Twenty-Five Village Sermons Part 6

SERMON XVI. THE CRUCIFIXION

ISAIAH, liii. 7.

"He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter."

On this day, my friends, was offered up upon the cross the Lamb of G.o.d,--slain in eternity and heaven before the foundation of the world, but slain in time and s.p.a.ce upon this day. All the old sacrifices, the lambs which were daily offered up to G.o.d in the Jewish Temple, the lambs which Abel, and after him the patriarchs offered up, the Paschal Lamb slain at the Pa.s.sover, our Eastertide, all these were but figures of Christ--tokens of the awful and yet loving law of G.o.d, that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. But the blood of dumb animals could not take away sin. All mankind had sinned, and it was, therefore, necessary that all mankind should suffer. Therefore He suffered, the new Adam, the Man of all men, in whom all mankind were, as it were, collected into one and put on a new footing with G.o.d; that henceforward to be a man might mean to be a holy being, a forgiven being, a being joined to G.o.d, wearing the likeness of the Son of G.o.d--the human soul and body in which He offered up all human souls and bodies on the cross. For man was originally made in Christ's likeness; He was the Word of G.o.d who walked in the garden of Eden, who spoke to Adam with a human voice; He was the Lord who appeared to the patriarchs in a man's figure, and ate and drank in Abraham's tent, and spoke to him with a human voice; He was the G.o.d of Israel, whom the Jewish elders saw with their bodily eyes upon Mount Sinai, and under His feet a pavement as of a sapphire stone. From Him all man's powers came-- man's speech, man's understanding. All that is truly n.o.ble in man was a dim pattern of Him in whose likeness man was originally made.

And when man had fallen and sinned, and Christ's image was fading more and more out of him, and the likeness of the brutes growing more and more in him year by year, then came Christ, the head and the original pattern of all men, to claim them for His own again, to do in their name what they could never do for themselves, to offer Himself up a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world: so that He is the real sacrifice, the real lamb; as St. John said when he pointed Him out to his disciples, "Behold the Lamb of G.o.d, which taketh away the sin of the world!"

Oh, think of that strong and patient Lamb, who on this day shewed Himself perfect in fort.i.tude and n.o.bleness, perfect in meekness and resignation. Think of Him who, in His utter love to us, endured the cross, despising the shame. And what a cross! Truly said the prophet, "His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men:" in hunger and thirst, in tears and sighs, bruised and bleeding, His forehead crowned with thorns, His sides torn with scourges, His hands and feet gored with nails, His limbs stretched from their sockets, naked upon the shameful cross, the Son of G.o.d hung, lingering slowly towards the last gasp, in the death of the felon and the slave! The most shameful sight that this earth ever saw, and yet the most glorious sight. The most shameful sight, at which the sun in heaven veiled his face, as if ashamed, and the skies grew black, as if to hide those bleeding limbs from the foul eyes of men; and yet the n.o.blest sight, for in that death upon the cross shone out the utter fullness of all holiness, the utter fullness of all fort.i.tude, the utter fullness of that self- sacrificing love, which had said, "The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost;" the utter fullness of obedient patience, which could say, "Father, not My will but Thine be done;"

the utter fullness of generous forgiveness, which could pray, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;" the utter fullness of n.o.ble fort.i.tude and endurance, which could say at the very moment when a fearful death stared Him in the face, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to the Father, and He will send me at once more than twelve armies of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be?"

Oh, my friends, look to Him, the author and perfecter of all faith, all trust, all loyal daring for the sake of duty and of G.o.d! Look at His patience. See how He endured the cross, despising the shame.

See how He endured--how patience had her perfect work in Him--how in all things He was more than conqueror. What gentleness, what calmness, what silence, what infinite depths of Divine love within Him! A heart which neither shame, nor torture, nor insult, could stir from its G.o.dlike resolution. When looking down from that cross He beheld none almost but enemies, heard no word but mockery; when those who pa.s.sed by reviled Him, wagging their heads and saying, "He saved others, Himself He cannot save;" His only answer was a prayer for forgiveness for that besotted mob who were yelling beneath Him like hounds about their game. Consider Him, and then consider ourselves, ruffled and put out of temper by the slightest cross accident, the slightest harsh word, too often by the slightest pain-- not to mention insults, for we pride ourselves in not bearing them.

Try, my friends, if you can, even in the dimmest way, fancy yourselves for one instant in His place this day 1815 years. Fancy yourselves hanging on that cross--fancy that mocking mob below-- fancy--but I dare not go on with the picture. Only think--think what would have been YOUR temper there, and then you may get some slight notion of the boundless love and the boundless endurance of the Saviour whom WE love so little, for whose sake most of us will not endure the trouble of giving up a single sin.

