EPH. v. 14. “Wherefore He
saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and
Christ shall give thee light.”
THE progress of men’s thoughts in later times has had this
among other results, that we have been made more alive to
the seriousness and difficulty of questions relating to our
condition and place in the world—our very existence and
destiny.
One thing further has been brought home to the con-
sciences of our generation,—that is, that nature by itself
cannot give an answer to these questions. Have we then
nothing beside?
I. Although we are encompassed in mystery, we know
that there is in the darkness a point of light. Christ is
come to tell us once for all that we are not orphans and
castaways, driven about on the boundless sea of the uni-
verse. He came to tell us of our Father who is in heaven,
even God. We know that He is come, we know that He
died. We know, unless all human knowledge of the past
is a vain and unprofitable dream, that He has risen from the
dead. We know that this tremendous and unimaginable
event has changed not only the course, but the aspects of
the world and human life. Our refuge—our only refuge—
from the agonising mysteries of the world, is in His empty
grave.
II. We know that He who has all power in heaven and
earth has promised still to be with us in our course through
the storms and the pains of life. We have Him who once
appeared amongst the world still among us, behind the veil
of pain, behind the veil of our longstanding quarrels and
divisions, and hopeless misunderstandings, and cherished
antipathies, and blind zeal, and shocking profanations of
the sacred name of religion.
III. Let us be true and real about this great call to
light. With Jesus! we have that for which we may well
join with the hallelujahs of angels. Without Him! why,
words cannot exaggerate, words cannot express it. We
are of all men most miserable: more miserable—we the
heirs of all the ages, the victims of such a delusion—than
the most debased of savages. We believe Him. May He
help us to St. Paul’s wish in true earnest, and to its fulfil-
ment with longing desire, spoken in the name of all his
brethren, in all it may mean, in all its wonder—yes, if it
must be so, in all that is awful and tragic in it, “that I may
know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fel-
lowship of His sufferings.”
R. W. Church, D.C.L.