Bible Commentaries

Bethesda

John 5:2-8

"Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water" ( John 5:2-3).

The porches spoken of in the text were once places of luxurious indulgence; rich, self-indulgent people were in the habit of using them for purposes of self-enjoyment. They lingered there, luxuriating in ease and quiet and pleasure. In process of time the porches became hospitals, and in these hospitals lay a great multitude of people who had lost their power—power of sight, power of limb, power of brain, power of hearing—some kind of power; and there they waited for the moving of the water. There are gathering places of human pain, and want, and sorrow. Say that all the pain in the world is scattered over the greatest possible surface, it is still there, and still a fact—for the man who has mind enough to take in the fact—that this pain, though widely diffused as to area, still exists. But there are gathering places, focuses of suffering. We do not see them in walking down the public highroads; we see nothing of them, but they are just off at one side a little. If you would turn down a back street and open some door, there you would see John 5:4).

So troubled waters are sometimes healing waters. Not the little puddles you make with your own foot, but the troubles that God makes by his angels and by a thousand ministries, by which he interposes in the affairs of men. I thank God for some troubles in my life; they were the beginning of health and hope and joy. O aged one, when you look back you see now, do you not, that the trouble began it—began your better life, made you mellow, chastened you, ripened you, took the rough tone out of your voice, and infused a new music into your expression? Listen! The favoured ones who were upon the mount of light, called Transfiguration Hill, feared as they entered into the cloud; and a voice came out of the cloud saying, "This is my beloved John 5:5).

In all classes of people there is a special man. I am groaning over something I have had ten years; and there is a man behind me that has had something for twenty-five years and never made half the noise about it. I have only one loaf in the house. Another man says he has not tasted bread for three days. There is always somebody worse off than you are. This is the beauty of pastoral visitation. If I were now addressing a consistory of preachers I should say: This is one of the blessings of pastoral visitation; when you are a little inclined towards grumbling and dissatisfaction and hypercriticism—about domesticities say—you go out for an afternoon into back slums, into dark, poor places, into hospitals, or infirmaries, or other asylums, and visit the poor in their houses,—see what a tea you make when you come back! Oh, it has been medicine to me many a time! I have just got a little dissatisfied with things; this was not smooth enough, and that was not fine enough, and there was a little black upon the toast at one corner, and life was becoming such a pain to me. I have gone out for an hour, and come back without seeing the little black upon the toast. Ah, if you could have seen this man of eight-and-thirty years" experience in suffering, you would have felt that God teaches us by contrast, and shows that even extremes may have great social influences for good connected with themselves, Richard Baxter exclaimed, who had been an invalid more than half a century, "Thank God for fifty years" discipline!" Some of us are so coddled we cannot spell the word discipline, we have to ask somebody what it means: thirty-and-eight years, and he had not got used to it; he was still there, still wanting relief. We cannot get used to pain. The mystery is that we cannot get used to its cause. We cannot get so accustomed to pain as to care nothing for its presence, but we get accustomed to the sin that makes it. Without sin there is no pain. Sin opened the door, and death rushed in, and death will never go out again. He will be abolished, but he will never go out. So we shall have no controversy about the matter; because I should instantly step into the witness-box and settle the case, so far as one fact is concerned. Do we not all talk more about the effect than about the cause? We talk much of pain; do we ever talk of sin?

"When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?" ( John 5:6.)

When did Jesus ever say to a John 5:7).

"Jesus said unto him, Rise, take up thy bed and walk" ( John 5:8).

