Eversley, 1856.
St. Luke xxiv. 5, 6. "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not
here, but is risen."
This is a very solemn day; for on this day the Lord Jesus Christ was
crucified. The question for us is, how ought we to keep it? that is,
what sort of thoughts ought to be in our minds upon this day? Now, many
most excellent and pious persons, and most pious books, seem to think
that we ought to-day to think as much as possible of the sufferings of
our Blessed Lord; and because we cannot, of course, understand or imagine
the sufferings of His Spirit, to think of what we can, that is, His
bodily sufferings. They, therefore, seem to wish to fill our minds with
the most painful pictures of agony, and shame, and death, and sorrow; and
not only with our Lord's sorrows, but with those of His Blessed Mother,
and of the disciples, and the holy women who stood by His cross; they
wish to stir us up to pity and horror, and to bring before us the saddest
parts of Holy Scripture, such as the Lamentations of Jeremiah; as well as
dwell at great length upon very painful details, which may be all quite
true, but of which Scripture says nothing; as so to make this day a day
of darkness, and sorrow, and horror, just such as it would have been to
us if we had stood by Christ's cross, like these holy women, without
expecting Him to rise again, and believing that all was over--that all
hope of Israel's being redeemed was gone, and that the wicked Jews had
really conquered that perfectly good, and admirable Saviour, and put Him
out of the world for ever.
Now, I judge no man; to his own master he standeth or falleth; yea, and
he shall stand, for God is able to make him stand. But it does seem to
me that these good people are seeking the living among the dead, and
forgetting that Christ is neither on the cross nor in the tomb, but that
He is risen; and it seems to me better to bid you follow to-day the Bible
and the Church Service, and to think of what they tell you to think of.
Now the Bible, it is most remarkable, never enlarges anywhere upon even
the bodily sufferings of our dear and blessed Lord. The evangelists keep
a silence on that point which is most lofty, dignified, and delicate.
What sad and dreadful things might not St. John, the beloved apostle as
he was, have said, if he had chosen, about what he saw and what he felt,
as he stood by that cross on Calvary--words which would have stirred to
pity the most cruel, and drawn tears from a heart of stone? And yet all
he says is, "They crucified Him, and two other with him, on either side
one, and Jesus in the midst." He passes it over, as it were, as a thing
which he ought not to dwell on; and why should we put words into St.
John's mouth which he did not think fit to put into his own? He wrote by
the Spirit of God; and therefore he knew best what to say, and what not
to say. Why should we try and say anything more for him? Scripture is
perfect. Let us be content with it. The apostles, too, in their
Epistles, never dwell on Christ's sufferings. I entreat you to remark
this. They never mention His death except in words of cheerfulness and
triumph. They seem so full of the glorious fruits of His death, that
they have, as it were, no time to speak of the death itself. "Who, for
the joy which was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame,
and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." That is the
apostles' key-note. For God's sake let it be ours too, unless we fancy
that we can improve on Scripture, or that we can feel more for our Lord
than St. Paul did. In the Lessons, the Psalms, the Epistle, and Gospel
for this day, you find just the same spirit. All except one Psalm are
songs of hope, joy, deliverance, triumph. The Collects for this day,
which are particularly remarkable, being three in number, and evidently
meant to teach us the key-note of Good Friday, make no mention of our
Lord's sufferings, save to say that He was CONTENTED, "contented to be
betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death
upon the cross," but are full of prayers that the glorious fruits of His
death may be fulfilled, not only in us and all Christians, but in the
very heathen who have not known Him; drawing us away, as it were, from
looking too closely upon the cross itself, lest we should forget what the
cross meant, what the cross conquered, what the cross gained, for us and
mankind.
