Acts x. 88. James v. 20. John Keble. ministry." He is still in the world, still going about and doing good, still forgiving, protecting, guiding, strengthening, cheering, perfecting. "Lo, I am with you." And who are those to whom He makes this blessed promise? Even every one who believes that Jesus has risen, and is baptized, observing all things whatsoever He has commanded us. He was with the Eleven, and the more than five hundred. He was with the Christians of Rome and Corinth and Galatia and Ephesus and Philippi and Colosse and Thessalonica and the seven churches of Asia Minor. He was with the Church of the Catacombs and with the Waldenses and the Reformers and the Puritans and the Covenanters. He is with the Christians of London and Berlin and Rome and Madagascar and Nellore and San Francisco and Philadelphia. He is with you, O Christians of the shop and the mart and the school and the home and the sick-chamber and the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Every human being who follows the Lamb of God, like Him going about to do good, converting sinners from the error of their ways, building up the body of Christ, fulfilling his own vocation as an apostle or missionary sent from God; every Christian, however weak or obscure or young, belongs to the true Apostolical Succession: Both theirs and ours Thou art, As we and they are Thine: Kings, Prophets, Patriarchs, all have part Along the sacred line. "Lo, I am with you always." It is not that the Risen Lord occasionally visits His people: He is with them perennially, literally, "all the days." "Lo, I am with you always, unto the end of the world" that is to say, until the consummation of the Eon. Now He is with us in spirit: then, at the end of this Dispensation, He will be with us in body also. "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye Acts i. 11. gazing up toward heaven? This same Jesus, Who hath been taken from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as ye beheld Him go into heaven." And so the Holy Evangel begins and ends with Emmanuel: God with us. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Matt. i. 23. Rev. xxii. 20. THE EPIPHANY TO THE SEVEN. After these things Jesus shewed Himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed He Himself. JOHN xxi. 1. |