Let us apply this whole thing to the matter of salvation. It was an angel that troubled the water. It is the Son of God that provides the fountain opened in the house of David for sin and for uncleanness. The water was moved at a certain time only. This atonement of the Son of God is open to our approaches night and day. Whosoever first stepped in was the case at Bethesda; but here the world may go in all at once. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten John 5:7

A human being reduced to a state of helplessness! Take a man at his full estate, when his system is healthy, when his word is law to those who are about him, when a call will bring servants and friends, and one would regard it as impossible that such a man would be reduced to the state of helplessness described in the text. Yet look at the impoverishing and withering process. First of all, there is a blight upon his business, and his thousands are reduced to hundreds; then the great house is given up, and the proud head stoops under the humble roof. Presently, affliction strikes down wife and child, and the air becomes too cold even for the oldest friend. The next blow is at the man's own health; paralysis withers the limbs once so strong, and the hand which was once the sign of authority droops in pitiful weakness; the voice has now no meaning in it to anybody, its law and force are forgotten. There lies the man in pain, in weakness, quite alone, uncared for, lover and friend gone, and no counsellor at hand. There are hundreds of such men to be found in England today; or if there be any difference in the literal circumstances, there may be other considerations which still more deeply embitter the lot of wretchedness. A man without a man! A man left quite to himself. Such is the man in the text; he is alone in the crowd; the eye sees him, but has no pity for him; his unavailing struggles only add torture to his pain.

There is really a good deal of this kind of thing in society—a good deal of loneliness, helplessness, unsuccessful effort, and blighted hope. Oh those unsuccessful efforts, how they tear the heart right open, or heap upon it burdens which are too heavy! The bravest will is battered down by them. A resolute and good-hearted girl, reading what some great women have done with their pens, sets secretly to work upon poem or John 5:14

[an outline.]

Jesus went about doing good,—that is to say, he did not ever stand in one place waiting for people to come to him, but he found out cases of need, and proposed to undertake their relief and cure. He did so in this case. The impotent man did not go to Jesus; Jesus went to the impotent man. Thus Jesus worked in both ways: he stood still that people might come to him, and he went about that he might find the weary and the lost. The great act of salvation is an act of approach on the part of God. "When there was no eye to pity," etc.; "God so loved the world," etc.; "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

Sin no more. It is clear, then, that there is a connection between moral life and physical life. Jesus did not seek to change the mere habits of the sufferer. He did not give the man a scale of diet. Nothing is said as to sleep, exercise, ablution, or any other physical discipline. The exhortation is profoundly religious—Sin no morel Where the spiritual is wrong, the physical cannot be right,—even when it is outwardly prosperous it is so but for a moment: its prosperity is threatened by a sword already poised. On the other hand physical discipline has a religious side. Cleanliness is a religious duty. Moderation is a command of God. Early rising may be necessary to the completion of the whole idea of worship. In a word, all our life is to be religious: "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

Sin no more. It is possible, then, to leave the past, and to be good for the future. A solemn yet inspiring word is this! We may turn over a new leaf. We may bury our dead selves. In the face of this declaration made by the Son of God, what becomes of our excuses and pleas, such as "we cannot help it"; "circumstances are against us"; "the flesh is weak"? The first step to be taken is the formation of an earnest resolution. "Choose ye this day!" Then will come all the helps of study, companionship, healthful service in the cause of goodness, all conducted in a spirit of believing and hopeful prayer. But suppose we cannot reach the sinless state in this life? Let that be granted, still we may be moving in the right direction. "I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus." As it is possible to sin with the will, is it not also possible to sin against the will? God will judge the motive, and his mercy will triumph wherever triumph is possible.

Sin no more. Then it is possible to forget the greatest deliverances and blessings of life, and to go back to sin. The man had been healed. A mighty hand had lifted him out of the pit of despair and set him in the sweet light of hope; his youth had been renewed; his heart had gotten back all its best hopes; yet it was possible that all might be forgotten! The shipwrecked mariner may forget the agonies of the sea when his voice of prayer pierced the very storm, and forced itself into heaven. We say we shall never forget a mercy so great as this; yet behold in our prosperity we forget God! There is no spiritual eminence from which we cannot retire. There is a way back to hell even from the very threshold of heaven!

