Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap,
nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye
not much better than they? . . . And why take ye thought for raiment?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not,
neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in
all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
WHAT has this text to do with Easter-day? Let us think a while. Life
and death; the battle between life and death; life conquered by death;
and death conquered again by life. Those were the mysteries over which
the men of old time thought, often till their hearts were sad.
They saw that they were alive; and they loved life, and would fain see
good days. They saw, again, that they must die: but would death conquer
life in them? Would they ever live again?
They saw that other things died, or seemed to die, and yet rose and lived
again; and that gave them hope for themselves at times; but their hopes
were very dim, till Christ came, and brought life and immortality to
light.
They saw, I say, that other things died, or seemed to die, and yet lived
again. Light rose out of darkness every morning and lived: but darkness,
as they thought, killed the light at even, till it came to life again in
the morning, and the sun rose once more. The sun himself—they thought of
him as a glorious and life-giving being, who every morning fought his way
up the sky, scattering the dark clouds with his golden arrows, and
reigning for a-while in heaven, pouring down heat and growth and life:
but he too must die. The dark clouds of evening must cover him. The red
glare upon them was his dying blood. The twilight, which lingered after
the sun was gone, was his bride, the dawn, come to soothe his dying hour.
True, he had come to life again, often and often, morning after morning:
but would it be so for ever? Would not a night come at last, after which
he would never rise again? Would not he be worn out at last, and slain,
in his long daily battle with the kingdom of darkness, which lay below
the world; or with the dragon who tried to devour him, when the thunder
clouds hid him from the sight, or the eclipse seemed to swallow him up
before their eyes?
So, too, they felt about the seasons of the year. The winter came. The
sun grew low and weak. Would he not die? The days grew short and dark.
Would they not cease to be, and eternal night come on the earth? They
had heard dimly of the dark northern land, where it was always winter,
and the night was six months long. Why should it not be so in their own
land in some evil time? Every autumn the rains and frost came on; the
leaves fell; the flowers withered; the birds fled southward, or died of
hunger and cold; the cattle starved in the field; the very men had much
ado to live. Why should not winter conquer at last, and shut up the sun,
the God of light and warmth and life, for ever in the place of darkness,
cold, and death? So thought the old Syrians of Canaan, and taught the
Jewish women to weep, as they themselves wept every autumn, over Adonai,
the Lord, which was another name for the sun, slain, as they thought, by
the winter cold and rain: and then, when spring-time came, with its
sunshine, flowers, and birds, rejoiced that the sun had come to life
again.
So thought the old Greeks, and told how Persephone, the fair maiden who
was the spring-time, was stolen away by the king of darkness who lived
beneath the earth; and how her mother earth would not be comforted for
her loss, but sent barrenness on all the world till her daughter, the
spring, was given back to her, to dwell for six months in the upper world
of light, and six months in the darkness under ground.
So thought our old forefathers; and told how Baldur (the Baal of the
Bible), the god of light and heat, who was likewise the sun, was slain by
treachery, and imprisoned for ever below in hell, the kingdom of darkness
and of cold; and how all things on earth, even the very trees and stones,
wept for his death: yet all their tears could not bring back from death
the god of life: nor any of the gods unlock the gates which held him in.
And because our forefathers were a sad and earnest folk: because they
lived in a sad and dreary climate, where winter was far longer and more
bitter than it is, thank God, now; therefore all their thoughts about
winter and spring were sad; and they grew to despair, at last, of life
ever conquering death, or light conquering darkness. An age would come,
they said, in which snow should fall from the four corners of the world,
and the winters be three winters long; an evil age, of murder and
adultery, and hatred between brethren, when all the ties of kin would be
rent asunder, and wickedness should triumph on the earth.
Then should come that dark time which they called the twilight of the
gods. Then the powers of evil would be let loose; the earth would go to
ruin in darkness and in flame. All living things would die. The very
gods would die, fighting to the last against the powers of evil, till the
sun should sink for ever, and the world be a heap of ashes.
