'... The babe lying in a manger...'--LUKE ii. 16.
'... While He blessed them, He was parted from them,
and carried up into heaven...'--LUKE xxiv. 51.
'This same Jesus... shall so come in like manner as
ye have seen Him go...'--ACTS I. 11.
These three fragments, which I have ventured to isolate and bring
together, are all found in one author's writings. Luke's biography
of Jesus stretches from the cradle in Bethlehem to the Ascension
from Olivet. He narrates the Ascension twice, because it has two
aspects. In one it looks backward, and is necessary as the
completion of what was begun in the birth. In one it looks forward,
and makes necessary, as its completion, that coming which still lies
in the future. These three stand up, like linked summits in a
mountain. We can understand none of them unless we embrace them all.
If the story of the birth is true, a life so begun cannot end in an
undistinguished death like that of all men. And if the Ascension
from Olivet is true, that cannot close the history of His relations
to men. The creed which proclaims He was 'born of the Virgin Mary'
must go on to say '... He ascended up into heaven'; and cannot pause
till it adds '...From thence He shall come to judge the quick and
the dead.' So we have then three points to consider in this sermon.