Lest a worse thing come unto thee. Then it is right to appeal to fear in speaking religiously to men. This is distinctly an appeal to fear. Some men are inaccessible except through the medium of terror, and they must be approached accordingly. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." To those who have rejected the gospel there is a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

Lest a worse thing come unto thee. Then how many must be the punishments which God can inflict! Looking at this case one would have thought that even the wrath of heaven had been exhausted. Recall the facts: (1) Long-continued suffering,—"thirty and eight years": (2) friendlessness,—"I have no man", (3) continuous disappointment,—"another steppeth down before me"; yet in view of all this, Jesus speaks of the possibility of a "worse thing." Who can number the arrows of the Almighty? Who can tell the temperature of his indignation? Who hath sounded the pit of darkness so that he can surely tell the depth thereof? Cannot God go beyond our imagination in the infliction of penalty? After he has touched our skin with a loathsome disease, and made our bones tremble; after he has sent a chill to our marrow, and made our pulses stagger in their beat; after he has struck us blind so that we cannot see the sun, and stopped our ears so that the storm cannot be heard; after he has loosened our ankle joints, and taken the cunning from the hand of our power; after he has withdrawn the light from our eyes, and caused our brain to wither: is there more that he can do? Yea! No man can number all his weapons, or tell where the confines of hell are set.

Application:—If we would sin no more, we must pray for a daily baptism of the Holy Ghost.

An Exhortation and an Argument

John 5:35-40

"He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light." Jesus Christ is not paying any compliment to John. The text is always regarded as if Jesus Christ were wonderfully struck by the magnificence of his forerunner. Jesus Christ is now speaking not eulogistically but contrastively. John was a burning and a shining lamp—the best light you could have at the time. When do you put out the lamp? When there is a better light to see by; as soon as the sun comes the lamp is put out The lamp says, "He must increase, I must decrease." John was a burning and a shining lamp only until the dawn made the eastern sky white with young splendour, and promised the noonday. He was only burning and shining because the darkness was so dense round about him—a lamp before the dawn, a little light to be going on with until the impartial sun filled all heaven with his glory. Thus Jesus Christ is not praising John 5:36

Men are often called upon to maintain their ground in society. Specially, if a man do anything very extraordinary, and so draw attention to the sphere of his operations, society will persistently raise the personal question; the man must give some account of himself—who is he? what are his claims? on what foundation does he stand? It is not an insignificant circumstance that men take deep interest in unusual manifestations of life; it is rather a sign of their high origin and great capacity. Is there any man who would not gladly increase his power, extend the volume of his being, and carry to a higher intensity his influence for good? This is the meaning of all study, and the end of all prayer. All truly directed life is an effort after God. Men may not always have the fact present to their minds; yet, on reflection, they will acknowledge that in proportion as they make sound progress in life they work according to divine impulse and divine law. And, in proportion as they do so, they will occasion excitement and inquiry; perhaps, also, ungenerous criticism, and even malign action.

Strange as it may appear, this is even so. Men are not always satisfied with the instruments and methods which God adopts. They limit the Holy One of Israel; they appoint the chariots in which he shall make the circuit of the universe; and if, rejecting these human vehicles, he shall walk upon the wings of the wind, and make the clouds the dust of his feet—if he pass by kings, and exalt mean men to his ministry; if he refuse the silver trumpet, and elect the ram's horn—there will be wonder and disappointment among those who are the victims of their own blind and boastful conceit.

This method of criticism reached, of course, its highest application in the case of Jesus Christ. It is very instructive, as well as very humiliating, to study the discussions which prevailed about his personality, his authority, the seals and certificates of his ministry. The Jews were the very impersonation of the official mind. The first thing to be settled was descent or authority. Apart from this, all else was without value. Their intellectual operations, however exact in moving from cause to effect, seemed to be altogether unable to move from effect to cause. They saw a lame man leaping with new-gotten strength, yet they did not care to found an argument on the fact; they saw diseased men bloom with recovered health; yet, when they turned to the great Worker, their eyes were dimmed by a puzzled and even angry prejudice. That worker was only Mary's Son; he had a connection with Nazareth which vitiated his prophetic lineage; or there was some other flaw in his great claim to be heard and followed.

