The sympathy of man is often selfish, formal, constrained, commonplace, coming more from the surface than from the depths of the heart. It is the finite sympathy of a finite creature. The Redeemer's sympathy is that of the perfect Man and the infinite God--able to enter into all the peculiarities of the case--all the tender features and shadings of sorrow which are hidden from the keenest and kindliest _human_ eye.
Mary's procedure is a true type and picture of what the broken heart of the Christian feels. Not undervaluing human sympathy, yet, nevertheless, all the crowd of sympathising friends--Jewish citizens, Bethany villagers--are nothing to her when she hears _her Lord has come_!
Happy for us if, while the world, like the condoling crowd of Jews, is forming its own cold speculations on the amount of our grief and the bitterness of our loss, we are found hastening to cast ourselves at our Saviour's feet; if our afflictions prove to us like angel messengers from the inner sanctuary--calling us from friends, home, comforts, blessings, all we most prize on earth--telling us that ONE is nigh who will more than compensate for the loss of all--"_The Master is come, and calleth for thee!_"
It is the very end and design our gracious God has in all His dealings, to lead _us_, as he led Mary, to the feet of Jesus.
Yes! thou poor weeping, disconsolate one, "The Master calleth for _thee_." _Thee_ individually, as if thou stoodest the alone sufferer in a vast world. He wishes to pour His oil and wine into thy wounded heart--to give thee some overwhelming proof and pledge of the love he bears thee in this thy sore trial. He has come to pour drops of comfort in the bitter cup--to ease thee of thy heavy burden, and to point thee to hopes full of immortality. Go and learn what a kind, and gentle, and gracious Master He is! Go forth, Mary, and meet thy Lord. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning!"
We may imagine her hastening along the foot-road, with the spirit of the Psalmist's words on her tongue--"As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God--for the living God!"
With a bounding heart, Mary was in a moment at her Master's feet. She weeps! and is able only to articulate, in broken accents, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." It is the repetition of Martha's same expression. Often at a season of sore bereavement some one poignant thought or reflection takes possession of the mind, and, for the time, overmasters every other. This echo of the other mourner's utterance leads us to conclude that it had been a familiar and oft-quoted phrase during these days of protracted agony. This independent quotation, indeed, on the part of each, gives a truthful beauty to the whole inspired narrative.