A RISEN CHRIST
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest; and this
is the place of repose"—
"But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the
firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." 1 Corinthians 15:20
Here we have the true Palm (Phoenix) spoken of in the
Preface, which, when burned down, springs fresh and beautiful from its
ashes, with more vigorous stem and more glorious fronds. On the monuments of
the early Roman Christians, in the city of their sufferings and triumphs,
well may the fresh-plumaged bird of immortality be seen perched on Him, who,
as the Divine Heavenly Palm, has purchased for His people the gift of
eternal life.
The Resurrection of Jesus is the pledge and guarantee of
that of His people. Hence, the pre-eminent importance assigned by the
inspired writers to this great anchor of the Church's faith. The glorious
light indeed illuminating the tomb of the Savior throws its radiations on
almost every other doctrine of the Christian system. The believer's
justification, regeneration, sanctification, resurrection,
glorification—each has its halo of glory borrowed from that vacant
sepulcher. "If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless
and so is your faith" (1 Cor. 15:14). "With great power the apostles
continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 4:33).
Paul, to his cultured audience on Mars' Hill, preached "Jesus and the
Resurrection." "It is Christ," says he, "who died—MORE THAN THAT, who
was raised to life" (Rom. 8:34).
In the concluding benediction of the priceless Epistle to
the Hebrews, it is the Redeemer's Resurrection which is specially singled
out as the mightiest of God's mighty acts, "the God of peace, who through
the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus,
that great Shepherd of the sheep." It was that Resurrection-hour for which
Jesus Himself is represented as longing from all eternity, when pillowed on
the Father's bosom. Then He rejoiced "as people rejoice at the harvest, as
men rejoice when dividing the plunder" (Isa. 9:3). He seems to bound over
intervening ages; and with His eye first on His own vacant tomb, and then on
the myriads His Resurrection foreshadowed, He is represented as
exclaiming—"I will ransom them from the power of the grave, I will redeem
them from death. O Death, I will be your plagues! O Grave, I will be your
destruction!" (Hos. 13:14).
No wonder then that the Resurrection of Christ has been
for the last 1800 years a joyful day—that our Sabbaths are its solemn
commemorations. We repeat, it was the truth of all truths among the
early believers. It was not the day of His death they made their
Sabbath, but the first day of the week—the day when the sadness of the
weeping women at the sepulcher was turned into gladness: and their watchword
at meeting (the word of joy and welcome) was not "The Lord has died,"
but "The Lord has risen." It was with them a day of praise, more than
for confession; for psalms of thanksgiving, more than for penitential tears.
Conscious that a new and nobler Genesis had dawned on a darkened
world, they sung in responsive melody, "This is the day which the Lord has
made, we will rejoice and be glad in it."
The pledges of the outer material creation are welcome
and joyful. If we welcome with grateful spirit the first budding of early
spring in grove and field, because in these we see the promise and pledge
that soon nature will be arrayed in her full robes of resurrection
beauty—with what feelings ought we to stand by the sepulcher of our Lord,
and see the buried Conqueror rising triumphant over the last enemy! Do we
not behold in Him the forerunner of an immortal springtime, or rather a
glorious harvest, when the mounds of the earth, and the caves of the ocean,
shall surrender what they have held for ages in sacred custody: "Multitudes,
multitudes in the valley of decision;" when "this corruptible shall put on
incorruption, and this mortal immortality," and the summons shall go forth,
"You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy." "Christ the
firstfruits; then when He comes, those who belong to Him!"
You who have priceless treasures in the tomb,
think of this! "God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in
Him." True, that "house of our earthly tabernacle" at death, is a "darksome
ruin." That dust is resolved into its kindred dust. The constituent
elements of the dismantled framework are incorporated with new forms of
matter. Sad and terrible is dissolution in all its accompaniments. We do not
wish to strew that dismal path with flowers. Death, from the earthly view
of it, is not lit by one gleam of sunshine. The slow and gradual wasting
and decay, the fading of the bloom from the cheek, the weakness of the eye,
the wearisome days, the long night-vigils, the mind participating not
infrequently with the wreck of the body, memory often a blank, the fondest
look and the fondest name eliciting no response! Then the close of all—the
knocking at the mysterious gates of a mysterious future—the empty
chamber, where "echo slumbers;" the noiseless footfall, the mute crowd of
mourners, the grave, the return to the silent dwelling, and the vacant
seat—O Death, truly here is your sting; O Grave, truly here is
your victory!
But the day is coming when all these memories of
woe shall vanish, like the darkness before the morning sun—when the
spoil of plundering ages shall in a marvelous way be all restored—when, as
in the Prophet's Valley of Vision, bone shall come to bone, and sinew to
sinew. The old loving smiles of earth will be seen again in the
newly-glorified body, purged from all the dross and alloy of its old
materialism—the drooping withered flower reviving, beautiful and fragrant
with the bloom of perennial summer.
"Why are you crying?" was the question of the Risen
Conqueror, as He gazed on a tearful eye at the Resurrection morn. The
Christian's grave need be watered by no tears; for Jesus has converted it
into the vestibule of heaven! How different from the mournful legends
to be seen and read at this hour on heathen lands, as "to the final
farewell" and "the eternal sleep!" How different from the inscriptions
entombed in the latest Assyrian excavations in the mounds of Kalakh; of
which we are told—"In this temple were performed the mournings and
lamentations for the yearly dying Tammuz the 'Son of Life,' whom Ishtar went
annually to recover from the House of Death, the Palace of 'the Land of
no return!"'
The Christian searches, indeed, in vain, amid the ashes
of Jerusalem's desolation, for any material tomb of his Divine Lord. But if
the tomb is lost in the wreck of ages, the glorious, invisible inscription
still remains—"Fear not: I am He who lives and was dead, and behold I am
alive for evermore." And "because I live, you shall live also!"
"Our loved ones in the narrow home we lay.
But while Death's sharp scythe is sweeping,
We remember 'mid our weeping
That a Father's hand is keeping
Every vernal bloom that falls underneath its chilly sway.
And though earthly flowers may perish,
There are buds His hand will cherish,
Throughout the years eternal—these can never fade away."
"My body also will rest secure, because You will not
abandon me to the grave, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay. You have
made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your
presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand."