It is with such feelings that we look for ward to our meeting with Him " whom having not seen we love/' and anticipate the joy of being for ever " with the Lord." That day of meeting has in it enough of gladness to make up for all the past. And then it is eternal. It is not meeting to- day, and parting to-morrow ; it is meeting once and for ever. To see him face to face, even for a day, how blessed ! To be " with him" for a life-time, or an age, even though with intervals of absence between, how gladdening ! But to be with him for ever, • — or always, as it stands in the original, — this surely is the very filling up of all our
joy- Has not the Lord, however, been always with us ? Has he not said, " Lo, I am with
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you alway, even unto the end of the world ? " Yes. Nor ought the church to undervalue this nearness, this fellowship. It is no shadow or fancy ; it is reality. It is that same reality to which the Lord re- ferred when he said, " He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father ; and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him " (John xiv. 21); or, as the old versions have it, " will show mine own self to him." For when Jude put the question, " Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not unto the world?" that is, " how shall it be that the world shall not see thee, and yet we who are living in the world shall see thee ? how is it that we shall have thy presence, and yet the world have it not ? " " Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me he will keep my words ; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."
So that thus we have had the Lord
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always with us, nay, making his abode with us. It was when first we gave credit to the Divine testimony concerning the free love of God, in the gift of his Son, that we drew nigh to him and he to us. It was then that he came in unto us, and took up his abode with us. It was when we heard his voice and opened the door, that he came in to sup with us. And it is this conscious presence, — this presence which faith real- izes,— that cheers us amid tribulation here. In the furnace we have one like the Son of man to keep us company, and to pre- vent the flame from kindling upon us.
But this is, after all, incomplete. It is the enjoyment of as much fellowship as can be tasted in absence, but it is no more. Nor is it intended to supersede something nearer and more complete, — far less to make us content with absence. Nay, its tendency is to make us less and less satis- fied with absence. It gives us such a relish for intercourse, that we long for
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communion more unhindered, — eye to eye and face to face. This closer intercourse, this actual vision, this bodily nearness, we are yet to enjoy. The hope given us is to be " with the Lord/' — with him in a way such as we have never been.
Let no one despise this nearness, nor speak evil of it, as if it were material and carnal. Many speak as if their bodies were a curse, — as if matter were some piece of mis-creation to which we had unnaturally and unhappily been fastened. And others tell us that actual intercourse, such as we refer to, the intercourse of vision and voice, is a poor thing, not to be named beside the other, which is, as they conceive, the deeper and the truer.
But is it so? Is matter so despicable ? Are our bodies such hinderances to true fellowship? Is the eye nothing, the ear nothing, the smile nothing, the voice no- thing, the embrace nothing, the clasping of the hand nothing? Is personal com-
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munion a hinderance to earthly friendships 1 Can the friend enjoy the friend as well afai off as near ? Is it no matter to the wife though her husband be unseen and distant? Granting that we can still love and receive love in return, is distance no barrier, does absence make no blank? Do we slight bodily presence, visible intercourse, as worthless, almost undesirable ? Is not the reverse one of the most deep-seated feelings of our nature ? And is it not to this deep- seated feeling that the incarnation appeals? Is that incarnation useless, save as furnish- ing a victim for the altar, — and providing blood for the cleansing of the worshipper ? No. The incarnation brings God nigh to us in a way such as could not have been done by any other means. He became bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, that we might have a being like ourselves to commune with, to love, to lean upon. In that day when we shall be " with
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the Lord/' we shall know to the full the design of God in the incarnation of his Son, and taste the blessedness of seeing him as he is.