First, then, we see here an ill.u.s.tration of the Cross in its power of drawing men to itself. It is strange to think that, perhaps, at that moment the only human being who thoroughly believed in Christ was that dying robber. The disciples are all gone. The most faithful of them are recreant, denying, fleeing. A handful of women are standing there, not knowing what to think about it, stunned but loving; and alone (as I suppose), alone of all the sons of men, the crucified malefactor was in the sunshine of faith, and could say "I believe!" As everything of the future history of the world and of the Gospel is typified in the events of the Crucifixion, it was fitting that here again and at the last there should be a prophetic fulfilment of His own saying, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me."
But mark, here we have a striking instance of the universal law of the progress of the Gospel, in the two-fold effort of the contemplation of the Cross. By its foot was to be seen the derision of the scribes and the stupor of the soldiery; and now here are the two thieves--the one chiming in with the universal reproaches; and the other beholding the same event, having the same circ.u.mstances displayed before him, and they influence him _thus_. Brethren, it is just the history of the Gospel wherever it goes. It is its history now, and among us. The Gospel is preached equally to every man. The same message comes to us all, offering us the same terms.
Christ stands before each of us in the same att.i.tude. And what is the consequence? A parting of the whole ma.s.s of us, some to one side and some to the other. So, when you take a magnet, and hold it to an indiscriminate heap of metal filings, it will gather out all the iron, and leave behind all the rest. "I, if I be lifted up," said He, "will draw all men unto Me." The attractive power will go out over the whole race of His brethren; but from some there will be no response. In some hearts there will be no yielding to the attraction. Some will remain rooted, obstinate, steadfast in their place; and to some the lightest word will be mighty enough to stir all the slumbering pulses of their sin-ridden hearts, and to bring them, broken and penitent, for mercy to His feet. To the one He is "a savour of life unto life, and to the other a savour of death unto death." The broadest doctrine of the universal adaptation, and the universal intention too, of the Gospel, as the "power of G.o.d unto salvation," contains hidden in its depths this undeniable fact, that, be the cause what it may (and as I believe, the cause lies with us, and is our fault) this separating, judging effect follows from all faithful preaching of Christ"s words. He came to judge the world, "that they which see not" (as He Himself said) "might see, and they which see might be made blind," And on the Cross that process went on in two men, alike in necessity, alike in criminality, alike in this, that Death"s icy finger was just being laid upon their heart, to stop all the flow of its wild blood and pa.s.sion, but different in this, that the one of them turned himself, by G.o.d"s grace, and laid hold on the Gospel that was offered to him, and the other turned himself away, and derided, and died.
And now, there is another consideration. If we look at this man, this penitent thief, and contrast him, his previous history, and his present feelings, with the people that stood around, and rejected and scoffed, we get some light as to the sort of thing that unfits men for perceiving and accepting the Gospel when it is offered to them. Remember the other cla.s.ses of persons who were there. There were Roman soldiers, with very partial knowledge of what they were doing, and whose only feeling was that of entire indifference; and there were Jewish Rabbis, Pharisees, Priests, and people, who knew a little more of what they were doing, and whose feeling was derision and scorn. Now, if we mark the ordinary scriptural representation, especially as to the last cla.s.s, we cannot help seeing that there comes out this principle:--The thing of all others that unfits men for the reception of Christ as a Saviour, and for the simple reliance on His atoning blood and divine mercy, is not gross, long profligacy, and outward, vehement transgression; but it is self-complacency, clean, fatal self-righteousness and self-sufficiency.
Why was it that Scribes and Pharisees turned away from Him? For three reasons. Because of their pride of wisdom. "We are the men who know all about Moses and the traditions of the elders; we judge this new phenomenon not by the question, How does it come to our consciences, and how does it appeal to our hearts? but we judge it by the question, How does it fit our Rabbinical learning and subtle casuistical laws? _We_ are the Priests and the Scribes; and the people that know not the law, _they_ may accept a thing that only appeals to the common human heart, but for us, in our intellectual superiority, living remote from the common wants of the lower cla.s.s, not needing a rough outward Gospel of that sort, we can do without such a thing, and we reject it." They turned away from the Cross, and their hatred darkened into derision, and their menaces ended in a crucifixion, not merely because of a pride of wisdom, but because of a complacent self-righteousness that knew nothing of the fact of sin, that never had learned to believe itself to be full of evil, that had got so wrapped up in ceremonies as to have lost the life; that had degraded the divine law of G.o.d, with all its lightning splendours, and awful power, into a matter of "mint and anise and c.u.mmin." They turned away for a third reason.