Surely, this was not done without a reason. And I cannot but think the
reason was to keep us from seeking the living among the dead; to keep us
from knowing Christ any longer after the flesh, and spending tears and
emotions over His bodily sufferings; to keep us from thinking and
sorrowing too much over the dead Christ, lest we should forget, as some
do, that He is alive for evermore; and while they weep over the dead
Christ or the crucifix, go to the blessed Virgin and the saints to do for
them all that the living Christ is longing to do for them, if they would
but go straight to Him to whom all power is given in heaven and earth;
whom St John saw, no longer hanging on the accursed tree, but with His
hair as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire, and His voice
like the sound of many waters, and His countenance as the sun when he
shineth in his strength, saying unto him, "Fear not, I am the first and
the last; I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for
evermore." This is what Christ is now. In this shape He is looking at
us now. In this shape He is hearing me speak. In this shape He is
watching every feeling of your hearts, discerning your most secret
intents, seeing through and through the thoughts which you would confess
to no human being, hardly even to yourselves. This is He, a living
Christ, an almighty Christ, an all-seeing Christ, and yet a most patient
and loving Christ. He needs not our pity; but our gratitude, our
obedience, our worship. Why seek Him among the dead? He is not there,
He is risen! He is not there, He is here! Bow yourselves before Him
now; for He is in the midst of you; and those eyes of His, more piercing
than the mid-day sunbeams, are upon you, and your hearts, and your
thoughts, and upon mine also. God have mercy upon me a sinner.
Yes, my friends, why seek the living among the dead? He is not there,
but here. We may try to put ourselves in the place of the disciples and
the Virgin Mary, as they stood by Jesus' cross; but we cannot do it, for
they saw Him on the cross, and thought that He was lost to them for ever;
they saw Him die, and gave up all hope of His rising again. And we know
that Christ is not lost to us for ever. We know Christ is not on the
cross, but at the right hand of God in bliss and glory unspeakable. We
may be told to watch with the three Maries at the tomb of Christ: but we
cannot do as they did, for they thought that all was over, and brought
sweet spices to embalm His body, which they thought was in the tomb; and
we know that all was not over, that His body is not in the tomb, that the
grave could not hold Him, that His body is ascended into heaven; that
instead of His body needing spices to embalm it, it is His body which
embalms all heaven and earth, and is the very life of the world, and food
which preserves our souls and bodies to everlasting life. We are not in
the place of those blessed women; God has not put us in their place, and
we cannot put ourselves into their place; and if we could and did, by any
imaginations of our own, we should only tell ourselves a lie. Good
Friday was to them indeed a day of darkness, horror, disappointment, all
but despair; because Easter Day had not yet come, and Christ had not yet
risen. But Good Friday cannot be a day of darkness to us, because Christ
has risen, and we know it, and cannot forget it; we cannot forget that
Easter dawn, when the Sun of Righteousness arose, never to set again.
Has not the light of that Resurrection morning filled with glory the
cross and the grave, yea the very agony in the Garden, and hell itself,
which Christ harrowed for us? Has it not risen a light to lighten the
Gentiles, a joy to angels and archangels, and saints, and all the elect
of God; ay, to the whole universe of God, so that the very stars in their
courses, the trees as they bud each spring, yea, the very birds upon the
bough, are singing for ever, in the ears of those who have ears to hear,
"Christ is risen?" And shall we, under pretence of honouring Christ and
of bestowing on Him a pity which He needs least of all, try to spend Good
Friday and Passion Week in forgetting Easter Day; try to think of
Christ's death as we should if He had not risen, and try to make out
ourselves and the world infinitely worse off than we really know that we
are? Christ has died, but He has risen again; and we must not think of
one without the other. Heavenly things are too important, too true, too
real--Christ is too near us, and too loving to us, too earnest about our
salvation, for us to spend our thoughts on any such attempts (however
reverently meant) at imaginative play-acting in our own minds about His
hanging on His cross, while we know that He is not on His cross; and
about watching by His tomb, when we know that He is not in His tomb. Let
us thank Him, bless Him, serve Him, die for Him, if need be, in return
for all He endured for us: but let us keep our sorrow and our pity, and
our tears, for our own daily sins--we have enough of them to employ all
our sorrow, and more;--and not in voluntary humility and will-worship,
against which St Paul warns us, lose sight of our real Christ, of Him who
was dead and is alive for evermore, and dwells in us by faith; now and
for ever, amen; and hath the keys of death and hell, and has opened them
for us, and for our fathers before us, and for our children after us, and
for nations yet unborn.
