SERMON. BIBLE TALK.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9137, 22 June 1895, Page 2

SERMON. B IBLE TALK.

SERIES No. 101. Subject—" The Crowa of Thorns." ."And the soldiers plaited a crown o thorns and put it oa his head."—John xix.,2. Stenographic Report of Mb Wobthisgtos s Uibls Talk at the Temple ok Truth. on Sunday Kvmsiso, _Übch 12th, 1893. I suppose the universal purpose of Christendom is, to know the ideal Christ; it is fair to presume that the purpose of Christendom, is the definition of the Chris;. This is SJssible only through an understanding of od's revelation. Accepting oar Bibte a3 the basis of tlm interpretation, we must discover it as a continuity that culminates in the character of the New Testament, called Jesus of Nazareth. 1 say there can be no intelligent analysis of the Christ until there is tho discovery of a continuous, connected, logical statement in this book, that culminates iv the NaZirene as its full and complete demonatraiiou. His crucifixion follows his teaching and his works as their necessary sequeuce, as tha result and effect ot both the teaching and the works. The crucifixion must likewise be preceded by tbe scourging and the crown of thorns; they are all parts of an harmonious whole, and without any one of those parts the wholo would be incomplete. In the teaching of modern Christianity tbe crown of thorns has no significance aside from its painful association ; i is pointed out as one of the means used by the Jews to humiliate and degrade the Nnzarene, aud it is left there as one of the pathetic appeals to the emotion ot Christendom. Sympathy and emotion form no part of Healthful analysis; sympathy and emotion are well enough ia their place, but they form no part, and can assist by no means in the solution of a proposition. Now we are confronted by a great problem in the interpretation of the Christ, and wherever the interpretation finds its basis in emotion and sympathy, there it is built upon the sand, it has a dangerous and unsafe foundation. In the picture of the suffering Jesus, we see these sharp thorns piercing His brow until the blood-drops rain over His face; this is a very literal aud mortal Jesus, with a crown of ignominy aud shame, whereas that picture should present a God crowned with royalty, bearing the trophy of the victor. Instead of standing blinded with our tears aa we look at that thorn-crowned head, we should stand in reverent admiration at the royal crowning of the Divine man. Because we have misunderstood this, the different features of this narrative are so many dead letters, while in reality they are one harmonious who>e, each incident full of a living, pulsing, vivifying meaning, and connected with every other one, making a magnificent unit. '1 he crown of thorns Btands out as a great and mighty proof ot the nature of him who wore it, it is the sign of God to man that that humanity was coupled with a corresponding divinity. Jesus could not be crucified until be possessed that crown of thorns by right, he could not be crucified until he was clothed with all the armour that belonged to that great tragedy. It was the badge of his royalty, the proof of bis right to what he had won. It is one of the links in the chain of sequence that begins In Genesis, and ends in tbe Gospels. (The work of Jesus is finished only through wearing this crown; his death on the cross and his disappearance are the natural and not the unnatural result of what and who he was; his death and crucifixion were as much a part of the Divine economy that revealed him to the world as the glory of the Easter resurrection.

The thorns that composed this crown originate in Geneais rather than in Matthew ; away back with generic man, we find the first mention of thorns in Genesis iii., 17-18, " Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow Bhalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." That.is the statement of a result or effect, not. a curse-burdened anathema, it is a statement of the effect or result that would follow certain acts.

The men of the first and second chapters of Genesis present a duality, the Son of God, and the Son of man. The man of the first chapter is the Son of God, the spiritual product of spirit cause. The man of the second chapter is mankind, tbe son of man, a kind after man, the reproduction of man, the representative of man. Now the relation of the son of man to the son of God is nowhere presented in modern Christendom, the relation of these twain who are made one by the breaking down of the middle wall of partition, is unrecognised and unknown ; the great process that eliminates the Christ is misunderstood.

The Genesis Adam is not the perfected, completed son of man; he presents the infancy of man, but be ia connected and related to the second Adam by a chain of logical sequence that is never broken for a moment, and the loss of any link in which is confusion. The first Adam stands at the commencement of this process clothed with all the power of his Godlikecess in potentiality, bnt unmanifested ; the second Adam •tandß crowned with the trophiea of that power demonstrated, realised, and proven in himself.

The process between these two men is illustrated through the Bible by persons, places and things, beginning with the eating of the tree of knowledge, as elaborated in my published lectures on *« The Type-men of the Bible." Tbat which has been called disobedience is the beginning of the process which alone can bring forth the Jesus, it ia the first step in the pursuit of the knowledge that culminates in perfected wisdom. It is not a fall from perfection, a " shameful fall" as it has been called; the idea that the perfect can ever become imperfect is a contradiction of law, the idea that the perfect can ever become imperfect through its own act implies that perfection can give out imperfection. Whatever can change its own nature ia greater than the cause which produced it; can we say that man is greater than God, the creature than the creator ?