And then consider that it was all of His own free will; that at any moment, even while He was hanging upon the cross, He might have called to earth and sun, to heaven and to h.e.l.l, "Stop! thus far, but no further," and they would have obeyed Him; and all that cross, and agony, and the fierce faces of those furious Jews, would have vanished away like a hideous dream when one awakes. For they lied in their mockery. Any moment He might have been free, triumphant, again in His eternal bliss, but He would not. He Himself kept Himself on that cross till His Father's will was fulfilled, and the sacrifice was finished, and we were saved. And then at last, when there was no more human n.o.bleness, no more agony left for Him to fulfil, no gem in the crown of holiness which He had not won as His own, no drop in the cup of misery which He had not drained as His own; when at last He was made perfect through suffering, and His strength had been made perfect in weakness, then He bowed that bleeding, thorn-crowned head, and said, "It is finished. Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." And so He died.

How can our poor words, our poor deeds, thank Him? How mean and paltry our deepest grat.i.tude, our highest loyalty, when compared with Him to whom it is due--that adorable victim, that perfect sin- offering, who this day offered up Himself upon the altar of the cross, in the fire of His own boundless zeal for the kingdom of G.o.d, His Father, and of His boundless love for us, His sinful brothers!

"Oh, thou blessed Jesus! Saviour, agonising for us! G.o.d Almighty, who did make Thyself weak for the love of us! oh, write that love upon our hearts so deeply that neither pleasure nor sorrow, life nor death, may wipe it away! Thou hast sacrificed Thyself for us, oh, give us the hearts to sacrifice ourselves for Thee! Thou art the Vine, we are the branches. Let Thy priceless blood shed for us on this day flow like life-giving sap through all our hearts and minds, and fill us with Thy righteousness, that we may be sacrifices fit for Thee. Stir us up to offer to Thee, O Lord, our bodies, our souls, our spirits, in all we love and all we learn, in all we plan and all we do, to offer our labours, our pleasures, our sorrows, to Thee; to work for Thy kingdom through them, to live as those who are not their own, but bought with Thy blood, fed with Thy body; and enable us now, in Thy most holy Sacrament, to offer to Thee our repentance, our faith, our prayers, our praises, living, reasonable, and spiritual sacrifices,--Thine from our birth-hour, Thine now, and Thine for ever!"

SERMON XVII. THE RESURRECTION

LUKE, xxiv. 6.

"He is not here--He is risen"

We are a.s.sembled here to-day, my friends, to celebrate the joyful memory of our blessed Saviour's Resurrection. All Friday night, Sat.u.r.day, and Sat.u.r.day night, His body lay in the grave; His soul was--where we cannot tell. St. Peter tells us that He went and preached to the spirits in prison--the sinners of the old world, who are kept in the place of departed souls--most likely in the depths of the earth, in the great fire-kingdom, which boils and flames miles below our feet, and breaks out here and there through the earth's solid crust in burning mountains and streams of fire. There some say--and the Bible seems to say--sinful souls are kept in chains until the judgment-day; and thither they say Christ went to preach--no doubt to save some of those sinful souls who had never heard of Him. However this may be, for those two nights and day there was no sign, no stir in the grave where Christ was laid. His body seemed dead--the stone lay still over the mouth of the tomb where Joseph and Nicodemus laid him; the seal which Pilate had put on it was unbroken; the soldiers watched and watched, but no one stirred; the priests and Pharisees were keeping their sham Pa.s.sover, thinking, no doubt, that they were well rid of Christ and of His rebukes for ever.

But early on the Sunday morn--this day, as it might be--in the grey dawn of morning there came a change--a wondrous change. There was a great earthquake; the solid ground and rocks were stirred--the angel of the Lord came down from heaven, and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it, waiting for the King of glory to arise from His slumber, and go forth the conqueror of Death.

His countenance was like lightning, and His raiment white as snow; and for fear of Him those fierce, hard soldiers, who feared neither G.o.d nor man, shook, and became as dead men. And Christ arose and went forth. How he rose--how he looked when he arose, no man can tell, for no man saw. Only before the sun was risen came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, and found the stone rolled away, and saw the angels sitting, clothed in white, who said, "Fear not, for I know that ye seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for He is risen. Come, see the place where the Lord lay."

What must they have thought, poor, faithful souls, who came, lonely and broken-hearted, to see the place where HE, their only hope, was, as they thought, shut up and lost for ever, to hear that He was risen and gone? Half terrified, half delighted, they went back with other women who had come on the same errand, with spices to anoint the blessed body, and told the apostles. Peter and John ran to the sepulchre, and saw the linen clothes lie, and the napkin that was about his blessed head, wrapped together by itself. They then believed. Then first broke on them the meaning of His old saying, that He must rise from the dead; and so, wondering and doubting what to do, they went back home.

