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| Ringing In The Easter Morn! |
Contrasts make things stand out. Black touching white seems blacker, and the white looks whiter. Sorrow makes joy seem gladder. Joy makes sorrow seem sadder. The deeper the sorrow, the greater is the uplift of joy following, after the first daze is over. That first Easter morning stood in sharpest contrast with what went before. The greatest possible contrast is between life and death. All sorrow and darkness and heaviness brood in the black word — death. All gladness and brightness and lightness gather up at their best in that lightsome word — life.
The Saturday before Easter was filled with deepest gloom. While Jesus still hung on the cross, there was hope. While life remained there was a sort of expectancy that he might yet do something startling. His short life had been full of things that startled men. Surely he is allowing all this shameful treatment that he may do something to completely offset it. But now that last straggling, struggling hope has gone quite out. The life is out of his body. The body is in the sealed- up tomb. What a long day that Saturday was. The longest, darkest, saddest the human heart has known. Those hearts had been lifted to the highest pitch ever experienced. And the depression is as deep down as the other was high up.
That night his disciples slept the heavy sleep of disappointed men, with sore hearts at their sorest. But while they slept something was taking place. The darkest hour was bringing forth brightest light, though they didn't know it. Jesus is always doing more for us than we know. The day always begins a bit earlier than we realize. Night goes sooner than we think. While they slept, Jesus rose. Up through the wrapping cloths, up through the solid rock of the new hewn tomb
Jesus rose. Hate's work was undone. Sin's worst was worsted. The tomb became a birthplace, the birth-place of a new life, a new sort of life. Out of death came forth life. Out of the place of darkest hate shone tenderest love. Out of the poison-house of sin came sweetest purity. Out of what seemed the defeat of Jesus, came the wondrous victory of God.
Then the angels came in garments of light, and rolled away the stone, and did guard only over the tomb that all comers might plainly see that Jesus was no longer there, but had risen.
A MORNING OF LIFE
Then it was morning, a new morning, whose newness has never lost its dewy freshness, the world's new morning. But the light that came was too bright for the eyes it met. It dazzled. Eyes long steeped in darkness were stupefied by it, dazed, until they got used to it. But its overwhelming brilliance gave a certainty that was beyond question. These disciples and women are like children suddenly roused up out of sound sleep by an intense light shining directly into their faces. They blink and stagger, and talk in jerky sentences until they become measurably used to the fact that Jesus has indeed risen. Though the wonder of it, they never do get used to. But they quickly find their feet, and go steadily on, amidst bitterest opposition and sorest persecution. That light still shining in their faces, holds them steady through all the days.
Nobody ever was so completely taken by surprise as were these disciples of Jesus. This of itself is tremendous evidence. Their conduct those first few days makes the best book on Christian evidences ever penned. Their utter lack of expectation, their startled surprise, their apparent inability to believe what had actually occurred, the stubborn doubter holding obstinately out for eight days — then, homely, plain facts that completely removed all of this, and swept the last questioner in.
Mary knew, not only by the voice repeating her name, and by the presence at first mistaken for a gardener, but by being given something to do. That was satisfying evidence to her. The Master was acting in his old way. The women knew by the feel of their fingers upon his feet, and the sound of that never-to-be-mistaken voice. Peter knew when, all alone, the eyes that drew the bitter tears in the courtyard, now looked again into his. You could not befool Peter about those eyes. The Emmaus couple knew by the wondrous talking, by their burning hearts, but the man sitting at the same table, the broken loaf in their hands, and that suddenly recognized face. The upper-room company knew by the fish being taken, and the bit of barley loaf — could there be homelier, saner, simpler evidence? The cautious, square-jawed Thomas knew by the feel of those scarred hands, and the rude-edged hole in the side, and his jaw relaxed into a glad, worshipful recognition of Jesus, his Lord, and his God. Long after, the studious, keenly trained schoolman of Tarsus knew by the blinding light, and the quiet, penetrating voice, that completely reversed the high-pressure engine of his career.
THE GOSPEL OF THE BODY
Jesus' resurrection was a real thing. It was a rising up of His body out of death. Of course it must have been that, for resurrection is only of the body. Resurrection is a body word. It cannot be properly used directly except of the body. Other use is rhetorical, figurative and secondary. The spirit of Jesus was not killed nor buried. That which went down, came up again. Resurrection is a truth regarding the body.
A man's body distinguishes him from the higher orders. It is a sacred thing. It is his personality in tangible shape. It comes to be the mold of his spirit. It is his biography. Every man carries about with him his life-story, from birth to death. Though few are skilled in reading it, and none read it fully. His body is the home-spot of his spirit. It is a bit of himself, his identity. So we know the man.