Religion had become to them a mere set of traditional dogmas, to think accurately or to reason clearly about which was all that was needful. Worship having become ceremonial, and morality having become casuistry, and religion having become theology, the men were as hard as a nether millstone, and there was nothing to be done with them until these three crusts were peeled off the heart, and, close and burning, the naked heart and the naked truth of G.o.d came into contact.
Brethren, change the name, and the story is true about _us_.
G.o.d forbid that I should deny that every form of gross, sensual immorality, "hardens all within" (as one poor victim of it said), "and petrifies the feeling." G.o.d forbid that I should seem to be speaking slightingly of the exceeding sinfulness of such sin, or to be pouring contempt upon the laws of common morality. Do not misapprehend me so. Still it is not sin in its outward forms that makes the worst impediment between a man and the Cross, but it is sin plus self-righteousness which makes the insurmountable obstacle to all faith and repentance. And oh! in our days, when pa.s.sion is tamed down by so many bonds and chains; when the power of society lies upon all of us, prescribing our path, and keeping most of us from vice, partly because we are not tempted, and partly because we have been brought up like some young trees behind a wall, within the fence of decent customs and respectable manners,--we have far more need to tell orderly, respectable moral men--"My brother, that thing that you have is worth nothing, as settling your position before G.o.d"; than to stand up and thunder about crimes which half of us never heard of, and perhaps only an infinitesimal percentage of us have ever committed. All sin separates from G.o.d, but the thing that makes the separation permanent is not the sin, but the ignorance of the sin.
Self-righteousness, aye, and pride of wisdom, they--they have perverted many a nature, many a young man"s glowing spirit, and have turned him away from the Gospel. If there be a man here who is looking at the simple message of peace and pardon and purity through Christ, and is saying to himself, Yes; it may fit the common cla.s.s of minds that require outward signs and symbols, and must pin their faith to forms; but for me with my culture, for me with my spiritual tendencies, for me with my new lights, _I_ do not want any objective redemption; _I_ do not want anything to convince _me_ of a divine love, and I do not need any crucified Saviour to preach to _me_ that G.o.d is merciful!--this incident before us has a very solemn lesson in it for him. And if there be a man here who is living a life of surface blamelessness, it has as solemn a lesson for him. Look at the Scribe, and look at the Pharisee--religious men in their way, wise men in their way, decent and respectable men in their way; and look at that poor thief that had been caught in the wilderness amongst the caves and dens, and had been brought red-handed with blood upon his sword, and guilt in his heart, and nailed up there in the short and summary process of a Roman jurisprudence;--and think that Scribe, and Pharisee, and Priest, saw nothing in Christ; and that the poor profligate wretch saw this in Him,--innocence that showed heavenly against his diabolical blackness; and his heart stirred, and he laid hold of Him in the stress of his mighty agony--as a drowning man catches at anything that protrudes from the bank; and he held and shook it, and the thing was fast, and he was safe! Not transgression shuts a man out from mercy.
Transgression, which belongs to us all, makes us subjects for the mercy; but it is pride, self-righteousness, trust in ourselves, which "bars the gates of mercy on mankind"; and the men that _are_ condemned are condemned not only because they have transgressed the commandments of G.o.d, but "_this_ is the condemnation, that light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."
And then (and but a word) we see here, too, the elements of which acceptable faith consists. One does not exactly know by what steps or through what process this poor dying thief pa.s.sed, which issued in faith--whether it was an impression from Christ"s presence, whether it was that he had ever heard anything about Him before, or whether it was only that the wisdom which dwells with death was beginning to clear his eyes as life ebbed away. But however he _came_ to the conviction, mark what it was that he believed and expressed,--I am a sinful man; all punishment that comes down upon me is richly deserved: This man is pure and righteous; "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom!" That is all--that is all. That is the thing that saves a man. How much he _did_ know--whether he knew all the depth of what he was saying, when he said "Lord!" is a question that we cannot answer; whether he understood what the "kingdom" was that he was expecting, is a question that we cannot solve; but this is clear--the intellectual part of faith may be dark and doubtful, but the moral and emotional part of it is manifest and plain. There was, "_I_ am nothing--_Thou_ art everything: I bring myself and my emptiness unto Thy great fullness: fill it and make me blessed!" Faith has that. Faith has in it repentance--repentance has in it faith too. Faith has in it the recognition of the certainty and the justice of a judgment that is coming down crashing upon every human head; and then from the midst of these fears, and sorrows, and the tempest of that great darkness, there rises up in the night of terrors, the shining of one perhaps pale, quivering, distant, but divinely given hope, "My Saviour! My Saviour! He is righteous: He has died--He lives!
I will stay no longer; I will cast myself upon Him!"
Once more--this incident reminds us not only of the attractive power of the Cross, but of the prophetic power of the Cross. We have here the Cross as pointing to and foretelling the Kingdom. Pointing out, and foretelling: that is to say, of course, and only, if we accept the scriptural statement of what these sufferings were, the Person that endured them, and the meaning of their being endured. But the only thing I would dwell upon here, is, that when we think of Christ as dying for us, we are never to separate it from that other solemn and future coming of which this poor robber catches a glimpse. They crowned Him with thorns, and they gave Him a reed for His sceptre.
That mockery, so natural to the strong practical Romans in dealing with one whom they thought a harmless enthusiast, was a symbol which they who did it little dreamed of. The crown of thorns proclaims a sovereignty founded on sufferings. The sceptre of feeble reed speaks of power wielded in gentleness. The Cross leads to the crown. The brow that was pierced by the sharp acanthus wreath, therefore wears the diadem of the universe. The hand that pa.s.sively held the mockery of the worthless, pithless reed, therefore rules the princes of the earth with the rod of iron. He who was lifted up to the Cross, was, by that very act, lifted up to be a Ruler and Commander to the peoples. For the death of the Cross G.o.d hath highly exalted Him to be a Prince and a Saviour. The way to glory for Him, the power by which He wields the kingdom of the world, is precisely through the suffering. And therefore, whensoever there arises before us the image of the one, oh! let there rise before us likewise the image of the other. The Cross links on to the kingdom--the kingdom lights up the Cross. My brother, the Saviour comes--the Saviour comes a King.
The Saviour that comes a King is the Saviour that has been here and was crucified. The kingdom that He establishes is all full of blessing, and love, and gentleness; and to us (if we will unite the thoughts of Cross and Crown) there is opened up not only the possibility of having boldness before Him in the day of judgment, but there is opened up this likewise--the certainty that He "shall receive of the travail of His soul and be satisfied." Oh, remember that as certain as the historical fact--He died on Calvary; so certain is the prophetic fact--He shall reign, and you and I will stand there! I durst not touch that subject. Take it into your own hearts; and think about it--a kingdom, a judgment-seat, a crown, a gathered universe; separation, decision, execution of the sentence.
And oh! ask yourselves, "When that gentle eye, with lightning in its depths, falls upon _me_, individualises _me_, summons out _me_ to its bar--how shall I stand?" "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness before Him in the day of judgment," "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom."
Finally. Here is the Cross as revealing and opening the true Paradise.--"This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." We have no concern at present with the many subtle inferences as to the state of the dead, and as to the condition of our Lord"s human spirit before the Resurrection, which have been drawn from these words. To me they do seem fairly to bear the broad and single conclusion that the spirits of the saved do enter at death into a state of conscious presence with their Saviour, and therefore of joy and felicity. But beyond this we have no firm ground for going. It is of more practical worth to note that the penitent"s vague prayer is answered, and over-answered. He asks, "When Thou comest"--whensoever that may be--"remember me." "I shall stand afar off; do not let me be utterly forgotten." Christ answers--"Remember thee! thou shalt be _with Me_, close to My side.
Remember thee _when_ I come!--_this day_ shalt thou be with Me."
And what a contrast that is--the conscious blessedness rushing in close upon the heels of the momentary darkness of death. At the one moment there hangs the thief writhing in mortal agony; the wild shouts of the fierce mob at his feet are growing faint upon his ear; the city spread out at his feet, and all the familiar sights of earth are growing dim to his filmy eye. The soldier"s spear comes, the legs are broken, and in an instant there hangs a relaxed corpse; and the spirit, the spirit--is where? Ah! how far away; released from all its sin and its sore agony, struggling up at once into such strange divine enlargement, a new star swimming into the firmament of heaven, a new face before the throne of G.o.d, another sinner redeemed from earth! The conscious immediate blessedness of the departed--be he what he may, be his life whatsoever it may have been--who at last, dark, sinful, standing with one foot on the verge of eternity, and poising himself for the flight, flings himself into the arms of Christ--the everlasting blessedness, the Christ-presence and the Christ-gladness, that is the message that the robber leaves to us from his cross. Paradise is opened to us again. The Cross is the true "tree of life." The flaming cherubim, and the sword that turneth every way, are gone, and the broad road into the city, the Paradise of G.o.d, with all its beauties and all its peaceful joy--a better Paradise, "a statelier Eden," than that which we have lost, is flung open to us for ever.
