Part 13 (2/2)
They say unto Him, David's son. Christ answered, How then does David in spirit call him Lord, saying, the Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool?” So did Christ declare, that He Himself, who was standing there before them, was the Lord of David, who had died hundreds of years before. He told them again that their father Abraham rejoiced to see His day, and saw it and was glad; and when they answered, in anger and astonishment, ”Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?”
Jesus said, ”Verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.” I am.
The Jews had no doubt whom He meant; and we ought to have none either. For that was the very name by which G.o.d had told Moses to call Him, when he was sent to the Jews: ”Thou shalt say unto them, I AM hath sent me to you.” The Jews, I say, had no doubt who Jesus said that He was; that He meant them to understand, once and for all, that He whom they called the carpenter's son of Nazareth, was the Lord G.o.d who brought their forefathers up out of the land of Egypt, on the night of the first Pa.s.sover. So they, to show how reverent and orthodox they were, and how they honoured the name of G.o.d, took up stones to stone Him--as many a man, who fancies himself orthodox and reverent, would now, if he dared, stone the preachers who declare that the Lord Jesus Christ is not changed since then; that He is as able and as willing as ever to deliver the poor from those who grind them down, and that He will deliver them, whenever they cry to Him, with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm, and that Easter-day is as much a sign of that to us as the Pa.s.sover was for the Jews of old.
But, my friends, if Christ the Lord showed His love and power in behalf of poor oppressed wretches on that first Pa.s.sover, surely He showed it a thousand times more on that first Easter-day. His great love helped the Jews out of slavery; and that same great love of His at this Easter-tide, moved Him to die and rise again for the sins of the whole world. In that first Pa.s.sover He delivered only one people. On the first Easter He delivered all mankind. The Jews were under cruel tyrants in the land of Egypt. So were all mankind over the world, when Jesus came. The Jews in Egypt were slaves to worse things than the whip of their task-masters; they had slaves' hearts, as well as slaves' bodies. They were kept down not only by the Egyptians, but by their own ignorance, and idolatry, and selfish division, and foul sins. They were spiritually dead--without a n.o.ble, pure, manful feeling left in them. Their history makes no secret of that. The Bible seems to take every care to let us see into what a miserable and brutal state they had fallen. Christ sent Moses to raise them out of that death; to take them through the Red Sea, as a sign that all that was washed away, to be forgiven of G.o.d and forgotten by them, and that from the moment they landed, a free people, on the farther sh.o.r.e, they were to consider all their old life past and a new one begun. So they were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, as St. Paul says. And now all was to be new. They had been fancying that they belonged to the Egyptians.
Now they had found out, and had it proved to them by signs and wonders which they could not mistake, that they belonged to the Lord.
They had been brutal sinners. The Lord began to teach them that they were to rise above their own appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions. They had been wors.h.i.+pping only what they could see and handle. The Lord began to teach them to wors.h.i.+p Him--a person whom they could not see, though He was always near them, and watching over them. They had been living without independence, fellow-feeling, the sense of duty, or love of order. The Lord began to teach them to care for each other, to help each other, to know that they had a duty to perform towards each other, for which they were accountable to Him. They had owned no master except the Egyptians, whom they feared and obeyed unwillingly. The Lord began to teach them to obey Him loyally, from trust, and grat.i.tude, and love. They had been willing to remain sinners, and brutes, and slaves, provided they could get enough to eat and drink. The Lord began to teach them that His favour, His protection, were better than the flesh-pots of Egypt, and that He was able to feed them where it seemed impossible to men; to teach them that ”man does not live by bread alone--cheap or dear, my friends-- not by bread alone, but by EVERY word that proceeds out of the mouth of G.o.d, does man live.” That was the meaning of their being baptized in the cloud and in the sea. That was the meaning, and only a very small part of the meaning, of their Pa.s.sover. Would you not think, my friends, that I had been speaking rather of our own Baptism, and of our own Supper of the Lord, to which you have been all called to- day, and that I had been telling you the meaning of them?
For when Jesus, the Lord, and King, and Head of mankind, died and rose again, He took away the sin of the world. He was the true Pa.s.sover, the Lamb without spot, slain, as the scripture tells us, for the sins of the whole world. In the Jews' Pa.s.sover, when the angel saw the lamb's blood on the door of the house, he pa.s.sed by, and spared everyone in it. So now. The blood of Jesus, the Lamb of G.o.d, is upon us; and for His sake, G.o.d is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
But the Lord rose again this day. And when He, the Lord, the King, and Head of all men, rose, all men rose in Him. ”As in Adam all die,” says St. Paul, ”even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”
Baptism is a sign of that to us, as the going through the Red Sea, and being baptized to Moses in it, was to the Jews. The pa.s.sing of the Red Sea said to the Jews: ”You have pa.s.sed now out of your old miserable state of slavery into freedom. The sins which you committed there are blotted out. You are taken into covenant with G.o.d. You are now G.o.d's people, and nothing can lose you this love and care, except your own sins, your own unfaithfulness to Him, your own wilful falling back into the slavish and brutal state from which He has delivered you.”
And just so, baptism says to us: ”Your sins are forgiven you. You are taken into covenant with G.o.d. You are G.o.d's people, G.o.d's family. You must forget and cast away the old Adam, the old slavish and savage pattern of man, which your Lord died to abolish, the guilt of which He bore for you on His cross; and you must rise to the new Adam, the new pattern of man, which is created after G.o.d in righteousness and true holiness, which the Lord showed forth in His life, and death, and rising again. For now G.o.d looks on you not as a guilty and condemned race of beings, but as a redeemed race, His children, for the sake of Jesus Christ the Lamb of G.o.d, who takes away the sins of the world. You have a right to believe that, as human beings, you are dead with Christ to the old Adam, the old sinful, brutal pattern of man. Baptism is the sign of it to you.
