Songs in the Night
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We always think of our Lord and Savior as a divine teacher, preacher, and worker of wondrous miracles; we seldom or never think of him as a singer. Yet there is every probability that on one occasion his voice joined in a service of sacred song; and he may have done this on other occasions. On that night when he had eaten the paschal supper with his disciples, and delivered his last loving discourse to them, "they sang a hymn"; and we may well suppose that the Master's voice blended with theirs. The hymn usually sung at the close of the Passover supper was that majestic old Hebrew song of praise beginning with the words, "Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good; for his mercy endures forever!"
Gethsemane, the betrayal, and the dreadful conflict in the garden were just before him; yet our Master set us the sublime example of a "song in the night"—and that, too, the darkest night he had ever known on earth.
A few years afterward, Paul and Silas are confined in a stifling dungeon at Philippi—their backs lacerated with the scourgings of their brutal persecutors. Instead of wails and groans, the two heroes break forth into such a triumphal burst of sacred song that their fellow prisoners are awakened by the extraordinary duet! It was a glorious triumph of spiritual exultation over bodily tortures, when, in the black gloom of that midnight,
"Paul and Silas, in their prison,
Sang of Christ the Lord arisen."
In these experiences of our Lord and of his two apostles, there were literal songs in the night; and they were the ante-types of thousands of Christian experiences in all subsequent times. It has always been the test of the deepest and the strongest faith that, like the nightingale, it could pour forth its sweetest melodies in the hours of darkness. This is a spiritual phenomenon, not to be explained by ordinary natural law. It is supernatural. The Bible tells us that "God our Maker—gives songs in the night." This happy phrase explains itself. It means that in times of sorest affliction, our Heavenly Father gives to his faithful children cause for songs—both the matter to sing about, and the spirit of grateful praise. While they are sitting under the shadow of severe trial—he can wrap them about with "the garment of praise" and fill their mouths with singing. While selfishness is fretting, and unbelief is blaspheming, faith has a voice of its own—pitched to a high key of love and trust, and gratitude and holy joy.
That old-time saint had caught this pitch when he sang: "Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vine; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty—yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!" You cannot starve a man, who is feeding on God's promises; and you cannot make any man or woman wretched, who has a clean conscience, and the smile of God, and the love of Jesus shed abroad in the soul.
What a thrilling outbreak of triumphant faith was that which came from the brave old Thomas Halyburton of Scotland in the darkest hours of his bereavement! When a much loved son was taken away, he makes this record: "This day has been a day to be remembered. Oh, my soul, never forget what this day I reached. My soul had smiles that almost wasted nature. Oh, what a sweet day. Today, my child, after a sharp conflict, slept pleasantly in Jesus, to whom pleasantly he was so often given." His own fatal sickness was very protracted, and was attended with intense suffering. After a night of excruciating pain he said to his wife, "Jesus came to me in the third watch of the night, walking upon the waters, and he said to me, 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and I have the keys of hell and of death.' He stilled the tempest in my soul, and lo! there was a great calm."
A philosopher of the Hume and Huxley school would be likely to dismiss all this as a devout dream of an excited imagination. But Halyburton was a hard-headed professor of theology in a Scotch university—not a style of man easily carried away by the illusions of a distempered fancy. "You are beside yourself," said the pagan Festus to the acutely logical apostle, who wrote what Coleridge pronounced to be the most profound production in existence. No skeptic's sneers can explain such spiritual phenomena. When men of the caliber of Paul sing such "songs in the night" as he sent forth from Caesar's guardhouse, they cannot be explained on any theory of frigid psychology.
While dark hours of calamity or bereavement bring to the ordinary man of the world distress and peevish complaints, they bring to a Christ-possessed soul tranquil submission, and often an uplift of triumphant joy. Such experiences are contrary to the ordinary course of nature. They can only be accounted for by that deeper and divine philosophy which makes God to be the direct personal comforter of his own people in their season of sore affliction. When they pass through valleys of the death-shadow, it is his rod and his staff which support them. The path of trial may lead down into grim and gloomy gorges that no sunbeams of nature penetrate; but "You are with me" is the cheerful song which faith sings along the darksome road.
There are some of us old-fashioned Christians, who still believe that a loving God creates dark nights as well as bright noon-days; that he not only permits trouble—but sometimes sends troubles on his own children for their spiritual profit. As many as he loves—he sometimes corrects and chastens; and a truly filial faith recognizes that all his dealings are perfectly right. "Happy is the man whom God corrects; therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty."
I have seen a farmer drive his ploughshare through a velvet greensward, and it looked like a harsh and cruel process; but the farmer's eye foresaw the springing blades of wheat, and that within a few months that torn soil would laugh with a golden harvest. Deep soul-ploughings bring rich fruits of the Spirit.
I have often had occasion to tell my parishioners that there are bitter mercies as well as sweet mercies; but they are all mercies, whether given to us in honey—or given in wormwood. The day is God's and the night also. This is as true in the realm of grace—as in the realm of nature. God orders the withdrawal of the sun at evening time—yet that very withdrawal reveals new glories in the midnight sky. Then, how the creation widens to our view! The stars which lay concealed behind the noontide rays, rush out and fill the spangled canopy. So in the night seasons which often descend upon the Christian, fresh glories of the divine love are revealed, fresh power is given to our faith, fresh victories are won, and a new development is made of godly character.
What sweet voices—are God's promises to our chastened hearts! What deep melodies of praise do the night hours hear! "The Lord commands his loving kindness in the daytime—and in the night his song shall be with me."
I trust that these simple, honest words may come as a lamp into some sick chamber, or into some house of sorrow, or into some sorely-troubled hearts. Bethany had to become a dark town to two poor women before Jesus could flood it with joy. Before Gethsemane's midnight struggle, Christ himself chanted a hymn; and happy is the man or woman who can go into life's hard battle singing! The ear of God hears no sublimer music—than a Christian's songs in the night.
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