Rev 21:1: No More Sea
And the sea is no more.'97Rev_21:1.
1. We love the sea. A preacher who spent his holiday in Braemar, writes enthusiastically of its frowning mountains, the silver streak of its beautiful river, the inspiration of its bracing air. But it lacked one thing. There was no glimpse to be had of the sea.
There is a most charming passage in the Life of Gladstone where Mr. Morley is recalling the talks at Biarritz during the very last years, in which he tells of the old man's passionate delight in the buoyant breakers thundering home on the reefs. He felt as if he could hardly bear to live without the sound of the sea in his ears. He had, indeed, that within him which beat in response to that tumult of waters, to that titanic pulse of the Atlantic. But he had in him a note of something deeper still. Not in tumultuous buoyancy, not in passionate upheaval, lay the secret of his primal powers. Rather you felt in him, behind and beyond this energy of elemental vitality, the spirit of the serious athlete, in possession of his soul, disciplined in austerity, secure of a peace that passeth understanding, held fast, in hidden calm, by the vision of a quiet land in which there is no more sea.1 [Note: H. S. Holland, Personal Studies, 45.]
I lie in my niche under the stunted hawthorn watching the to and fro of the sea, and 'c6olus shepherding his white sheep across the blue. I love the sea with its impenetrable fathoms, its wash and undertow, and rasp of shingle sucked anew. I love it for its secret dead in the Caverns of Peace, of which account must be given when the books are opened and earth and heaven have fled away. Yet in my love there is a paradox, for as I watch the restless, ineffective waves I think of the measureless, reflective depths of the still and silent Sea of Glass, of the dead, small and great, rich or poor, with the works which follow them, and of the Voice as the voice of many waters, when the multitude of one mind rends heaven with alleluia: and I lie so still that I almost feel the kiss of White Peace on my mouth.2 [Note: Michael Fairless, The Roadmender (ed. 1911), 9.]
A little girl friend of mine, whose home was by one of the great sea-lochs of the West Highlands, was being taught about heaven by her mother, and was told that there would be no sea. '93Then,'94 she said, '93I shall not like it.'94 All the child's pleasures nearly were associated with the sea'97bathing, fishing, boating. On that changeful coast what is one hour mist and dulness and gloom, grey rock and wan water, is the next a fairyland of lights and colours most strange and beautiful, on which to look is enough delight. All island and peninsular nations are lovers of the sea. When Xenophon's Greeks, retreating after the battle of Cunaxa, came, after long desert marches and conflicts, in sight of the Black Sea, they burst out into joyous cries'97'93Thalassa! Thalassa!'94 A modern poet has expressed the strange fascination that the sea has for the men of these isles, in spite of all its fickleness and changes, thus:
'93Ye that bore us, O restore us!
She is kinder than ye;
For the call is on our heart-strings,'94
Said the men of the sea.
'93Ye that love us, can ye move us?
She is dearer than ye;
And your sleep will be the sweeter,'94
Said the men of the sea.
'93Oh, our fathers in the churchyard,
She is older than ye;
And our graves will be the greener,'94
Said the men of the sea.
The sea is our life's symbol, the port for which we sail, that heaven on which our hearts are set, and '93we are as near heaven by sea as by land.'94 Because we are a maritime people we symbolize the ultimate, to which we go, as a royal port. It is a simple affair to us to consider all our aids for the journey in terms of the voyage. Thus does Religion use the sea for its purpose, and it seems natural that it should do so when we remember that, in the region of fact as well as in that of imagination, Religion has used the sea. And it seems a natural use, for when a man's mind is exercised by the highest emotions at the same time that he is about to contend with the dangers of a natural element, it is easy to believe that, from that moment, the association between emotion and element becomes for ever established in his mind, and in the mind of his kind, and that so deep is the impression made by the element that it becomes his symbol nearest at hand for the struggles in relation to which the emotions are aroused. In such manner may old thinkers have written, their mind in both worlds. And when we use a symbol such as this we do not draw a firm line between emotion and element. An earthly voyage may also signify a heavenly.1 [Note: Frank Elias, Heaven and the Sea, 6.]
2. But the sea did not appeal to the Israelites. They never were sailors. In the only period of their history in which they did much voyaging their ships were manned by Ph'9cnicians'97'93shipmen that had knowledge of the sea.'94 And St. John had special reasons for disliking it. We know that he took no merely material interest in the future, and that when he says '93the sea was no more,'94 he was drawing no map of the geography of the new heaven and the new earth. But he had his reasons for choosing the symbol of the sea, for using it as a figure of the things which were to be absent from the world of the redeemed. We shall find his reasons if we consider what the sea stood for to the Apostle.