Do not trust a death-bed repentance, my brother. I have stood by many a death-bed, and few indeed have they been where I could have believed that the man was in a condition physically (to say nothing of anything else) clearly to see and grasp the message of the Gospel. There is no limit to the mercy. I know that G.o.d"s mercy is boundless. I know that "whilst there is life there is hope." I know that a man, going--swept down that great Niagara--if, before his little skiff tilts over into the awful rapids, he can make one great bound with all his strength, and reach the solid ground--I know he may be saved. It is an awful risk to run. A moment"s miscalculation, and skiff and voyager alike are whelming in the green chaos below, and come up mangled into nothing, far away down yonder upon the white turbulent foam. "_One_ was saved upon the Cross," as the old divines used to tell us, "that none might despair; and only one, that none might presume." _"Now_ is the accepted time, and _now_ is the day of salvation!"
THE FIRST EASTER SUNRISE
"Now, upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came onto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. 2. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. 3. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. 4. And it came to pa.s.s, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: 5. And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? 6. He is not here, but is risen: remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee, 7. Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. 8. And they remembered His words, 9. And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest. 10. It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles. 11. And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.
12. Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pa.s.s."--LUKE xxiv. 1-12.
No Evangelist narrates the act of Resurrection. Apocryphal Gospels cannot resist the temptation of describing it. Why did the Four preserve such singular reticence about what would have been irresistible to "myth" makers? Because they were not myth-makers, but witnesses, and had nothing to say as to an act that no man had seen. No doubt, the Resurrection took place in the earliest hours of the first day of the week. The Sun of Righteousness rose before the Easter Day sun. It was midsummer day for Him, while it was but spring for earth"s calendar. That early rising has no setting to follow.
The divergences of the Evangelists reach their maximum in the accounts of the Resurrection, as is natural if we realise the fragmentary character of all the versions, the severely condensed style of Matthew"s, the incompleteness of the genuine Mark"s, the evidently selective purpose in Luke"s, and the supplementary design of John"s.
If we add the perturbed state of the disciples, their separation from each other, and the number of distinct incidents embraced in the records, we shall not wonder at the differences, but see in them confirmation of the good faith of the witnesses, and a reflection of the hurry and wonderfulness of that momentous day. Differences there are; contradictions there are not, except between the doubtful verses added to Mark and the other accounts. We cannot put all the pieces together, when we have only them to guide us. If we had a complete and independent narrative to go by, we could, no doubt, arrange our fragments. But the great certainties are unaffected by the small divergences, and the points of agreement are vital. They are, for example, that none saw the Resurrection, that the first to know of it were the women, that angels appeared to them at the tomb, that Jesus showed Himself first to Mary Magdalene, that the reports of the Resurrection were not believed. Whether the group with whom this pa.s.sage has to do were the same as that whose experience Matthew records we leave undetermined. If so, they must have made two visits to the tomb, and two returns to the Apostles,--one, with only the tidings of the empty sepulchre, which Luke tells; one, with the tidings of Christ"s appearance, as in Matthew. But harmonistic considerations do not need to detain us at present.
Sorrow and love are light sleepers, and early dawn found the brave women on their way. Nicodemus had bound spices in with the body, and these women"s love-gift was as "useless" and as fragrant as Mary"s box of ointment. Whatever love offers, love welcomes, though Judas may ask "To what purpose is this waste?" Angel hands had rolled away the stone, not to allow of Jesus" exit, for He had risen while it was in its place, but to permit the entrance of the "witnesses of the Resurrection." So little did these women dream of such a thing that the empty tomb brought no flash of joy, but only perplexity to their wistful gaze. "What does it mean?" was their thought. They and all the disciples expected nothing less than they did a Resurrection, therefore their testimony to it is the more reliable.
Luke marks the appearance of the angels as sudden by that "behold."
They were not seen approaching, but at one moment the bewildered women were alone, looking at each other with faces of dreary wonder, and the next, "two men" were standing beside them, and the tomb was lighted by the sheen of their dazzling robes. Much foolish fuss has been made about the varying reports of the angels, and "contradictions"
have been found in the facts that some saw them and some did not, that some saw one and some saw two, that some saw them seated and some saw them standing, and so on. We know so little of the laws that govern angelic appearances that our opinion as to the probability or veracity of the accounts is mere guess-work. Where should a flight of angels have gathered and hovered if not there? And should they not "sit in order serviceable" about the tomb, as around the "stable" at Bethlehem?