And then—so strangely does God’s gift of hope linger in the hearts of
men—they saw, beyond all that, a dim dream of a new heaven and a new
earth in which should dwell righteousness; and of a new sun, more
beautiful than ours; of a woman called “Life,” hid safe while all the
world around her was destroyed, fed on the morning dew, preserved to be
the mother of a new and happier race of men. And so to them, heathens as
they were, God whispered that Christ should some day bring life and
immortality to light.
My friends, shall we sneer and laugh at all these dreams, as mere follies
of the heathen? If we do so, we shall not show the spirit of God, or the
mind of Christ. Nor shall we show our knowledge of the Bible. In it,
the spirit of God, who inspired the Bible, does not laugh at these
dreams. It rebukes them sternly whenever they are immoral, and lead men
to do bad and foul deeds, as Ezekiel rebuked the Jewish women who wept
for Thammuz, the dead summer. But that was because those Jewish women
should have known better. They should have known—what the Old Testament
tells us all through—what it was especially meant to tell the men who
lived while it was being written, just because they had their fancies,
and their fears about summer and winter, and life and death. And what
ought they to have known? What does the Old Testament say? That life
will conquer death, because God, the Lord Jehovah, even Jesus Christ, is
Lord of heaven and earth. From the time that it was written in the Book
of Genesis, that the Lord Jehovah said in his heart, ‘I will not again
curse the ground for man’s sake: neither will I again smite any more
anything living, as I have done, while the earth remaineth—seed time and
harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night,
shall not cease’—from that time the Jews were bound not to fear the
powers of nature, or the seasons, nor to fear for them; for they were all
in the government of that one good God and Lord, who cared for men, and
loved them, and dealt justly by them, and proved his love and justice by
bringing the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
* * * * *
God treated these heathens, St. Paul says, as we ought to treat our
children. His wrath was revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men. All wilful disobedience and actual sin he
punished, often with terrible severity; but not their childish mistakes
and dreams about how this world was made; just as we should not punish
the fancies of our children. The times of that ignorance, says St. Paul,
he winked at till Christ came, and then he commanded all men everywhere
to repent, and believe in the God who gave them rain and fruitful
seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness.
For he had appointed a day in which he would judge the world in
righteousness by that man whom he had ordained; of which he had given
full assurance to all men, in that he had raised him from the dead.
Some, who were spoilt by false philosophy, mocked when they heard of the
resurrection of the dead: but there were those who had kept something of
the simple childlike faith of their forefathers, and who were prepared
for the kingdom of God; and to them St. Paul’s message came as an answer
to the questions of their minds, and a satisfaction to the longings of
their hearts.
The news of Christ,—of Christ raised from the dead to be the life and the
light of the world,—stilled all their fears lest death should conquer
life, and darkness conquer light.
So it was with all the heathen. So it was with our old forefathers, when
they heard and believed the Gospel of Christ. They felt that (as St.
Paul said) they were translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the
kingdom of light, which was the kingdom of his dear Son; that now the
world must look hopeful, cheerful to them; now they could live in hope of
everlasting life; now they need sorrow no more for those who slept, as if
they had no hope: for Christ had conquered death, and the evil spirit who
had the power of death. Christ had harrowed hell, and burst the bonds of
the graves. He, as man, and yet God, had been through the dark gate, and
had returned through it in triumph, the first-born from the dead; and his
resurrection was an everlasting sign and pledge that all who belonged to
him should rise with him, and death be swallowed up in victory.
‘So it pleased the Father,’ says St. Paul, ‘to gather together in Christ
all things, whether in heaven or in earth.’ In him were fulfilled, and
more than fulfilled, the dim longings, the childlike dreams of heathen
poets and sages, and of our own ancestors from whom we sprung. He is the
desire of all nations; for whom all were longing, though they knew it
not. He is the true sun; the sun of righteousness, who has arisen with
healing on his wings, and translated us from the kingdom of darkness into
the kingdom of light. He is the true Adonai, the Lord for whose death
though we may mourn upon Good Friday, yet we rejoice this day for his
resurrection. He is the true Baldur, the God of light and life, who,
though he died by treachery, and descended into hell, yet needed not, to
deliver him, the tears of all creation, of men or angels, or that any god
should unlock for him the gates of death; for he rose by his own eternal
spirit of light, and saith, ‘I am he that was dead, and behold I am alive
for evermore. Amen. And I have the keys of death and hell.’
And now we may see, it seems to me, what the text has to do with
Easter-day. To my mind our Lord is using here the same parable which St.
Paul preaches in his famous chapter which we read in the Burial Service.
Be not anxious, says our Lord, for your life. Is not the life more than
meat? There is an eternal life which depends not on earthly food, but on
the will and word of God your Father; and that life in you will conquer
death. Behold the birds of the air, which sow not, nor reap, nor gather
into barns, to provide against the winter’s need. But do they starve and
die? Does not God guide them far away into foreign climes, and feed them
there by his providence, and bring them back again in spring, as things
alive from the dead? And can he not feed us (if it be his will) with a
bread which comes down from heaven, and with every word which proceedeth
out of the mouth of God?
Consider, again, the lilies of the field. We must take our Lord’s words
exactly. He is speaking of the lilies, the bulbous plants which spring
into flower in countless thousands every spring, over the downs of
Eastern lands. All the winter they are dead, unsightly roots, hidden in
the earth. What can come of them? But no sooner does the sun of spring
shine on their graves, than they rise into sudden life and beauty, as it
pleases God, and every seed takes its own peculiar body. Sown in
corruption, they are raised in incorruption; sown in weakness, they are
raised in power; sown in dishonour, they are raised in glory; delicate,
beautiful in colour, perfuming the air with fragrance; types of
immortality, fit for the crowns of angels. Consider the lilies of the
field, how they grow. For even so is the resurrection of the dead.
Yes, not without a divine providence—yea, a divine inspiration—has this
blessed Easter-tide been fixed, by the Church of all ages, at the season
when the earth shakes off her winter’s sleep; when the birds come back
and the flowers begin to bloom; when every seed which falls into the
ground, and dies, and rises again with a new body, is a witness to us of
the resurrection of Christ; and a witness, too, that we shall rise again;
that in us, as in it, life shall conquer death when every bird which
comes back to sing and build among us, is a witness to us of the
resurrection of Christ, and of our resurrection; and that in us, as in
it, joy shall conquer sorrow.
The seed has passed through strange chances and dangers: of a thousand
seeds shed in autumn, scarce one survives to grow in spring. Be it so.
Still there is left, as Scripture says, a remnant, an elect, to rise
again and live.
The birds likewise—they have been through strange chances, dangers,
needs. Far away south to Africa they went—the younger ones by a way they
had never travelled before. Thousands died in their passage south.
Thousands more died in their passage back again this spring, by hunger
and by storm. Be it so. Yet of them is left a seed, a remnant, an
elect, and they are saved, to build once more in their old homes, and to
rejoice in the spring, and pour out their songs to God who made them.
* * * * *
Some say that the seeds grow by laws of nature; the birds come back by
instinct. Be it so. What Scripture says, and what we should believe, is
this: that the seeds grow by the spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of
life; that the birds come back, and sing, and build by the spirit of God,
the Lord and Giver of life. He works not on them, things without reason,
as he works on us reasonable souls: but he works on them nevertheless.
They obey his call; they do his will; they show forth his glory; they
return to life, they breed, they are preserved, by the same spirit by
which the body of Jesus rose from the dead; and, therefore, every flower
which blossoms, and every bird which sings, at Easter-tide; everything
which, like the seeds, was dead, and is alive again, which, like the
birds, was lost, and is found, is a type and token of Christ, their
Maker, who was dead and is alive again; who was lost in hell on
Easter-eve, and was found again in heaven for evermore; and the
resurrection of the earth from her winter’s sleep commemorates to us, as
each blessed Easter-tide comes round, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who made all the world, and redeemed all mankind, and sanctifieth
to eternal life all the elect people of God: a witness to us that some
day life shall conquer death, light conquer darkness, righteousness
conquer sin, joy conquer grief; when the whole creation, which groaneth
and travaileth in pain until now, shall have brought forth that of which
it travails in labour; even the new heavens and the new earth, wherein
shall be neither sighing nor sorrow, but God shall wipe away tears from
all eyes.
SERMON XV.
THE JEWISH REBELLIONS.