(1) Mystery.'97It is largely a mystery still. It is largely unfathomed and unknown. It is our great undiscovered continent.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.
It is itself a mystery. Says Jefferies: '93There is an infinite possibility about the sea; it may do what it is not recorded to have done. It is not to be ordered. It may overleap the bounds human observation has fixed for it. It has potency unfathomable. There is still something in it not quite grasped and understood'97something still to be discovered'97a mystery.'94
This aspect of the sea impressed itself upon the Israelites. '93Thy way,'94 says the Psalmist, '93was in the sea, and thy paths in the great waters, and thy footsteps were not known.'94 And so Cowper:
God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
The mystery of the sea is a figure of the mystery of life. It is an aspect of life that appeals to every one. '93This world,'94 said Charles Dickens, '93is a world of sacred and solemn mystery; let no man despise it or take it lightly.'94 Christina Rossetti sings:
The mystery of Life, the mystery
Of Death I see
Darkly, as in a glass;
Their shadows pass,
And talk with me.
The prophets have felt the mystery of life more than all others; and St. John was a prophet. Often had he prayed with Job, '93Oh that I knew where I might find him!'94 Then Jesus came and called him. The mystery of the past, of the present, of the future'97all the mystery of life was dispelled. He knew that in the redeemed world there would be no baffling questions remaining. '93I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.'94
The sea is the emblem of mystery, and each wave unfolding itself from its bosom seems about to tell the secret. But it falls back, and man cannot catch its whispers; '93the sea saith, It is not in me.'94 But the time is coming when the ocean of mystery shall open its breast and '93the sea give up its dead.'941 [Note: John Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life, 119.]
Heaven overarches earth and sea,
Earth-sadness and sea-bitterness.
Heaven overarches you and me:
A little while and we shall be'97
Please God'97where there is no more sea
Nor barren wilderness.
Heaven overarches you and me,
And all earth's gardens and her graves.
Look up with me, until we see
The day break and the shadows flee.
What though to-night wrecks you and me
If so to-morrow saves?2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Poetical Works, 286.]
(2) Treachery.'97The Israelites were struck with the restlessness of the sea. But its restlessness suggested purpose. It was uncertain. It could not be counted upon. There was something akin to treachery in its moods. '93It is the scene,'94 says Dr. Macmillan,1 [Note: Bible Teachings in Nature, 303.] '93alternately of the softest dalliance, and the fiercest rage of the elements. Now it lies calm and motionless as an inland lake'97without a ripple on its bosom'97blue as the sapphire sky above'97golden with the reflexion of sunset clouds'97silvery with the pale mystic light of moon and stars; and now it tosses its wild billows mountains high, and riots in the fury of the storm. One day it steals softly up the shore, kissing the shells and pebbles with a gentle sigh as though they were gifts of love; the next it dashes its white-crested waves, laden with wrecks and corpses, against the iron rocks. Treacherous and deceitful it lures the mariner on by its beauty, until completely in its power; and then it rises up suddenly in fury, and with an overflowing flood carries him away.'94
'93You can domesticate mountains,'94 says Oliver Wendell Holmes,2 [Note: Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.] '93but the sea is fer'9c natur'9c. It is feline. It licks your feet'97its huge flanks purr very pleasantly for you, but it will crack your bones and eat you, for all that, and wipe the crimsoned foam from its jaws as if nothing had happened.'94
St. John had had experience of the treachery of the sea in the early days of his manhood on the Sea of Galilee. And now as he looked back upon his life, what had the outward circumstances of it been but a sea of uncertainty, and even of treachery? But the redeemed have sought and found a kingdom that cannot be moved. They have come to a city that hath foundations. In the New Earth the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.
'93You're quite a sailor, I suppose?'94 I said to Em'ly.
'93No,'94 replied Em'ly, shaking her head, '93I'm afraid of the sea.'94
'93Afraid!'94 I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very big at the mighty ocean. '93I an't!'94
'93Ah! but it's cruel,'94 said Em'ly; '93I have seen it very cruel to some of our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house all to pieces.'94
'93I hope it wasn't the boat that'97'94
'93That father was drownded in?'94 said Em'ly. '93No. Not that one; I never see that boat.'94
'93Nor him?'94 I asked her.
Little Em'ly shook her head. '93Not to remember!'941 [Note: Dickens, David Copperfield, chap. iii.]
I remember once talking with a fisherwoman who had lost her husband and two sons at sea, away down in Cullercoats Bay on the Northumberland coast. I asked her what she liked most to think about when she thought about the land beyond, and I was not surprised to hear her say, '93And there shall be no more sea.'942 [Note: J. H. Jowett, The Silver Lining, 221.]