But Mary--faithful, humble Mary--stood without, by the sepulchre, weeping. The angels called to her, "Woman, why weepest thou?"

"They have taken away my Lord," said she; "and I know not where they have laid him."

Then, in a moment, out of the air, He appeared behind her. His body had been changed; it was now a glorified, spiritual body, which could appear and disappear when and how he liked. She turned back, and saw Him standing, but she knew Him not. A wondrous change had come over Him since last she saw Him hanging, bleeding, pale, and dying, on the cross of shame. "Woman," said He, "why weepest thou?"

She, fancying it was the gardener, said to Him, "Sir, if thou hast borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary." At the sound of that beloved voice--His own voice--calling by her name, her recollection came back to her. She knew Him--knew Him for her risen Lord; and, falling at His feet, cried out, "My Master!"

So Jesus Christ, the Son of G.o.d, rose from the dead!

Now come the questions, WHY did Christ rise from the dead?--and HOW did he rise? And, first, I will say a few words about how he rose from the dead. And this the Bible will answer for us, as it will every thing else about the spirit-world. Christ, says the Bible, was put to death in the flesh; but quickened, that is, brought to life, by the Spirit. Now what is the Spirit but the Lord and Giver of Life,--life of all sorts--life to the soul--life to the body-- life to the trees and plants around us? With that Spirit Christ is filled infinitely without measure; it is HIS Spirit. He is the Prince of Life; and the Spirit which gives life is His Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son. THEREFORE the gates of h.e.l.l could not prevail against Him--THEREFORE the heavy grave-stone could not hold Him down--THEREFORE His flesh could not see corruption and decay as other bodies do; not because His body was different from other bodies in its substance, but because HE was filled, body and soul, with the great Spirit of Life. For this is the great business of the Spirit of G.o.d, in all nature, to bring life out of death--new generations out of old. What says David? "When Thou, O G.o.d, turnest away Thy face, things die and return again to the dust; when Thou lettest Thy breath (which is the same as Thy spirit) go forth, they are made, and Thou renewest the face of the earth." This is the way that seeds, instead of rotting and peris.h.i.+ng, spring up and become new plants--G.o.d breathes His spirit on them. The seeds must have heat, and damp, and darkness, and electricity, before they can sprout; but the heat, and damp, and darkness, do not make them sprout; they want something more to do that. A philosopher can find out exactly what a seed is made of, and he might make a seed of the proper materials, and put it in the ground, and electrify it--but would it grow? Not it. To grow it must have life--life from the fountain of life--from G.o.d's Spirit. All the philosophers in the world have never yet been able, among all the things which they have made, to make a single living thing--and say they never shall; because, put together all they will, still one thing is wanting-- LIFE, which G.o.d alone can give. Why do I say this? To shew you what G.o.d's Spirit is; to put you in mind that it is near you, above you, and beneath you, about your path in your daily walk. And also, to explain to you how Christ rose by that Spirit,--how your bodies, if you claim your share in Christ's Spirit, may rise by it too.

You can see now, how Christ, being filled with G.o.d's Spirit, rose of Himself. People had risen from the dead before Christ's time, but they had been either raised in answer to the prayers of holy men who had G.o.d's Spirit, or at some peculiar time when heaven was opened, and G.o.d chose to alter His laws (as we call it) for a moment.

But here was a Man who rose of Himself. He was raised by G.o.d, and therefore He raised Himself, for He was G.o.d.

You all know what life and power a man's own spirit will often give him. You may have heard of "spirited" men in great danger, or "spirited" soldiers in battle; when faint, wounded, having suffered enough, apparently, to kill them twice over, still struggling or fighting on, and doing the most desperate deeds to the last, from the strength and courage of their spirits conquering pain and weakness, and keeping off, for a time, death itself. We all know how madmen, diseased in their spirits, will, when the fit is on them, have, for a few minutes, ten men's strength. Well, just think, if a man's own spirit, when it is powerful, can give his body such life and force, what must it have been with Christ, who was filled full of THE Spirit--G.o.d's Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life.

The Lord could not HELP rising. All the disease, and poison, and rottenness in the world, could not have made His body decay; mountains on mountains could not have kept it down. His body!--the Prince of Life!--He that was the life itself! It was impossible that death could hold Him.

And does not this shew us WHY He rose, that we might rise with Him?

