Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2990
“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” John 14:18.
You will notice that the margin reads, “I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you.” In the absence of our Lord Jesus Christ, the disciples were like children deprived of their parents. During the three years in which He had been with them, He had solved all their difficulties, borne all their burdens and supplied all their needs. Whenever a case was too hard or too heavy for them, they took it to Him. When their enemies well near overcame them, Jesus came to the rescue and turned the tide of battle. They were all happy and safe enough while the Master was with them. He walked in their midst like a father amid a large family of children, making all the household glad. But now He was about to be taken from them by an ignominious death and they might well feel that they would be like little children deprived of their natural and beloved Protector. Our Savior knew the fear that was in their hearts and before they could express it, He removed it by saying “You shall not be left alone in this wild and desert world. Though I must be absent from you in the flesh, yet I will be present with you in a more efficacious manner. I will come to you spiritually and you shall derive from My spiritual Presence even more good than you could have had from My bodily Presence, had I still continued in your midst.”
I. First, here is AN EVIL AVERTED.
Without their Lord, Believers would, apart from the Holy Spirit, be like other orphans—unhappy and desolate. Give them what you might, their loss could not have been recompensed. No number of lamps can make up for the sun’s absence—blaze as they may, it is still night. No circle of friends can supply to a bereaved woman the loss of her husband—without him she is still a widow. Even thus, without Jesus, it is inevitable that the saints should be as orphans. But Jesus has promised in the text that we shall not be so— He declares the only thing that can remove the trial shall be ours—“I will come to you.”
Now remember that an orphan is one whoseparents are dead. This, in itself, is a great sorrow, if there were no other. The dear father, so well-beloved, was suddenly smitten down with sickness. They watched him with anxiety. They nursed him with sedulous care, but he expired. The loving eyes are closed in darkness for them. Those active hands will no longer toil for the family. That heart and brain will no longer feel and think for them. Beneath the green grass the father sleeps. And every time the child surveys that hallowed hillock, his heart swells with grief. Beloved, we are not orphans in that sense, for our Lord Jesus is not dead! It is true that He died, for one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side and forthwith came out blood and water—a sure evidence that the pericardium had been pierced and that the fountain of life had been broken up. He died, that is certain, but He now is not dead! Go not to the grave to seek Him. Angel voices say, “He is not here, for He is risen.” He could not be held by the bands of death. We do not worship a dead Christ, nor do we even think of Him now as a corpse. That picture on the wall which the Romanists paint and worship, represents Christ as dead, but oh, it is so good to think of Christ as living, remaining in an existence real and true, none the less living because He died, but all the more truly full of life because He has passed through the portals of the grave and is now reigning forever! See then, dear Friends, the bitter root of the orphan’s sorrow is gone from us, for our Jesus is not dead! No mausoleum enshrines His ashes, no pyramid embalms His body, no monument records the place of His permanent sepulcher!
The orphan has a sharp sorrow springing out of the death of his parents, namely, that he is left alone. He cannot now make appeals to the wisdom of the parent who could direct him. He cannot run, as once he did, when he was weary, to
climb the parental knee. He cannot lean his aching head upon the parental bosom. “Father,” he may say, but no voice gives an answer. “Mother,” he may cry, but that fond title which would awaken the mother if she slept, cannot awaken her from the bed of death! The child is alone, alone as to those two hearts which were its best companions. The parent and lover are gone! The little ones know what it is to be deserted and forsaken. But we are not so—we are not orphans. It is true that Jesus is not here in body, but His spiritual Presence is quite as blessed as His bodily Presence would have been. No, it is better, for supposing Jesus Christ to be here in Person, you could not all come and touch the hem of His garment—not all at once, at any rate. There might be thousands waiting all the world over to speak with Him, but how could they all reach Him if He were merely here in body? You might all be wanting to tell Him something, but, in the body He could only receive some one or two of you at a time.