MORNING MANNA          3-10-24

What a Hospice the words must have been for those to whom they were first addressed! The pilgrim apostles, laboring and heavy laden, were about to be overtaken by whelming tempest. Thunder clouds they had little anticipated were at the moment gathering ominously around them. In that valley of the shadow of death they were entering there was no blue opening, no rift in the sky. Their best Friend, as they had been forewarned, was soon to be removed. The voice would soon no longer be heard which was used to say in seasons of depression and sadness, “Come apart into a desert place and rest awhile.” They would be left alone to buffet the storm.

But, before the valley-gloom is encountered, the gracious Rest-Giver, in a divine, spiritual sense, utters the conventional greeting–so well known to all Orientals, and specially the Jews–Peace! “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.”

It was a true Hos-peace, “a House of Peace,” whose gates He was opening to them. He who came to give peace on earth welcomes the weary ones in. The customary Jewish salutation conveyed little meaning. It had degenerated into mere formal parlance–no more. “Mine,” says Christ, “My promised gift, is no mere verbal form of expression, but a reality.”

And, though first spoken to the disciples, it was a farewell promise–a parting legacy for all–for you and for me. Death-bed sayings are always affecting and sacredly treasured. Here is a keepsake intended for the Church and for believers of every age; all the more precious because uttered within shadow of Gethsemane.

The walls of this Gospel Hospice are built of peace of Christ’s own procuring–“peace through the blood of His cross.” The pilgrim who reaches the threshold of “the chamber called peace, whose windows open to the sunrising,” is safe, restful, secure, happy.