Their function was to prepare a way in the hearts of the women for the Lord Himself, to lessen the shock,--for sudden joy shocks and may hurt,--as well as to witness that these "things angels desire to look into."
Their message flooded the women"s hearts with better light than their garments had spread through the tomb. Luke"s version of it agrees with Mark and Matthew in the all-important central part, "He is not here, but is risen" (though these words in Luke are not beyond doubt), but diverges from them otherwise. Surely the message was not the mere curt announcement preserved by any one of the Evangelists. We may well believe that much more was said than any or all of them have recorded. The angels" question is half a rebuke, wholly a revelation, of the essential nature of "the Living One,"
who was so from all eternity, but is declared to be so by His rising, of the incongruity of supposing that He could be gathered to, and remain with, the dim company of the dead, and a blessed word, which turns sorrow into hope, and diverts sad eyes from the grave to the skies, for all the ages since and to come. The angels recall Christ"s prophecies of death and resurrection, which, like so many of His words to the disciples and to us, had been heard, and not heard, being neglected or misinterpreted. They had questioned "what the rising from the dead should mean," never supposing that it meant exactly what it said. That way of dealing with Christ"s words did not end on the Easter morning, but is still too often practised.
If we are to follow Luke"s account, we must recognise that the women in a company, as well as Mary Magdalene separately, came back first with the announcement of the empty tomb and the angels" message, and later with the full announcement of having seen the Lord. But apart from the complexities of attempted combination of the narratives, the main point in all the Evangelists is the disbelief of the disciples, "Idle tales," said they, using a very strong word which appears only here in the New Testament, and likens the eager story of the excited women to a sick man"s senseless ramblings. That was the mood of the whole company, apostles and all. Is that mood likely to breed hallucinations? The evidential value of the disciples"
slowness to believe cannot be overrated.
Peter"s race to the sepulchre, in verse 12 of Luke xxiv., is omitted by several good authorities, and is, perhaps, spurious here. If allowed to stand as Luke"s, it seems to show that the Evangelist had a less complete knowledge of the facts than John. Mark, Peter"s "interpreter," has told us of the special message to him from the risen, but as yet unseen, Lord, and we may well believe that that quickened his speed. The a.s.surance of forgiveness and the hope of a possible future that might cover over the cowardly past, with the yearning to sob his heart out on the Lord"s breast, sent him swiftly to the tomb. Luke does not say that he went in, as John, with one of his fine touches, which bring out character in a word, tells us that he did; but he agrees with John in describing the effect of what Peter saw as being only "wonder," and the result as being only that he went away pondering over it all, and not yet able to grasp the joy of the transcendent fact. Perhaps, if he had not had a troubled conscience, he would have had a quicker faith. He was not given to hesitation, but his sin darkened his mind. He needed that secret interview, of which many knew the fact but none the details, ere he could feel the full glow of the Risen Sun thawing his heart and scattering his doubts like morning mists on the hills.
THE LIVING DEAD
"Why seek ye the living among the dead! 6. He is not here, but is risen."--LUKE xxiv. 5,6.
We can never understand the utter desolation of the days that lay betwixt Christ"s Death and His Resurrection. Our faith rests on centuries. We know that that grave was not even an interruption to the progress of His work, but was the straight road to His triumph and His glory. We know that it was the completion of the work of which the raising of the widow"s son and of Lazarus were but the beginnings. But these disciples did not know that. To them the inferior miracles by which He had redeemed others from the power of the grave, must have made His own captivity to it all the more stunning; and the thought which such miracles ending so must have left upon them, must have been something like, "He saved others; Himself He cannot save." And therefore we can never think ourselves fully back to that burst of strange sudden thankfulness with which these weeping Marys found those two calm angel forms sitting with folded wings, like the Cherubim over the Mercy-seat, but overshadowing a better propitiation, and heard the words of my text, "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen."