The body bears the brunt of the pain that comes through the breaks in the natural rhythm made by the man living in it. It becomes his scapegoat. It takes much of the punishment that sin brings. It is to share the joy of release from sin, and sin's results. Our bodies are precious to us. They are precious to our loved ones. In them we have lived, on them we have leaned, with them we have companioned, through them we have given expression to all our loves and fears. They are a part of us. We will not be less in the upper, future life than we have been here, but more. We have sadly ignored and abused our bodies. That is only bad. Some holy men have seemed to think lightly of the body as though a mean thing, or temporary. That too is bad. The resurrection teaches us the worth, the dignity, the sacredness of our bodies. It is through bodily functions that we come into life. It is our bodies coming into being that permits us to come into being. At the touch of God, the new spirit comes into being in a body prepared, slowly, carefully, usually painfully, prepared for it. We should love our bodies, study them, care for them, train them, hold them true to their great service of ministering to the spirit within. They should be kept pure and sweet and sound. It is their due, and the due of the two great spirits living in them. They are temples of our spirits, and of the Spirit of God. The resurrection is the gospel of the body. Thereby Jesus tells us to reverence our bodies.
WE SHALL BE CHANGED
But mark keenly that Jesus' body was changed in the resurrection. It was a change for the better. It was lifted to a higher plane of life. It became superior to what it had been. We are apt, in thinking of the difficulties of our own resurrection, to keep thinking of the body as we know it. But it will be a changed body. With Jesus the limitations were gone. His body had been limited as is ours. It needed food and rest, air and exercise. It could work only so long; then came fatigue. He got from place to place by effort, walking, or combining his thought and skill and work with nature, as sailing a boat or riding a donkey. He entered a building through openings made for the purpose. When the new life came, the resurrection life, these limitations are gone. He is free of the need of food and rest. All tiredness is gone. He goes as quickly and easily from place to place as thought can travel. He was free of material obstructions such as walls, going where he would by willing to be there.
The resurrection of Jesus was a natural result of his life of perfect obedience to the will of God. It was the next stage up of his perfect life. Perhaps these bodily limitations simply belong to an apprenticeship period of life. They may be the scaffolding while the life is building. They may belong to the earlier stage of life. The resurrection conditions found in Jesus belong to the next higher stage.
But there are changes for us in addition to these that Jesus experienced. We shall know the change he knew. We are assured of that. But there is more for us. Because there has been more in us, namely sin, there is more for us. Jesus knew one change from the life before death to a new sort of life after resurrection. We shall know two changes. This that he knew, and also a change reversing sin's changes. Our bodies have been changed by sin, as his was not. These changes made by sin shall be changed back, and up. It will be a return to first conditions. Man's body has known bad changes through sin. It will know blessed changes through the removal of sin. Pain, sickness, weakness, immaturity, stunted growth, liability to death — these Jesus never knew in his own person. They are sin's work. They will be removed. We shall all be changed, and shall be all changed through and through. We shall be like him.
THE WORLD'S SPRINGTIME
Easter comes from East. The one word gives the other. East means the dawn. The original festival of Easter celebrated the spring, the new dawn of the year, and of the earth's life. It is a happy borrowing of a word from our brothers of the earlier ages. Jesus' rising is an Easter, a dawn, the dawn of day for man, and for the earth.
Easter spells out beauty, the rare beauty of new life. Is life ever so sweet and beautiful as when it comes up new and fresh in the spring? The green has a fairer hue, the flower a softer, deeper coloring, the air a new balmy freshness and the dew a sweeter fragrance. Jesus' rising was the beginning of the world's springtime. But it seems to be a slow spring, late in opening up, a retarded spring, held back by some hard frosts, and rough winter storms. But the sun is coming nearer all the while. It will be warmer soon. Winter will all go.
When Jesus comes again the frosts will go. Then comes in fully the world's new spring of life, and then the summer full-fruits. The church is not agreed about when that will be and some see it a long way off, as a sort of great celebration after great victory. Some of us think he may come in any generation, and his coming bring the great victory. But all are practically agreed that he is to come. When he comes — nobody knows when — then comes the full-fruits of the harvest of life. His coming means release for us up into the resurrection life. It means reunion with those who have slipped from our grasp. They will come back when he comes back. They come with him. A wondrous spring morning that!
" And in the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since,
And lost awhile."
And the thought makes the heart beat faster, as it
fervently repeats John's Patmos prayer, " Come, Lord
Jesus."
When it is a bit dark with you, may be a good bit, a deep biting bit of dark, cheer up, there's a dawn coming. When it is winter in your life, snowbound, icebound, frozen up and frozen in, pull out the full organ stop of your soul and let the music out, for there's a spring coming. And in its wonder the winter will be sheer forgot. Jesus' springtime of a new life seems to be about due. It may be in your heart now, in your life, like the first crocus up through the snow. It is to be in all the earth. Let us live with our faces turned toward the rising sun — the risen Son. by S. D. Gordon
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