, and leave nothing for you to do save to come after Him, not with the heavy cross that would crush you, but with the, O, comparatively so little cross, that gladly following you carry after him?
ALSO when Jesus performed His miracles and healed the sick at Capernaum, the Evangelist tells us, that again in another way that same prophecy of Isaiah regarding the bearing of our sicknesses was fulfilled.
And though Jesus is no longer on earth now to heal our sick, this still addresses our sick so comfortingly, provided love for Jesus is warm in them.
That He then healed the sick, was not the indifferent act of a magician, who exhibits his mysterious art. With Jesus there spoke in that healing of the sick divine and yet again also human compassion.
Jesus saw the insunkenness, saw the exhaustion, saw the pains and the sorrows of the sick, which were brought to Him, and these filled Him with a compassion, the like of which has never thrilled our heart.
His accompanying and therefore sympathizing love went so deep. Far deeper even than the sick themselves, Jesus felt for them and with them all the sorrow and misery, in which they lay submerged.
So by the wondrous power of His compassion of soul He took their suffering upon Himself, and so it was, bearing their sickness, that He healed their sickness.
And this same Savior is now also exalted, and is alive in the sanctuary above, and by His majesty, grace and Spirit He can be present in every sick-room, at every deathbed.
And is there then no mysticism of comfort in it, when God’s child may perceive, feel, experience: No one who better understands my suffering than Jesus fathoms it; that Jesus Who is still alive, Who lives to pray also for me; and Who, with every new storm of trouble and distress that breaks loose upon me, sends that hidden grace, that also from this storm delivers me?
AND yet, for him who is sick and suffering and is menaced by death, there is in that looking unto the chief Leader still something more, still something different toward which faith directs itself.
For on the way of sorrow and suffering that chief Leader has Himself gone before us.
He, the Blessed of the Father, came into this world to the music of angel songs; but how soon was that rejoicing of the heavenly hosts silenced, to give place to the cries of hatred and vengeance, presently answered by the tears and strong cryings, wherewith your Savior, though He was the Son, has cried before his God.
In this world without God it could not become for God’s Son anything else than a whole life of suffering.
Suffering after the soul, and suffering after the body, as our Catechism puts it, “all the time of His life”; and therefore “Man of sorrows” is a name expressive of so inexpressibly much.
And when you may gaze upon that suffering Messiah, and direct your eye to that cross of Christ, and compare with it your own suffering, does not then your own suffering shrink in its dimensions?
When you see Him bear that suffering, carry that cross, and die on that cross, though He was the Holy One, solely to save sinners; and you turn back again into your own sinful heart, and go back to your own guilty past, and you compare what is laid upon you with what He carried, are you not then almost ashamed, that so little came upon you?
And where as child of God, as one redeemed by your Savior, you have to pass through that same world, and must go out from that same world, in which your Jesus has carried so heavy a burden, does it not seem natural to you, that suffering has also made its approach to you, yea, is it not then as though that suffering brings you closer to your Jesus, makes you more of a sharer of the same lot with Him, and becomes to you a mark of holy fellowship with the Man of Sorrows?
O, there is nothing deeper than the mystery of Gethsemane and the mystery of Golgotha, and no song can ever voice and no human language express, what in hours of bitter anguish and hard death-struggle by faith God’s dear children have tasted and enjoyed of strength and comfort and refreshment of soul from that cross.
And that same cross still works its wonders, when in us there may but operate that pondering love, that mysticism of faith, which confirms also upon our sick-bed and in our dying the “no more I live, but Jesus liveth in me.”
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