But yet, although the words before us, in the full depth and preciousness of their meaning, of course could only be once fulfilled, we may not only gather from them thoughts concerning that one death and resurrection, but we may likewise apply them, in a very permissible modification of meaning, to the present condition of all who have departed in His faith and fear; since for us, too, it is true that, whenever we go to an open grave, sorrowing for those whom we love, or oppressed with the burden of mortality in any shape, if our eyes are anointed, we can see there sitting the quiet angel forms; and if our ears be purged from the noise of earth, we can hear them saying to us, in regard to all that have gone away, "Why seek ye the living in these graves? They are not here; they are risen, as He said." The thoughts are very old, brethren. G.o.d be thanked that they _are_ old! Perhaps to some of you they may come now with new power, because they come with new application to your own present condition.
Perhaps to some of you they may sound very weak, and "words weaker than your grief will make grief more";--but such as they are, let us look at them for a moment or two together now.
The first thought, then, that these words of the angel messengers, and the scene in which we find them, suggest, is this--The dead are the living.
Language, which is more accustomed and adapted to express the appearances than the realities of things, leads us astray very much when we use the phrase "the dead" as if it expressed the continuance of the condition into which men pa.s.s in the act of dissolution. It misleads us no less, when we use it as if it expressed in itself the whole truth even as to that act of dissolution. "The dead" and "the living" are not names of two cla.s.ses which exclude each other. Much rather, there are _none_ who are _dead_. The dead are the living who have died. Whilst they were dying they lived, and after they were dead they lived more fully. All live unto G.o.d. "G.o.d is not the G.o.d of the dead, but of the living." Oh, how solemnly sometimes that thought comes up before us, that all those past generations which have stormed across this earth of ours, and then have fallen into still forgetfulness, live yet. Somewhere at this very instant, they now verily _are_! We say, "They _were_, they _have been_". There are no have beens! Life is life for ever. _To be_ is eternal being. Every man that has died is at this instant in the full possession of all his faculties, in the intensest exercise of all his capacities, standing somewhere in G.o.d"s great universe, ringed with the sense of G.o.d"s presence, and feeling in every fibre of his being that life, which comes after death, is not less real, but more real, not less great, but more great, not less full or intense, but more full and intense, than the mingled life which, lived here on earth, was a centre of life surrounded with a crust and circ.u.mference of mortality. The dead are the living. They lived whilst they died; and after they die, they live on for ever.
Such a conviction has as a matter of fact been firmly grasped as an unquestionable truth and a familiar operative belief only within the sphere of the Christian revelation. From the natural point of view the whole region of the dead is "a land of darkness, without any order, where the light is as darkness." The usual sources of human certainty fail us here. Reason is only able to stammer a peradventure. Experience and consciousness are silent. "The simple senses" can only say that it looks as if Death were an end, the final Omega. Testimony there is none from any pale lips that have come back to unfold the secrets of the prison-house.
The history of Christ"s Death and Resurrection, His dying words "_This day_ thou shalt be with Me in Paradise," the full ident.i.ty of being with which He rose from the grave, the manhood changed and yet the same, the intercourse of the forty days before His ascension, which showed the continuance of all the old love "stronger than death," and was in all essential points like His former intercourse with His disciples, though changed in form and introductory to the times when they should see Him no more in the flesh-these teach us, not as a peradventure, nor as a dim hope, nor as a strong foreboding which may be in its nature prophetic, but as a certainty based upon a historical fact, that Death"s empire is partial in its range and transitory in its duration. But, after we are convinced of that, we can look again with new eyes even on the external accompaniments of death, and see that sense is too hasty in its conclusion that death is the final end. There is no reason from what we see pa.s.sing before our eyes then to believe, that it, with all its pitifulness and all its pain, has any power at all upon the soul. True, the spirit gathers itself into itself, and, poising itself for its flight, becomes oblivious of what is pa.s.sing round about it. True, the tenant that is about to depart from the house in which he has dwelt so long, closes the windows before he goes. But what is there in the cessation of the power of communication with an outer world--what is there in the fact that you clasp the nerveless hand, and it returns no pressure; that you whisper gentle words that you think might kindle a soul under the dull, cold ribs of death itself, and get no answer--that you look with weeping gaze to catch the response of affection from out of the poor filmy, closing, tearless eyes there, and look in vain--what is there in all that to lead to the conviction that _the spirit_ is partic.i.p.ant of that impotence and silence? Is not the soul only self-centring itself, retiring from, the outposts, but not touched in the citadel? Is it not only that as the long sleep of life begins to end, and the waking eye of the soul begins to open itself on realities, the sights and sounds of the dream begin to pa.s.s away? Is it not but that the man, in dying, begins to be what he fully is when he is dead, "dead unto sin," dead unto the world, that he may "live unto G.o.d" that he may live with G.o.d, that he may live really? And so we can look upon that ending of life, and say, "It is a very small thing; it only cuts off the fringes of my life, it does not touch _me_ at all" It only plays round about the husk, and does not get at the core. It only strips off the circ.u.mferential mortality, but the soul rises up untouched by it, and shakes the bands of death from off its immortal arms, and flutters the stain of death from off its budding wings, and rises fuller of life _because of death_, and mightier in its vitality in the very act of submitting the body to the law, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
Touching but a part of the being, and touching that but for a moment, death is no state, it is an act. It is not a condition, it is a transition. Men speak about life as "a narrow neck of land, betwixt two unbounded seas": they had better speak about death as that. It is an isthmus, narrow and almost impalpable, on which, for one brief instant, the soul poises itself; whilst behind it there lies the inland lake of past being, and before it the sh.o.r.eless ocean of future life, all lighted with the glory of G.o.d, and making music as it breaks even upon these dark, rough rocks. Death is but a pa.s.sage. It is not a house, it is only a vestibule. The grave has a door on its inner side. We roll the stone to its mouth and come away, thinking that we have left them there till the Resurrection.
