Christianity not a Reli I have told you." Let us meditate on the angel's words. 66 Why seek ye the Living One among the gion of the dead?" There seems to be a slight tinge of rebuke in the question. It is as though the angel Sepulchre. had said: "What has Life to do with Death? Do men gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles? John x. 18, xi. 25. The tomb is no place for Him Who said: 'I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it up again; I am the resurrection and the life.' He Whom ye seek is the Living One. Ye will never find Him among the dead. He is not here, but has risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay." And the angel's rebuke is as needful for us as for the women. For are there not times when we also seek the living among the dead? For example: What is this delving amid the rubbish of worldliness-amid the vanities and honors and riches and cares of this charnel-house of sin --but the seeking the living among the dead? If it be indeed true that we have been raised up with Christ, we shall be seeking the things which are above, where the ascended Christ is sitting on the right hand of God. Again: What is this searching for Christ amid the forms of ritual or the articles of orthodoxy, as though He were but a Name to be emblazoned in the illuminated letters of a rubric or a lay-figure to be found recumbent in a creed: what is this but the seeking among the dead for the Living One? Ah, Christ is not a creed, and so a Life; Christ is a Life, and so a creed. Once more: what is this constant dwelling on the passion and death of Jesus to the compara Col. iii. 1. tive oblivion of His resurrection but the looking among the dead for the Living One? That Jesus has risen from the dead is indeed a prominent article in our Confessions of Faith; and in defense of that article we are ready to do battle against the denial of every skeptic and the surmise of every doubter. But that Jesus is alive again and alive for evermore is a fact too seldom held forth in conspicuous, blessed exhibition. We love to linger on the crimson soil of Golgotha as though the Son of Man were still hanging on His cross; or, if we follow Him thence, it is only that we may gaze on His dead body in the sepulchre near by. And it is just because we spend so many of our days in sitting by that tomb, as though the great stone were still rolled up against its door and Pilate's seal still unbroken, that our Christian life so often seems to the unbeliever draped in the sable habiliments of mourning rather than in the bright attire of joy and praise. Some excuse there was for the weeping women in visiting the sepulchre. They had not expected their Friend's death; much less then His resurrection. Well then may they weep, bringing their costly spices and precious ointments. Better come to embalm even a dead Jesus than to have no Jesus at all. But we do not have the excuse of these sorrowing women. We know that Jesus Christ has risen, not only because the Scripture says so, but also because nothing else than a Risen Jesus can account for the facts of Church History, for Christendom, for the transfiguration of human character, for the joys of a personal communion Angelic Remembrancers. Luke xxiv. 6, 7. Matt. xvi. 21. with the Living One. If ever there was a fact proved, it is this: Jesus Christ has risen from the dead and is alive to-day. And yet how many Christians there are who really and devoutly love the Lord Jesus and would lay down their lives for Him, but who nevertheless are ever weeping and refusing to be comforted, their hands weary with the very weight of the ointments they are evermore bringing! No, ours is not the religion of the shroud; ours is not the Gospel of the Grave. Vain is it then for us to bring our balms and spices to a sepulchre, or to expect that the lamp of piety will glow in its noisome air. Let others, if they will, haunt the Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Let Greek and Latin, Armenian and Copt, kneel in the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre, lighting their tapers at the lamp which sends down its sickly glare on the spot where Jesus is supposed to have lain. Ours is a better Church than the Church of the Sepulchre. Ours is the Church of the Resurrection. Listen to the angel voice still echoing through the galleries of eighteen centuries: "Why seek ye the Living One among the dead? He is not here, but has risen, as He said." "Remember how He spake unto you while He was yet in Galilee, saying, 'The Son of Man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again."" The angel's allusion is doubtless to the memorable scene at Cæsarea Philippi, when Jesus began for the first time to show forth distinctly to His disciples His approaching destiny of death and resurrection. Observe precisely the way in which the angel cheers these women. He works no miracle; he shows no scroll in the heavens with the blazing legend-" Jesus has risen"; he brings before them no vision of Christ's risen body. He simply remits them to past conversations of their Lord, simply recalling to their memory one of His forgotten sayings: "Remember how He spake to you while still in Galilee, saying, The Son of Man must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be put to death, and rise again the third day."" And this recalling to our memory forgotten Scriptures I believe to be still a part of the angelic ministry. As it is one of the offices of the Holy Spirit to bring to our remembrance all John xiv. 26. things which Jesus has said, so, it may be, angels are the Holy Spirit's agents and messengers. What though we do not see them? Neither do we see the Spirit of God. I believe that angels wait on us, as truly as they ever waited on Abraham, or Jacob, or Joshua, or Elisha, or Mary of Nazareth, or the Lord Jesus Himself. I believe that they are still a part of Heaven's mediatorial economy; still ascending and descending on the Son of Man; encamping around them that fear Him, and delivering them; watching over Christ's little ones; rejoicing over repenting sinners; bearing the spirits of the redeemed to Abraham's bosom; in short, ministering to the heirs of salvation. And Heb. i. 14. one of their special functions, as in the case of the angels of the sepulchre, is to be the ministers of the Holy Spirit to the Church, bringing to our remembrance also forgotten sayings of our John i. 51. Ps. xxxiv. 7. Matt. xviii. 10. 22. The Angel's Message. Matt. xxviii. 7. Rev. i. 18. ascended Lord: "Remember how He spake to you." "Go quickly and tell His disciples and Peter that He hath risen from the dead; and, lo, He goeth before you into Galilee; there ye will see Him, as He said unto you; lo, I have told you." "Go quickly." No sanctuary for Christ's people is the tomb. Loiter not then in its gloom. Let Crusaders fight for and Saracens guard an empty sepulchre where a dead Jesus has once been entombed. The Church of the living God. has a nobler work to do; it is to march from conquest to conquest under the banner of Him Who, once dead, liveth again, and, lo, He is alive for evermore. "Go quickly and tell His disciples and Peter." Yes, go to that poor Peter who, conscious of his unworthiness, had exclaimed, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Matt. xiv. 28-31. Lord!"-that Peter who had ventured to walk Luke v. 8. on the foaming waves, and, beginning to doubt and Matt. xvi. 22, 28. sink, had cried, "Lord, save me!"-that Peter Matt. xviii. 21. who, as adversary, had presumed to lay his hand on his Master, and rebuke Him, saying: "Be this far from Thee, Lord! this shall not be unto Thee!" that Peter who, in the poverty of a feeble, undisciplined faith, had asked, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Until seven times?"--and again: "Lo, we have forsaken all and followed Thee; what then shall we have?"-that Peter who, in a humility very akin to pride, had exclaimed, “Lord, Thou shalt never wash my feet!"—that Peter Matt. xxvi.33-35. who, in boastful confidence, had asserted: "Though Matt. xix. 27. John xiii. 8. |