“Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick.”—John xi. 4.

Much contact with sickness of late has set me thinking about it; about the place it occupies in the Divine dispensations of our life, and the lessons it may teach. The subject will find an easy entrance into our meditations. Most of us have known what sickness is, and all of us have in prospect that which will prove to be our last.

In all the sorrow that affects the people of God there is more or less of mystery, which deepens in proportion as those who suffer become mature in their Christian life, and advanced in holiness. Yet there are some obvious truths in relation to it which are not hard to discern, and to some of these it will be profitable to turn our thoughts now.

I. Sickness, in common with all our ills, is a solemn witness to the existence of sin. If we trace it back to its first cause, we shall find it to have originated in “the transgression of the law.” It would be contrary both to the letter and to the spirit of the gospel to see in each sickness the direct result of a particular sin. Yet cases of this kind are not so rare as we suppose. Many men, even professing Christians, suffer in consequence of sins known only to God and to themselves; secret luxuries and excesses, or a trifling, perhaps half unconscious, with some of the simplest laws of Nature. Let not this be altogether overlooked. Moreover, whilst we are not at liberty to suppose an immediate connection between some particular sickness and some particular sin, there is a general connection between sin and suffering. There would have been no sickness in the world if there had been no sin. There was none in Eden: there will be none in heaven. Sickness is a witness to the disorder which sin has created. The Christian is a forgiven man, but the secondary consequences of sin remain. In a sinful world, the sins of others react upon him in various ways. He himself, though forgiven, is not yet perfect. There will always be enough of the sense of sin even in the most devout heart, to bend the sufferer in humiliation beneath the thought that in a thousand ways he has deserved the discipline of sorrow.

II. Sickness, however, affords equal testimony to the love of God. The Christian has ample reason for knowing that it is a Father’s hand that smites, and that the blow is tempered with gentle mercy. We suffer less than many have suffered before: less than many are suffering now. The Old Testament gives us some notable examples of suffering—Job, David, etc.; so also does the New Testament—Paul, for instance. And what were the sufferings of these compared with those of Christ, who wept and bled and died, not for Himself, but for us? In all ages better men than we have suffered more. Consider what we have deserved, and what, but for the mercy of God, we must have had to bear. If the sufferings of life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to follow, neither are they worthy to be compared with the doom which must have followed, if God had not loved us with an infinite and everlasting love. Nor is it beneath the subject to mention the alleviations which are granted to us, and which we must all trace to the Divine Hand—sleep, the suspension of pain, sympathy, and, most of all, the hopes of the gospel. These are common-place considerations, but we must entertain them, if our gratitude and trust are to be strong and simple.

But we must enter into particulars a little further for the sake of evolving truth still more immediate and personal.

III. Sickness is often a special grace from God, and is a providential answer to the secret desires of our own souls. Not, indeed, the answer we ask, or the answer we expect; rather, indeed, the answer we would gladly avoid: but still an answer. The cardinal want of man is salvation. Who does not know that sickness has often been sanctified to that end? The cardinal want of the Christian is sanctification—preparedness for heaven; and every Christian knows how seriously this is impeded by a crowd of difficulties, real enough, but which we have a propensity to exaggerate; generally, the daily occupations and cares of life—a family to be provided for, a competency to gain, favourable opportunities to be looked for and seized, daily mischances, and the like. Meanwhile we are conscious of our spiritual wants, and there is a painful conflict between the claims which are temporal, and those which are spiritual. How many Christians are living a life of absorption in the world, yet harassed with occasional regrets, fears, desires, connected with better things? To these sickness is a Divine reply. It is as though God said: “Dear child, I know thy difficulty. Thou canst not of thine own determination leave the world; come away now. Leave thy labour, thy anxiety, thy dreams. Shut out from the world’s noise, listen to Me, to thy soul, to heaven, to eternity. Not that thou mayest do thy duty less faithfully do I thus check thee, but that thou mayest learn the true subordination of things to one another; not the spiritual to the temporal, but the temporal to the spiritual. That is why I put this affliction upon thee.” Oh, verily, blessed is sickness when viewed from the station where we rest and refresh in the fevered journey of life—a truce after battle, a parenthesis in life’s tale, into which God puts His own deep-meaning and gentle word. Let us remember this for our brethren’s sakes and for our own.

IV. Sickness, as a special proof of God’s love, is charged with a mission to bring to us some special gifts and graces. It is above all things a means of blessing when we associate with it the idea of discipline, however stern. There is not a single Christian virtue that may not acquire strength on a bed of sickness, and there are not a few Christian virtues which probably must be learnt there, if they are ever to be learnt perfectly at all. Among these note the following: 1. Patience. This is specially the fruit of sorrow. No soul can know what patience is until it has learnt what suffering is. To this effect Paul and James both teach, putting suffering before the Christian as a veritable cause of joy because it produces patience. How many elements in sickness would be aggravated by the absence of this beautiful grace! How quickly we come to feel that all worry is useless, and that we must simply wait the good pleasure of the Lord! How commonly too, the existence of this virtue strikes the beholder. It is not apathy, it is not stoicism; it is submission. When the sickness is past there will still remain much in life to try us; but if we have learnt the lesson, we shall know how to apply it.

2. Entire dependence upon God. This is sometimes hard to realize in days of health and vigour, but in days of sickness we feel that the sentiment is impressed upon us with especial weight. We know that it is He who casteth down and lifteth up. We use means for recovery, and this is right; but we learn that without His blessing the best and the most skilfully applied of these are of no avail. This sense of dependence on God should be the habit of the mind; and having acquired it in sorrow we shall not repudiate or forget it in joy.

3. Unworldliness. In a sickness which is protracted, and the issue of which is uncertain, we learn to put the proper estimate on things. We find and we feel that we have here no true home and no true satisfaction, and that we must look above. At such a time we perceive that the real is the spiritual and the eternal. As we groan in this tabernacle, we obtain our true relief in the contemplation of things unseen.

4. The confidence of faith. The possible issues of our sickness are momentous, and the question comes: “Of what quality are my hopes? Is the religion that has given me joy and strength in health able to support me now?” And how often the blessed answer is “Yes!” God gives us strength equal to our day. The Father’s smile, the presence of the Saviour, simple trust in the Cross—these are realized as they never have been before. And if health should return, it will be with the calmly, soberly delightful feeling of a religion in the heart that has stood the test. This is the experience of not a few whom I have known.

All this has a mighty influence on others besides the sufferers themselves. They preach, and preach effectively, through their sorrow and the grace by which they bear it, and get blessing out of it. Thus their sickness becomes an occasion on which, an instrumentality by which, God conveys the blessings of His grace to their brethren.

To all of us, whether in sickness or in health, the subject suggests some important lessons. It suggests thankfulness for such health as we have. Others are suffering: why not we? Multitudes are languishing in pain to-day; most of us are well. Let us bless God, and seek His grace that we may use this gift of health, with all His other gifts, to His glory. It suggests sympathy for those who suffer. How dependent they are on our kindness, our gentleness, our love. Let us give it to them in full measure. Specially, let us give expression to our sympathy for them by prayer on their behalf. It suggests faithfulness to the vows made in the time of our trouble. How much holier would all of us be to-day if none of those vows had been forgotten!