But when the outer access to earth is fast closed, the inner portal that opens on heaven is set wide, and G.o.d says to His child, "Come, enter into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee ... until the indignation be overpast!" Death is a superficial thing, and a transitory thing--a darkness that is caused by the light, and a darkness that ends in the light--a trifle, if you measure it by duration; a trifle if you measure it by depth. The death of the mortal is the emanc.i.p.ation and the life of the immortal. Then, brethren, we may go with the words of my text, and look upon every green hillock below which any that are dear to us are lying, and say to ourselves, "Not _here_--G.o.d be thanked, no--not here: living, and not dead; _yonder_, with the Master!" Oh, we think far too much of the grave, and far too little of the throne and the glory! We are far too much the creatures of sense; and the accompaniments of dissolution and departure fill up our hearts and our eyes. Think them all away, believe them all away, love them all away. Stand in the light of Christ"s life, and Christ"s death, and Christ"s rising, till you feel, "Thou art a shadow, not a substance--no real thing at all."
Yes, a shadow; and where a shadow falls there must be sunlight above to cast it. Look up, then, above the shadow Death, above the sin and separation from G.o.d, of which it is the shadow! Look up to the unsetting light of the Eternal life on the throne of the universe, and see bathed in it the living dead in Christ!
G.o.d has taken them to Himself, and we ought not to think (if we would think as the Bible speaks) of death as being anything else than the transitory thing which breaks down the brazen walls and lets us into liberty. For, indeed, if you will examine the New Testament on this subject, I think you will be surprised to find how very seldom--scarcely ever--the word "death" is employed to express the mere fact of the dissolution of the connection between soul and body. It is strange, but significant, that the Apostles, and Christ Himself, so rarely use the word to express that which we exclusively mean by it. They use all manner of other expressions as if they felt that the _fact_ remains, but that all that made it death has gone away. In a real sense, and all the more real because the external fact continues, Christ "hath abolished death." Two men may go down to the grave together: of one this may be the epitaph, "He that believeth in Christ shall never die"; and of the other--pa.s.sing through precisely the same physical experience and appearance, the dissolution of soul and body, we may say,--"There, that is death--death as G.o.d sent it, to be the punishment of man"s sin." The outward fact remains the same, the whole inner character of it is altered. As to them that believe, though they have pa.s.sed through the experience of painful separation--slow, languishing departure, or suddenly being caught up in some chariot of fire; not only are they living now, but they never died at all! Have you understood "death" in the full, pregnant sense of the expression, which means not only that _shadow_, the separation of the body from the soul; but that _reality_, the separation of the soul from life, because of the separation of the soul from G.o.d?
Then, secondly, this text, indeed the whole incident, may set before us the other consideration that since they have died, they live a better life than ours.
I am not going to enter here, at any length, or very particularly, into what seem to me to be the irrefragable scriptural grounds for holding the complete, uninterrupted, and even intensified consciousness of the soul of man, in the interval between death and the Resurrection. "Absent from the body, present with the Lord."
"This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." These words, if there were none other, are surely enough; seeing that of all that dark region we know only what it pleases G.o.d to tell us in the Bible, and seeing that it does not please Him to give us more than hints and glimpses of any part of it. But putting aside all attempts to elaborate a full doctrine of the intermediate state from the few Scripture expressions that bear on it, I merely allege, in general terms, that the present life of departed saints is fuller and n.o.bler than that which they possessed on earth. They are even now, whatever be the details of their condition, "the spirits of just men made perfect." As yet the body is not glorified--but the spirits of the perfected righteous are now parts of that lofty society whose head is Christ, whose members are the angels of G.o.d, the saints on earth and the equally conscious redeemed who "sleep in Jesus."