What did He say about His own death? "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." He was the grain which fell into the ground and died, and from His dead body sprung up another body--His glorified body; and we His Church, His people, fed with that body--His members, however strange it may sound--St. Paul said it, and therefore I dare to say it, little as I know what it means--members of His flesh and of His bones.

But think! Remember what St. Paul tells you about this very matter in that glorious chapter which is read in the burial-service, "how when thou sowest seed, thou sowest not that body which it will have, but bare grain; but G.o.d gives it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed its own body." For the wheat-plant is in reality the same thing as the wheat-seed, and its life the same life, different as the outside of it may look. Dig it up just at this time of year, and you will find the seed-corn all gone, sucked dry; the life of the wheat-seed has formed it into a wheat-plant--yet it is the same individual thing. The substance of the seed has gone into the root and the young blade; but it is the same individual substance. You know it is, and though you cannot tell why, yet you say "What a fine plant that seed has grown into," because you feel it is so, that the seed is the very same thing as the plant which springs up from it, though its shape is changed, and its size, and its colour, and the very stuff of which it was made is changed, since it was a mere seed. And yet it is at bottom the same individual thing as the seed was, with a new body and shape.

So with Christ's body. It was changed after He rose. It had gone through pain, and weakness, and death, gone down to the lowest depth of them, and conquered them, and pa.s.sed triumphant through them and far beyond their power. His body was now a n.o.bler, a more beautiful, a glorified body, a spiritual body, one which could do whatever His Spirit chose to make it do, one which could never die again, one which could come through closed doors, appear and vanish as He liked, instead of being bound to walk the earth, and stand cold and heat, sickness and weariness.

Yet it was the very same body, just as the wheat-plant is the same as the wheat-seed--the very same body. Every one knew His face again after His resurrection. There was the very print of the nails to be seen in His hands and feet, the spear-wound in His blessed side. So shall it be with us, my friends. We shall rise again, and we shall be the same as we are now, and yet not the same; our bodies shall be the same bodies, and yet n.o.bler, purer, spiritual bodies, which can know neither death, nor pain, nor weariness. Then, never care, my friends, if we drop like ripe grain into the bosom of mother earth,--if we are to spring up again as seedling plants, after death's long winter, on the resurrection morn. Truly says the poet, {2} how

"Mother earth, she gathers all Into her bosom, great and small: Oh could we look into her face, We should not shrink from her embrace."

No, indeed! for if we look steadily with the wise, searching eye of faith into the face of mother earth, we shall see how death is but the gate of life, and this narrow churchyard, with its corpses close-packed underneath the sod, would not seem to us a frightful charnel-house of corruption. No! it would seem like what it is--a blessed, quiet, seed-filled G.o.d's garden, in which our forefathers, after their long-life labour, lay sown by G.o.d's friendly hand, waiting peaceful, one and all, to spring up into leaf, and flower, and everlasting paradise-fruit, beneath the breath of G.o.d's Spirit at the last great day, when the Sun of Righteousness arises in glory, and the summer begins which shall never end.

One and all, did I say? Alas! would G.o.d it were so! We cannot hope as for all, but they are dead and gone, and we are not here to judge the dead. They have another Judge, and all shall be as He wills.

But we--we in whose limbs the breath of life still boils--we who can still work, let us never forget all grain ripens not. There is some falls out of the ear unripe, and perishes; some is picked out by birds; some withers and decays in the ear, and yet gets into the barn with it, and is sown too with the wheat, of which I never heard that any sprang up again--ploughed up again it may be--a withered, dead husk of chaff as it died, ploughed up to the resurrection of d.a.m.nation to burn as chaff in unquenchable fire; but the good seed alone, ripe, and safe with the wheat-plant till it is ripe, that only will SPRING UP to the resurrection of eternal life.

Now, consider again that parable of the wheat-plant. After it has sprung up, what does it next, but TILLER?--and every new shoot that tillers out bears its own ear, ripens its own grain, twenty, thirty, or forty stems, and yet they are all the same plant, living with the life of that one original seed. So with Christ's Church--His body the Church. As soon as he rose, that new plant began to tiller. He did not keep His Spirit to Himself, but poured it out on the apostles, and from them it spread and spread--Each generation of Christians ripening, and bearing fruit, and dying, a fresh generation of fruit springing up from them, and so on, as we are now at this day. And yet all these plants, these millions and millions of Christian men and women, who have lived since Christ's blessed resurrection, all are parts of that one original seed, the body of Christ, whose members they are, and all owe their life to that one spirit of Christ, which is in them all and through them all, as the life of the original grain is in the whole crop which springs from it.

