All is changing here. Life is
a kaleidoscope made of shifting forms. new scenes, new tastes, new feelings,
new associations, and alternation of cloud and sunshine, tempest
and calm. Its joys are like the airy bubbles
on the stream, tinted with sunlight, we touch them, they are gone.
We have to tell of vacant seats in our sanctuaries, vacant seats
at our home hearths, the music of well-known voices hushed. Often, just when we imagine we
have at last obtained a stable footing, the scaffolding gives
way, the props on which for a lifetime we had been leaning fails, and
we feel ourselves out amid the pitiless storm. But is there
nothing stable amid all this mutability, nothing secure and
abiding amid these fleeting shadows? Yes, Jesus is without any variableness. Nineteen hundred years have rolled
by since he left our world. The world has changed, but he
is to this hour the same. We can follow him through all
his wondrous pilgrimage of love on earth. We can behold penitents
crouching at his feet and sent away forgiven. Sorrow tracking
his footsteps with tears, And sent away with her tears dried,
And her wounded spirit healed. Pain and sickness Pleading with
pallid lip and wasted feature, And disease, at his omnipotent
mandate, Taking wings to itself and fleeing away. And he who
is now on the heavenly throne Is that same Jesus. His ascension
glories have not altered his changeless heart, or alienated
his affections. In him we have a rock which the
billows of adversity cannot shake. The spent fury of the chafing
waves may reach us no more, and this only endearing the security
and value of the abiding refuge. How often does God rouse the
storm to drive us from all creature confidences to the stable one? How often does He poison and
pollute the stream to lead us to seek the everlasting Fountainhead? We may have lost much, but if
we have found you, O blessed Jesus, we possess infinitely
more than we have forfeited. We can glory in the persuasion
that nothing can ever separate us from your love. A look may
alienate us from our best earthly friends, an unintentional word
may estrange, the grave must sunder. But the Lord lives, and
blessed be my rock, and let the God of my salvation be exalted. What you have been yesterday,
yes, from everlasting ages, you are to this day, and you shall
be for ever and ever. We can look to the rainbow of
your promises and behold all of them in you. Yes and Amen. You are addressing us from your
throne in glory, that throne spoken of in Revelation as encircled
with the rainbow of Emerald, the emblem of perpetuity, and
saying, Fear not, I am he that lives and was dead, and behold,
I am alive forevermore. Because I live, you shall live
also.