In what particulars is their life now higher than it was? First, they have close fellowship with Christ; then, they are separated from this present body of weakness, of dishonour, of corruption; then, they are withdrawn from all the trouble, and toil, and care of this present life; and then, and not least surely, they have death behind them, not having that awful figure standing on their horizon waiting for them to come up with it. These are some of the elements of the life of the sainted dead. What a wondrous advance on the life of earth they reveal if we think of them! They are closer to Christ; they are delivered from the body, as a source of weakness; as a hinderer of knowledge; as a dragger-down of all the aspiring tendencies of the soul; as a source of sin; as a source of pain.
They are delivered from all the necessity of labour which is agony, of labour which is disproportionate to strength, of labour which often ends in disappointment, of labour which is wasted so often in mere keeping life in, of labour which at the best is a curse, though it be a merciful curse too. They are delivered from that "fear of death" which, though it be stripped of its sting, is never extinguished in any soul of man that lives; and they can smile at the way in which that narrow and inevitable pa.s.sage bulked so large before them all their days, and after all, when they came to it, was so slight and small! If these are parts of the life of them that "sleep in Jesus," if they are fuller of knowledge, fuller of wisdom, fuller of love and capacity of love, and object of love; fuller of holiness, fuller of energy, and yet full of rest from head to foot; if all the hot tumult of earthly experience is stilled and quieted, all the fever beating of this blood of ours for ever at an end; all the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" done with for ever, and if the calm face which we looked last upon, and out of which the lines of sorrow, and pain, and sickness melted away, giving it a n.o.bler n.o.bleness than we had ever seen upon it in life, is only an image of the restful and more blessed being into which they have pa.s.sed,--if the dead are thus, then "Blessed are the dead!"
No wonder that one aspect of that blessedness--the "_sleeping_ in Jesus"--has been the one that the weary have laid hold of at all times; but do not let us forget what lies even in that figure of sleep, or distort it as if it meant to express a less vivid life than that here below. I think we sometimes misunderstand what the Bible means when it speaks about death as a sleep, by taking it to express the idea that that intermediate state is one of a kind of depressed consciousness, and of a less full vitality than the present. Not so. Sleep is rest, that is one reason for the scriptural application of the word to death. Sleep is the cessation of all connection with the external world, that is another reason.
As we play with the names of those that are familiar to us, so a loving faith can venture to play, as it were, with the awful name of Him who is King of Terrors, and to minimise it down to that shadow and reflection of itself which we find in the nightly act of going to rest. That may be another reason. But sleep is not unconsciousness; sleep does not touch the spirit. Sleep sets us free from relations to the outer world but the soul works as hard, though in a different way, when we slumber as when we wake. People who know what it is to dream, ought never to fancy that when the Bible talks about death as sleep, it means to say to us that death is unconsciousness. By no means. Strip the man of the disturbance that comes from a fevered body, and he will have a calmer soul. Strip him of the hindrances that come from a body which is like an opaque tower around his spirit, with only a narrow slit here and a narrow door there--five poor senses, with which he can come into connection with an outer universe; and, then surely, the spirit will have wider avenues out to G.o.d, and larger powers of reception, because it has lost the earthly tabernacle which, just in proportion as it brought the spirit into connection with the earth to which the tabernacle belongs, severed its connection with the heavens that are above.
They who have died in Christ live a fuller and a n.o.bler life, by the very dropping away of the body; a fuller and a n.o.bler life, by the very cessation of care, change, strife and struggle; and, above all, a fuller and n.o.bler life, because they "sleep _in Jesus_," and are gathered into His bosom, and wake with Him yonder beneath the altar, clothed in white robes, and with palms in their hands, "waiting the adoption--to wit, the redemption of the body." For though death be a progress--a progress to the spiritual existence; though death be a birth to a higher and n.o.bler state; though it be the gate of life, fuller and better than any which we possess; though the present state of the departed in Christ is a state of calm blessedness, a state of perfect communion, a state of rest and satisfaction;--yet it is not the final and perfect state, either.
And, therefore, in the last place, the better life, which the dead in Christ are living now, leads on to a still fuller life when they get back their glorified bodies.