In a letter to a parishioner who was grieving the loss of a loved one, Robert Murray M’Cheyne wrote, “You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then he is like a rose blooming in the midst of desolation – a rock rising above the storm.” (Letter, 9 March 1843). Only sixteen days after he wrote these words to one of the Lord’s people, M’Cheyne, the undershepherd who cared for his soul, would himself be dead. Often, when we think of lives to be remembered, we seek out the biographies of men and women who have done great feats – the powerful and the magnificent. M’Cheyne was not powerful according to earthly standards; in fact, he was sickly and frail seemingly his whole life. He did not, like Knox or Athanasius, defy the world; nor did he, like Calvin or Owen, produce a slew of erudite theological books. In fact, we might never have known of him in our own time had it not been for the work of his loving friend, Andrew Bonar, who wrote a memoir of M’Cheyne’s life: the Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne, a volume that contains Bonar’s memoir and a few letters, sermons, and tracts by M’Cheyne. Through this work, generations of Christians have been blessed by the life of this ordinary Scottish pastor who suffered much throughout his life, and who, in the howling wilderness of this broken world, saw Jesus as precious, “like a rose blooming in the midst of the desolation – a rock rising above the storm.” Continue reading →