And what can you learn from this? Learn this, that in Christ you are safe, out of Christ you are lost. But REALLY in Christ, I mean-- not like the dead and dying grains, mildewed and worm-eaten, which you find here and there on the finest wheat-plant. Their end is to be burned, and so will ours be, for all our springing out of Christ's root, if the angel reapers find us not good wheat, but chaff and mildew. Every branch in Christ which beareth not fruit, His heavenly Father taketh away. Therefore, never pride yourself on having been baptised into Christ, never pride yourself on shewing some signs of G.o.d's Spirit, on being really good, right in this and right in that,--the question is, not so much, Are you IN CHRIST at all, are you part of His tree, a member of His body? but, Are you ripening there? If you are not ripening, you are decaying, and your end will be as G.o.d has said. And do you wish to know whether you are in Christ, safe, ripening? see whether you are like Him. If the young grain does not shew like the seed grain, you may be sure it is making no progress; and as surely as a wheat-plant never brought forth rye, or a grape-tree thistles, so surely, if you are not like Christ in your character, in patience, in meekness, in courage, truth, purity, piety, and love, you may be of His planting, but you are none of His ripening, and you will not be raised with Him at the last day, to flower anew in the gardens of Paradise, world without end.

SERMON XVIII. IMPROVEMENT

PSALM xcii. 12.

"The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree: he shall grow like the cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our G.o.d. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flouris.h.i.+ng."

The Bible is always telling Christian people to GO FORWARDS--to grow--to become wiser and stronger, better and better day by day; that they ought to become better, and better, because they can, if they choose, improve. This text tells us so; it says that we shall bring forth more fruit in our old age. Another text tells us that "those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength;" another tells us that we "shall go from strength to strength." Not one of St. Paul's Epistles but talks of growing in grace and in the knowledge of G.o.d, of being FILLED with G.o.d's Spirit, of having our eyes more and more open to understand G.o.d's truth. Not one of St.

Paul's Epistles but contains prayers of St. Paul that the men to whom he writes may become holier and wiser. And St. Paul says that he himself needed to go forward--that he wanted fresh strength--that he had to forget what was past, and consider all he had done and felt as nothing, and press forward to the prize of his high calling; that he needed to be daily conquering himself more and more, keeping down his bad feelings, hunting out one bad habit after another, lest, by any means, when he had preached to others, he himself should become a castaway. Therefore, I said rightly, that the Bible is always bidding us go forwards. You cannot read your Bibles without seeing this. What else was the use of St. Paul's Epistles?

They were written to Christian men, redeemed men, converted men, most of them better I fear than ever we shall be; and for what? to tell them not be content to remain as they were, to tell them to go forwards, to improve, to be sure that they were only just inside the gate of G.o.d's kingdom, and that if they would go on to perfection, they would find strength, and holiness, and blessing, and honour, and happiness, which they as yet did not dream of. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," said our blessed Lord to all men. "Be ye perfect," says St. Paul to the Corinthians, and the Ephesians, and all to whom he wrote; and so say I to you now in G.o.d's name, for Christ's sake, as citizens of G.o.d's kingdom, as heirs of everlasting glory, "Be you perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."

Now I ask you, my friends, is not this reasonable? It is reasonable, for the Bible always speaks of our souls as living things. It compares them to limbs of a body, to branches of a tree, often to separate plants--as in our Lord's parable of the tares and the wheat. Again, St. Paul tells us that we have been planted in baptism in the likeness of Christ's death; and again, in the first Psalm, which says that the good man shall be like a tree planted by the waterside; and again, in the text of my sermon, which says "that those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our G.o.d. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flouris.h.i.+ng."

Now what does all this mean? It means that the life of our souls is in some respects like the life of a plant; and, therefore, that as plants grow, so our souls are to grow. Why do you plant anything, but in order that it may GROW and become larger, stronger, bear flower and fruit? Be sure G.o.d has planted us in His garden, Christ's Church, for no other reason. Consider, again--What is life but a continual growing, or a continual decaying? If a tree does not get larger and stronger, year by year, is not that a sure sign that it is unhealthy, and that decay has begun in it, that it is unsound at heart? And what happens then? It begins to become weaker and smaller, and cankered and choked with scurf and moss till it dies. If a tree is not growing, it is sure in the long run to be dying; and so are our souls. If they are not growing they are dying; if they are not getting better they are getting worse. This is why the Bible compares our souls to trees--not out of a mere pretty fancy of poetry, but for a great, awful, deep, world-wide lesson, that every tree in the fields may be a pattern, a warning, to us thoughtless men, that as that tree is meant to grow, so our souls are meant to grow. As that tree dies unless it grows, so our souls must die unless they grow. Consider that!