Every child, let it or its parents be who they may, is freely baptized as a sign that all that old pattern of man is washed away, that they can and must have nothing to do with it hence-forward, that it is dead and buried, and they must flee from it and forget it, as they would a corpse.
And the Lord's Supper also is a sign to us that, as human beings, we are risen with Christ, to a new life. A new life is our birthright.
We have a right to live a new life. We have a duty to live a new life. We have a power, if we will, to live a new life; such a life as we never could live if we were left to ourselves; a n.o.ble, just, G.o.dly, manful, Christlike, G.o.dlike life, bred and nourished in us by the Spirit of Christ. That is our right; for we belong to Him who lived that life Himself, and bought us our share in it with His own death and resurrection. That is our duty; for if we share the Lord's blessings, it can only be in order that we may become like the Lord.
Do you fancy that He died to leave us all no better than we are? His death would have had very little effect if that was all. No, says St. Paul; if you have a share in Christ, prove that you believe in your own share by becoming like Christ. You belong to His kingdom, and you must live as His subjects. He has bought for you a new and eternal life, and you must use that life. ”If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things that are above.” ... And what are they?
Love, peace, gentleness, mercy, pity, truth, faithfulness, justice, patience, courage, order, industry, duty, obedience... . All, in short, which is like Jesus Christ. For these are heavenly things.
These are above, where Christ sits at G.o.d's right hand. These are the likeness of G.o.d. That is G.o.d's character. Let it be your character likewise.
But again; if it is our right and our duty to be like that, it is also in our power. G.o.d would not have commanded us to be, what He had not given us the power to be. He would not have told us to seek those things which are above, if He had not intended us to find them.
Wherefore it is written: ”Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; for if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give His Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
This is the meaning of that text; namely, that G.o.d will give us the power of living this new and risen life, which we are bound to live.
This is one of the gifts for men, which the scripture tells us that Christ received when He rose from the dead, and ascended up on high.
This is one of the powers of which He spoke, when after His resurrection He said, ”That all power was given to Him in heaven and earth.” The Lord's Supper is at once a sign of who will give us that gift, and a sign that He will indeed give it us. The Lord's Supper is the pledge and token to us that we all have a share in the likeness of Christ, the true pattern of man; and that if we come and claim our share, He will surely bestow it on us. He will renew, and change, and purify our hearts and characters in us, day by day, into the likeness of Himself. He who is the eternal life of men will nourish us, body, soul, and spirit, with that everlasting life of His, even as our bodies are nourished by that bread and wine. And if you ask me how? When you can tell me why a wheat grain cannot produce an oak, or an acorn a wheat plant; when you can tell me why our bodies are, each of them, the very same bodies which they were ten years ago, though every atom of flesh, and blood, and bone in them has been changed; when, in short, you, or any other living man, can tell me the meaning of those three words, body, life, and growth, then it will be time to ask that question. In the meantime let us believe that He who does such wonders in the life and growth of every blade of gra.s.s, can and will do far greater wonders for the life and growth of us, immortal beings, made in His own likeness, redeemed by His blood, and so believe, and thank, and obey, and wait till another and a n.o.bler life to understand. And if we never understand at all-- what matter, provided the thing be true?
x.x.xIV--CHRISTMAS-DAY
For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be on His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty G.o.d, The Father of an Everlasting age, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice henceforth even forever.--ISAIAH ix. 6, 7.
In the time when the prophet Isaiah wrote this prophecy, everything round him was exactly opposite to his words. The king of Judaea, the prophet's country, was not reigning in righteousness. He was an unrighteous and wicked governor. The princes and great men were not ruling in judgment. They were unjust and covetous; they took bribes, and sold justice for money. They were oppressors, grinding down the poor, and defrauding those below them. So that the weak, and poor, and needy had no one to right them, no one to take their part. There was no man to feel for them, and defend them, and be a hiding-place and a covert for them from their cruel tyrants; no man to comfort and refresh them as rivers of water refresh a dry place, or the shadow of a great rock comforts the sunburnt traveller in the weary deserts.
Neither were these very poor oppressed people of the Jews in a right state of mind. They were ignorant and stupid, given to wors.h.i.+p false G.o.ds. They had eyes, and yet could not use them to see that, as the psalm told us this morning, the heavens declared the glory of G.o.d, and the firmament showed His handiwork. They were wors.h.i.+pping the sun, and moon, and stars, in stead of the Lord G.o.d who made them.
They were brutish too, and would not listen to teaching. They had ears, and yet would not hearken with them to G.o.d's prophets. They were rash, too, living from hand to mouth, discontented, and violent, as ignorant poor people will be in evil times. And they were stammerers--not with their tongue, but with their minds and thoughts.
They were miserable; but they could not tell why. They were full of discontent and longings; but they could not put them into words.
They did not know how to pray, how to open their hearts to G.o.d or to man. They knew of no one who could understand them and their sorrows; they could not understand them themselves, much less put them into words. They were altogether confused and stupefied; just in the same state, in a word, as the poor negro slaves in America, and the heathens ay, and the Christians too, are in, in all the countries of the world which do not know the good news of Christmas- day or have forgotten it and disobeyed it.
But Isaiah had G.o.d's Spirit with him; the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of holiness, righteousness, justice. And that Holy Spirit convinced him of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment, as He convinces every man who gives himself up humbly to G.o.d's teaching.
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