I have desired to go
Where Springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.3 [Note: Gerard Hopkins.]
(3) Separation.'97This, we may be sure, was the chief thought in the mind of St. John as he stood on some rock in the little lonely isle of Patmos and looked out across the sea. His eye was toward Jerusalem. For he was an Israelite with an Israelite's love of Mount Zion, the place where God delights to dwell. The sea was the symbol of separation and exile. In Christ he had learned the meaning of the word philadelphia, '93brotherly love.'94 He loved the brethren, fulfilling the New Commandment: '93that ye love one another, even as I have loved you.'94 And the sea now separated him from them. In the New World there will be no sea of separation. All will be one, and all will be together. Different as are our thoughts of the sea from St. John's thoughts, we are one with him regarding the pain of separation, let the separation be caused by sea or land, by life or death.
On that day, on that lovely 6th of April, such as I have described it,'97that 6th of April, about nine o'clock in the morning,'97we were seated at breakfast near the open window'97we, that is, Agnes, myself, and little Francis. The freshness of morning spirits rested upon us; the golden light of the morning sun illuminated the room; incense was floating through the air from the gorgeous flowers within and without the house. There in youthful happiness we sat gathered together, a family of love; and there we never sat again. Never again were we three gathered together, nor ever shall be, so long as the sun and its golden light, the morning and the evening, the earth and its flowers, endure.1 [Note: De Quincey, The Household Wreck.]
On 18th May 1826, a couple of days after the death of his wife at Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott writes in his diary: '93Another day, and a bright one to the external world, again opens on us; the air soft, and the flowers smiling, and the leaves glittering. They cannot refresh her to whom mild weather was a natural enjoyment. Cerements of lead and of wood already hold her; cold earth must have her soon. But it is not my Charlotte, it is not the bride of my youth, the mother of my children, that will be laid among the ruins of Dryburgh, which we have so often visited in gaiety and pastime. No, no. She is sentient and conscious of my emotions somewhere'97somehow; where we cannot tell; how we cannot tell; yet would I not at this moment renounce the mysterious yet certain hope that I shall see her in a better world, for all that this world can give me. The necessity of this separation,'97that necessity which rendered it even a relief,'97that and patience must be my comfort.'942 [Note: The Journal of Sir Walter Scott (ed. 1891), 194.]
In a letter to Mrs. Lydia M. Child, thanking her for her book Looking Towards Sunset'97a book which he regrets that his sister, then lately dead, never saw, Whittier writes: '93How strange and terrible are these separations'97this utter silence'97this deep agony of mystery'97this reaching out for the love which we feel must be ever living, but which gives us no sign! Ah, my friend! What is there for us but to hold faster and firmer our faith in the goodness of God? that all which He allots to us or our friends is for the best!'97best for them, for us, for all. Let theology, and hate, and bigotry, talk as they will, I for one will hold fast to this, God is good; He is our Father! He knows what love is, what our hearts, sore and bereaved, long for, and He will not leave us comfortless, for is He not Love?'943 [Note: Life and Letters of John Greenleaj Whittier, ii. 485.]
Yes! in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow,
And then their endless bounds they know.
But when the moon their hollows lights,
And they are swept by balms of spring,
And in their glens, on starry nights,
The nightingales divinely sing;
And lovely notes, from shore to shore,
Across the sounds and channels pour'97
Oh! then a longing like despair
Is to their farthest caverns sent;
For surely once, they feel, we were
Parts of a single continent!
Now round us spreads the watery plain'97
Oh might our marges meet again!
Who order'd, that their longing's fire
Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?
Who renders vain their deep desire?'97
A God, a God their severance ruled!
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.1 [Note: Matthew Arnold, To Marguerite.]
No More Sea
Literature
Burns (D.), Sayings in Symbol, 85.
Bushnell (H.), Moral Uses of Dark Things, 402.
Campbell (R. J.), City Temple Sermons, 234.
Forbes (J. T.), God's Measure, 75.
Hay (W.), God's Looking-Glass, 116.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Epistles of John to Revelation, 355.
Maclaren (A.), Sermons Preached in Manchester, ii. 325.
Macmillan (H.), Bible Teachings in Nature, 291.
Matheson (G.), Moments on the Mount, 32.
Parkhurst (C. H.), The Blind Man's Creed, 219.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Evening by Evening, 356.
Spurgeon (T.), Down to the Sea, 45.
Stuart (A. M.), The Path of the Redeemed, 178.
Christian World Pulpit, lii. 374 (J. H. Burkitt); lxviii. 195 (H. S. Seekings).
Autor: JAMES HASTINGS