True, this is a solemn day, for on it the Son of God fought such a fight,
that He could only win it at the price of His own life's blood; and a
humiliating day, for our sins helped to nail Him on the cross--and
therefore a day of humiliation and of humility. Proud, self-willed
thoughts are surely out of place to-day (and what day are they in place?)
On this day God agonised for man: but it is a day of triumph and
deliverance; and we must go home as men who have stood by and seen a
fearful fight--a fight which makes the blood of him who watches it run
cold; but we have seen, too, a glorious victory--such a victory as never
was won on earth before or since; and we therefore must think cheerfully
of the battle, for the sake of the victory that was won; and remember
that on this day death was indeed swallowed up in victory--because death
was the victory itself.
The question on which the fate of the whole world depended was, whether
Christ dare die; and He dared die. Whether Christ would endure to the
end; and He did endure. Whether He would utterly drink the cup which His
Father had given Him; and He drank it to the dregs; and so by His very
agony He showed Himself noble, beautiful, glorious, adorable, beyond all
that words can express. And so the cross was His throne of glory; the
prints of the nails in His hands and feet were the very tokens of His
triumph; His very sorrows were His bliss; and those last words, "It is
finished," were no cry of despair, but a trumpet-call of triumph, which
rang from the highest heaven to the lowest hell, proclaiming to all
created things, that the very fountain of life, by dying, had conquered
death, that good had conquered evil, love had conquered selfishness, God
had conquered man, and all the enemies of man; and that He who died was
the first begotten from the dead, and the King of all the princes of the
earth, who was going to fulfil, more and more, as the years and the ages
rolled on, the glorious prayer which we have prayed this day, graciously
to behold that family for whom He had been contented to die; and wisely
and orderly to call each man to a vocation and a ministry, in which he
might duly serve God and be a blessing to all around him, by the
inspiration of Christ's Holy Spirit; and to have mercy, in His own good
time, upon all Jews, Turks, heathens, and infidels, and bring them home
to His flock, that they may be saved, and made one fold under one
Shepherd--Him who was dead and is alive for evermore.
Therefore, my dear friends, if we wish to keep Good Friday in spirit and
in truth, we cannot do so better than by trying to carry out the very end
for which Christ died on this day; and doing our part, small though it
be, toward bringing those poor heathens home into Christ's fold, and
teaching them the gospel and good news that for them, too, Christ died,
and over them, too, Christ reigns alive for evermore; and bringing them
home into His flock, that they, too, may find a place in His great
family, and have their calling and ministry appointed to them among the
nations of those who are saved and walk in the light of God and of the
Lamb.
I have refrained till now from speaking to you much about missionaries,
and the duty which lies on us all of helping missions. It seemed to me
that I must first teach you to understand these first and second collects
before I went on. to the third; that I must first teach you that you
belonged to Christ's family, and that He had called each of you, and
appointed each of you to some order and degree in His Holy Church. But
now, if indeed you have learnt that--if my preaching here for fourteen
years has had any effect to teach you who and what you are, and what your
duty is, let me entreat you to go on, and take the lesson of that third
collect, and think of those poor Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics, who
still--many a million of them--sit, or rather wander, and fall, and lie,
miserably wallowing in darkness and the shadow of death, and think
whether you cannot do something toward helping them. What you can do,
and how it is to be done, I will tell you hereafter; and, by God's grace,
I hope to see men of God in this pulpit, who having been missionaries
themselves, can tell you better than I, what remains to be done, and how
you can help to do it. But take home this one thought with you, this
Good Friday,--Christ, who liveth and was dead, and behold He is alive for
evermore, if He be indeed precious to you, if you indeed feel for His
sufferings, if you indeed believe that what He bought by those sufferings
was a right to all the souls on earth, then do what you can toward
repaying Him for His sufferings, by seeing of the travail of His soul,
and being satisfied. All the reward He asks, or ever asked, is the
hearts of sinners, that He may convert them; the souls of sinners, that
He may save them; and they belong to Him already, for He bought them this
day with His own most precious blood. Do something, then, toward helping
Christ to His own.