Is not the same kind of criticism active in our own day? Are we not all, more or less, tempted to try men by some merely technical standard? Do we not care more for the paper than the life, and believe a man to be good because the paper says so; or believe him to be bad, because he has no paper to show? If the life of Jesus Christ should have wrought one result above another upon merely literary readers, it should have exposed the insanity of denying a divine origin to divine works. Let those who please demand the credentials of the sun; but be it our wisdom to believe that no testimony can be so convincing as his own splendid and impartial light. This is a matter which I would urge as of great importance. If men be looking for technicality where they should be looking for life, they resemble thirsty travellers who will not drink of a well until they have read the faded inscription which tells how it come to be a well at all. What say you to such travellers? For many a day they have wandered along the dusty road; their lips are parched with thirst; yet, when they come to a well of water, they ask who dug it? Who enclosed it? What families have drunk of it? Through what districts the water flows, or through what strata it rises? The questions may not be altogether without importance, but life is more important to all, and dying nature ignore every one of them, until its burning thirst has been quenched. Now, Jesus Christ was as a well of living water, and the men who were around him were thirsty; yet those men put their small questions, and started their small objections, it being of more importance that their notions should be satisfied than that their lives should be saved; and, blame them as we may, they were not the only people who have sacrificed the living present on the altar of a dead routine, or rejected a spiritual Saviour because he was not also a temporal king.

Every man, then, it would appear, is asked for his testimonials. It was the custom of the world, and Jesus Christ must feel its influence. Large testimonials were supposed to be valuable, but in the progress of opinion it has been found that a man must be his own testimonial if he is to establish himself as a fact in the world. By this is meant that a man must not only say, but do; the earnest heart must express itself in the noble action, and the final appeal must be—"Believe me for the very works" sake."

Jesus Christ said, "I have greater witness than that of John." Let us understand this point. Jesus Christ does not despise the testimony of good men, nor does he teach his servants to do so. "There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true..... He was a burning and a shining light." No man is at liberty to despise the opinion of good men. That opinion should be prized on every ground, but specially as a stimulant to a still higher life. The good man's word of encouragement helps us many a time to recover heart when going up the hills of hard duty, and is often to us as a word immediately from God. At the same time testimonials are also often as the preface to a book; the preface may be good, but the book must stand upon its own merits. When the preface written by a friendly patron is too highflown, the disadvantage accrues not to himself, but to the young author in whose interest it was mistakenly written. There are men in England today who would be rich for ever, if they could live upon testimonials. Their testimonials are their greatest hindrances. Modest men shrink from the very idea of assisting persons whose pedestal is so immense and imposing; consequently the great testimonial is but a millstone round the neck of its unfortunate possessor. Jesus Christ said, "I receive not testimony from man." Paul said, "It is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment." John said, "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater." We should want to know what a man is, and not what is said about him; to see his work, and not to read his testimonial.

We are warranted in saying so by the words of the text, "The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me." This was not the only time that the same doctrine was laid down by Jesus Christ. "When John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them." My object in calling attention to this text is to enforce the doctrine that, both in personal and ecclesiastical life, the grand and final appeal as to authority is to works. The moral quality of the worker will be shown in his whole conduct and service among men. There may, in some instances, be crafty, and even successful simulation; the holy word may be spoken by the unclean tongue; the good deed may be attempted by the double-working hand; but all this rather confirms the doctrine than opposes it, for no man would make base coin but for the value of the true metal.

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to insist for a moment that I am not maintaining the doctrine of salvation by works; there is no such salvation that I am aware of, any more than there is navigation in sand, or pedestrianism on the sea. I refuse to regard salvation by works other than as a contradiction in terms, and I put it in this strong way, that in a sentence I may have done with the suggestion once for all. A man's testimony, as a professed servant of God, is to be found in his works. Let a man prove his salvation by his holiness. If a man should say that God sent him, let him prove his mission by his life—having heard his word, we await his works.

