Incommunicable experience
I. THE DEEPEST EXPERIENCE IS SOLITARY. This applies both to sorrows and to joys. There are profound sorrows which must lie buried in the hearts of the sufferers, and lofty joys which cannot be breathed to another soul. Sorrow has her shrine, which no intruder can enter without desecrating it; and joy her sweet silence, to break which is to shatter the delight.
1. Each soul lives a separate, life. We are like planets, moving in our own spheres. Though we mingle in social intercourse, we do not touch in our most vital being. The "abysmal depths of personality" are utterly solitary.
2. No two natures are just alike. In common we share many pleasures and pains. But when we come to what is most characteristic, we reach a line of demarcation which the most sympathetic can never cross. We cannot enter into experiences quite unlike our own. We have not the key to unlock the mystery of a lonely sorrow or a rare joy.
3. The deepest experience is shy and reserved. Those who feel most do not cry out the loudest. It is the silent grief that eats out a man's heart. Though yearning for sympathy, he feels that he cannot breathe a word of his awful trouble. On the other hand, there are pure and lofty joys of soul that would be sullied with a breath.
II. FORCED SYMPATHY IS HURTFUL. We ought to be able to "rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep" (Romans 12:15). When sympathy can be real, it may be most helpful. But there is no opposition between this thought and that of our text. For just as real sympathy helps, unreal sympathy hurts. Now, sympathy may be unreal without being hypocritical, and even when it is well meant and heartfelt; if we do not understand a person's feelings, we cannot sympathize with him. We may feel kindly towards him, and may desire to show compassion. But it will be all in vain, we shall not touch the fringe of the trouble, or, if we do penetrate further, we shall jar and wound the sensitive soul by blundering incompetence. It will be like a surgeon trying to dress a wound in the dark. Thus Macduff, when robbed of all his children at one cruel stroke is only vexed by the kindly but impotent condolence of Malcom, and cries, "He has no children."
III. GOD'S SYMPATHY PENETRATES TO THE DEEPEST EXPERIENCE.
1. He knows all. We have not to explain our case to him, and then be misunderstood and misjudged after all, as often happens in the attempt to open out the heart to a fellow man. For God reads our most secret thoughts, and the feelings that we will not even confess to ourselves are perfectly known to him.
2. He feels with his children. He is not like the scientific vivisectionist, who handles quivering nerves without a spark of compunction. God tenderly pities his children in their sorrows, and graciously smiles on their innocent joys.
3. He can touch us with sympathy. This sympathy of God is not a distant heavenly experience hidden in the bosom of God. It is shed abroad over his children fur their consolation in sorrow and their blessedness in joy.
4. We should confide in the sympathy of God. It is not wholesome for the soul to be buried in the seclusion of its own feelings. There is healing in the sympathizing touch of God and a consecrating benediction in his smile. Christ is the incarnation of God's human sympathy, and Christ's sympathy can reach and save and bless us all.