"After this many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him. " John 6:67

 

Disappointment in Christ is the saddest thing in human history.  To be disappointed in men, or even in man himself is bitter, but to be disappointed in Christ, ah! "that were a grievous hell indeed."  To have once loved Jesus Christ or even to have once seriously desired to love Him in a special way, and then to have fallen away from the rich desire, is to have taken the heart and core out of all existence.  Life, deceive ourselves as we may, is then a blighted thing, for everywhere and at every moment falls the image of a thorn crowned Head, comes the shadow from a nail-dug Hand.  Life cannot be life when we have torn from it its Author.

 

Yet what wonder that this disappointment is so grievous!  Who that has caught but a glance from those Eyes awearied with the wild black throng of man's incessant sin, can turn back to a giddy, empty life and not be haunted by the gaze that furrowed Peter's cheeks with constant tears?  Who that has heard the Master's voice calling him from out the beaten paths of common sanctity to walk alone with Him in greater prayer, in fuller self-forgetfulness, in truer, steadier faithfulness to Him, can so dull his ears that the whisper of that gentle Voice will not be heard above all the tumult of a noisy heart.?

 

Still there are men and women disappointed in Christ.  They need not have yet committed serious sin, but they have found Christ our Lord other than they thought Him.  They had thought His friendship was to be one long heyday of happiness with never the shadow of cross or trial.  They had missed the crown of thorns, the ugly nails, the tree of shame on the hill outside the walls.  Then the day dawned when Christ came to them as He always comes to those He loves.  In His royal garb of the Man of Sorrows, He asked of them a sacrifice.  Christ our Lord took the privilege of every true friend - and they were disappointed.  They had thought Him so different from other friends.

 

Disappointed are that father and mother who will not give to Christ as His spouse the child of their heart whom they would gladly part with to an earthly lover.  Disappointed in Christ are that husband and wife whose bickering lives show that they have forgotten that their united love is meant to mirror forth the undying love of Christ for His Holy Church.  Disappointed are those young men and women, who hearing the Master's kindly invitation to come and follow Him, turn and deceive their hearts that the call was but a dream, those visions of peace and contentment vain imaginings, those holy resolutions mere deceptions;  disappointed one and all who follow not Christ withersoever He would lead.  And is that all - mere blankness as a penalty?  Oh no! for bitter, bitter is their pain of heart, the maddening, biting pain of a forfeited ideal.  "For who hath resisted Him and hath had peace?"  They will not give Christ what He asks of them - and Christ will not give them the peace they long for so.

 

Jesus, gentle Saviour, in fear and trembling for my own soul's sake I draw near to the holy rood on which You hang.  As oft before, I stand beside You and tell off the hours of Your dying.  The darkness closes round:  the shadow from Your crippled form rests full upon me and the light that faintly falls upon my eyes is sifted by each thorn that crowns Your dying Head.  I know now the deep meaning of it all;  I see now what it is to be Your friend.  By Your good grace I realize the costs but "such things as were to my gain, these for Christ I have come to count as loss."  Yet nearer still I draw - and one only prayer I make.  Take me, my God, and keep me as Your own.  Guard me from the passing phantoms of a foolish world.  Grant that I love You always - and then do with me what You will.