Take the case of a church. You profess to be divinely called, but what is the proof? Do not refer me to a long line of illustrious ministers, to a large and splendid sanctuary, or even to a dazzling subscription list. Are you felt in the neighbourhood to be a power for good? Do you visit the widow and the fatherless in their affliction? Are you eyes to the blind and feet to the lame? Do the poor bless you, and those who are ready to perish hold you in grateful reverence? I do not ask if the trust-deed be orthodox, if the music be scientific, if the seats be well let, if the congregation be genteel; I ask if Jesus Christ crucified be the inspiration of your labour, and Jesus Christ risen the source of your power?

If a man said he was eloquent, how would you judge him? By the number of books he had read, or by the number of schools he had attended? Certainly not. If he never moved you to tears, or compelled your consent to his reasoning, or excited you to enthusiasm, his pretension would be nothing but a barren name. On the other hand, there may be a man who has not read a book on eloquence, who could not give you a single canon in rhetoric; yet when he opens his mouth your attention is caught as by a spell; his strong, earnest, pathetic speech, though perhaps broken and inexact, carries everything before it. Do you hesitate to pronounce him an eloquent man? You judge by the "works,"—you believe him for the very works" sake; and you are unquestionably right. It would fail to convince you that he was an eloquent man if he merely repeated the rules of Quintilian and of Isocrates, or repeated from end to end the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero. You must hear the man speak. It is not enough that he pronounce keen criticisms on other speakers, showing what canons have been violated, and what vices have been set up; after all this, the man must show his power to convince the judgment and captivate the heart and the fancy before you can yield him homage as a master of speech. Specially is this the case with the Christian minister. He may be unlearned, yet the might of God may be in him; he may blunder and stumble, yet a mysterious dignity may invest his whole service. On the other hand, with spotless character, with innumerable testimonials, with a status conspicuous and influential, he may be brought to the lowest dust of humiliation, and to the distress of the most ignominious failure. Oh, ministers of Jesus Christ—servants of the One Crown—what manner of qualification should be ours! We must have seals of our apostleship, and these we cannot have but as we labour in our blessed Master's spirit. Applause we may win; a name we may make; but wood, hay, and stubble shall perish—only the true gold will be of use to us at the last!

So there may be persons who question your standing as a Church; according to their notions, you are not a Church at all; your foundation is a swamp, your pedigree a broken chain. What do you answer? Prove your call by your works. Show that the love of Christ is the all-compelling power of your lives, and by holiness, patience, and charity set up a claim too strong to be overthrown, too lofty to be defied. In the days that are coming we shall have much controversy on Church questions. Rival ecclesiastical theories will be zealously and ably maintained. In view of this conflict, let me say that works will be the only satisfactory standard of appeal. Ecclesiastical mummeries must be crumbled and scattered to the winds. Artificialism must perish. Philanthropy alone will stand. The day will come when upholders of every church system will have to defend themselves by the argument of facts. What have our principles compelled us to do? Where are the proofs of our love? Where are the results of our voluntaryism? What light have we shed on the world? What sanctuaries have we built? Away with the theory that believes much and does nothing. Blessed are the men who are drawn towards self-sacrifice; the service that comes of love.

The appeal which Jesus Christ made on his own behalf is also the appeal which should be made on behalf of Christianity. There are two lights in which Christianity may be regarded: it may be looked at as classified in sectarian dogmas, and as upheld by any particular course of argument; in general terms, it may become a subject of criticism. Treated in this manner, it has been alike the object of ridicule and reverence. On the other hand, Christianity may be tested by its results as a practical religion. Its history is before the world. What has Christianity done? It has greater testimony than the commendation of its deep scholars and eloquent preachers. It has opened prison doors, broken down bad governments, aided all good causes, lifted up trampled honour and virtue; it has saved men's souls, given men's lives higher elevation, changed death into a beneficent liberator, and turned the grave into the last step towards heaven; it has made selfish men benevolent, harsh men gentle, timid men heroic, and sad men happy; it has blessed the cause of freedom, succoured the efforts of charity, upheld the claims of peace; it demands to be judged by its fruits, and its demand is reasonable and ought to be irresistible. We are called to maintain a practical testimony, to give the emphatic and convincing answer of noble living. We have had enough of literary testimonial; we have done enough in the matter of the evidences; we are thankful to every author who has spoken one good word for the truth; now let the truth speak for itself, let the Christian be the best defence of Christianity, let the life of the servant commend the doctrine of the Lord. "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." "Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." "The fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is." What if our testimonials, our diplomas, our certificates, be all burnt up, and we have nothing to show but the smouldering ashes of an artificial life?

The argument which applies to Christianity applies also, of course, with equal effect, to the Bible. If the Bible is to be judged by its works, there is, happily, an end of controversy. What is the best reply to attacks upon the Bible? Circulation. When men say the Bible is not inspired—circulate it; when they charge upon it inability to address the spirit of the times—circulate it; when they say it has outlived the circumstances which called for it—circulate it! Circulation is the best argument. Let the Bible speak for itself; there is no eloquence like its own; let it reveal itself in its own pure glory, not in the artificial flare of our commendation. The Bible must be its own vindicator. Not because our fathers believed in it; not because it has a romantic history; not because of priestly exhortation; but because of its own proved power to enlighten the mind, to bless the heart, to elevate life, and destroy the power of death, must the Bible be held first in our love and highest in our veneration. "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil." What does the Bible bring forth? What of manhood? What of purity? What of hope? It must not be judged in detail; it must not have meanings forced upon it: it must be taken in its entirety; it must have free scope; it must be received into the heart—then we abide by the verdict!

Prayer

Almighty God, we have tasted and seen how good is the grace of the Lord who died for us. It was a wondrous grace. The Lord Christ spared not himself from the death that we might never die. May we understand somewhat of our own sin, then shall we understand somewhat of Christ's wondrous death. Enable us to look within with careful eyes; may we not spare ourselves in the scrutiny of our heart; may we try our own reins, and search our own motives, and penetrate to the recesses of our own spirits; then shall we be better able to approach with thoughtfulness, intelligence, and acceptance all the mercy and all the mystery of the Cross. Thou hast led us by a way that we knew not, and by paths that we had not known; thou hast led us well; thou hast brought us always from darkness to light, from bondage to liberty, from littleness towards greatness. Thou dost never call men downward; thine appeal to mankind is an appeal to rise, to advance, to grow: herein we know the truthfulness of thy word and the divinity of thy command, and herein we separate it from all human words; they do not address our inmost soul, they leave us without bread which bringeth everlasting life; but because thy Word calls us upward and onward, in ever-expanding liberty, we know it to be thine; may we accept it, live and glorify it. We pray that human life may be sanctified, divinely taught, comforted from on high by such assurances as the soul can grasp and realise and appropriate. Thou knowest how wondrous is this human life; what a tragedy, what agony, what heartache make up the history of everyday; thou knowest that our tears are often hotter and more in number than aught we can set beside them to counteract their influence. Thou knowest what clouds gather in our skies, how suddenly the light goes out, and how soon we are driven downwards towards dejection. Come to us according to the necessity and quality of our life, and command thy blessing from the Cross of Christ to rest upon it. Yet thou hast given us many joys, and we would be ungrateful not to remember them: life itself is joy, life is divine, life has in it the beginning of heaven; this is thy gift, thy mystery of love, thy mystery of purpose: may we enter into it gladly, until even life itself is a root out of which shall come heaven and immortality, through Jesus Christ the Head of the universe, the Saviour of the world. Set a light in dark places; make the poor rich in hope, in love of truth, and in aspiration after things divine; then shall they know nought of the poverty of time and earth and sense, but shall be glad in the Lord. Stop the bad man on his way; take from him the instrument with which he intends to do mischief, shut his eyes with blindness that he may utterly lose himself, until he begin to think and repent and pray. If any man is laying a plot for another man, spoil his net, or ensnare him in that which he meant for the feet of others; and if any are shedding tears that no human hand can touch, O Saviour of the world, thou who didst die for men, come, and with thine own grace turn the bitterness of grief into the beginning of the best joy. Amen.