Adam is a condition of consciousness, a fraction of a unit, each of these fractions of oonaciousnesa has to gam its own knowledge, and it ia helped to do so by the knowledge which haa been gained by the preceding fraction. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob possess the knowledge of Adam, Boos, and Noah; Jesus is the culminated sum of all the knowledge gained by his predecessors. The innocence or ignorance of all the states of consciousness after Adam is comparative ; Abraham has not the knowledge of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, but he has that of Adam, Enos, and Noah. Joseph ia ignorant of the knowledge of Jesus, but is in possesion of the knowledge of all before him, he is in possession of the knowledge that has been won and reaped frem the soil of experience in tho process that has produced him.

The first consciousness is ignorance, and hence we say tbat it falls; we should rather say that it rises, for it ia a rise that takes the first step towards wiadom, it puts its foot upon the first round of the ladder, and, in obedience to the transcendent law of God, goes up step by atep until it finds itself in the ussub consciousness. After eSktiog of tbe tree of knowledge they know something, before that they knew nothing, Toot having eaten they begin to acquire knowledge, which ia power, they begin to climb towards Jesus the man in dominion.

Between the first and last consciousness, there lies human experience, good sod evil; this is the ground which ia cursed for his sake, or to him, meaning tbat it ia painful to him through the experience that is inevitably connected with it. The pains of experience are called the thorns and thistles which the ground brings forth to bim. This garden of Eden represents the ground which man is cultivating, the aoil of experience which he is working, and the first crop which he gets is thorns and thistles.

The Lord God did not say that the ground was cursed in itself, an evil thing to cultivate and know; the thorna and thistles are sot part of the ground, bnt the crop that oomea from the ground, what it brings forth to the Adam consciousness, and they will be changed into fruit later on. In tbe Noah experience they become the vine, that bears the grape and wine to the husbandman. Back of both the Adam and the Jesus, lies that which ia developing, that which ia manifesting, cultivating, perfecting. Be-

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tween tho two are the thorns and thistles of childhood, but these are nothing to the manhood which has been taught through their suffering. We remember our childhood in the 3„b, its cares, trouble, pains, griefs aud anxieties, how the toys of that childhood, so often broken, were subjects of grief to us, how we were constantly running into the fire of those flesh experiences tbrough which we cultivated the knowledge which kuew better than to go into the tire. How clearly we now see that those experiences belonged there, and were necessary as part cf the education of that stage, and that our growth beyond was in, through, and by those experiences. The experience of childhood is buiit into what we call character. How many times we are told, Children, don't do this, don't say that, I woud rather you did not go there, because childhood, in the innocence of its ignorance is learning the lessons that experience must teach. How heavy our burdens seemed, made so by our iguorance ! Looking back, we see that it is all so necessary, in order that hidden powers may bo brougnt onfc. After these experiences, we find ourselves able to stand against suffering, io pluck out the thorn and stop its sting, to exercise dominion as of right; the development of manhood, growing day by day stronger and grander, has gaiued the knowledge which is power over the ignorance of cniidhood.

Can we not see that it all had to be, that it was all a means to an end, that without it we could never have known our capabilities? AVhat a mistake we make in endeavouring to tell our children, and to give advice, as regards things which experience alone can teach ! How often a parent says that he has no control over his son, that the boy forgets all that he is told, and does the very things which he has beeu warned against i Wny have you no influence over your son ? Because the son cannot be taught that way, we cannot frame the expet iences of others by our words, it is out of the question.

It is true that sometimes experiences have ripened character so that it is ready to listen to advice, but if so, it is only italicising what that character already knows. You might as well tell a young man who is infatuated with the racecourse or the gaming-table, that yon could go back to his age, and not do the same things, as expect him to stop upon your advice. He is a husbandman busy with that crop, and only through its reaping can he gee the power which shall shrive him of it.

We muse grow to know better, to learn that these thorns can sting aud hurt only him who pnrmits it, who does not pluck them out with the strong hand of developed growth. Pain, sorrow, evil, remorse, all these thorns planted by ignorant mortality in this passage from partial to complete selfconsciousness, may cut, wound, and hurt us, they are parts of the passage, and they are left behind when the passage is completed. They are carried through to the end, bub how differently at the end! At the beginning with fear, and groans, and pain, afterwards with power, strength, consolation, and dominion.

How many people are quarrelling with bodily pain, the cruelty of enemies, with a huudred thousand conditions; did they but recognise them as thorns of human experience, they would be above their power to hurt, and instead of rending the flesh, they would gather them as the trophies of conquest.

How? By standing still at the moment when it cuts and hurts, and then and there recogniaing it as part of the crop that we have sown, welcoming it as the tutor, the schoolmaster that shall lead us to Chriss, and so plucking out that condition, and releasing ourselves from its burden and hurt. While they rankle in the flesh, suffering and evil are in dominion as realities of existence, sin and sickness seem to be enthroned with power, to control life and its expert ences. While we believe tbat our woes come from without, false conditions will be real ones to us, and will continue until plucked from our conditions by the knowledge which ia power and ends the suffering. Not until these conditions are made subject instead of ruler, can they be woven into crowna for the only royalty worthy of them, crowns that annouuce the Divine nature of the wearers, and proclaim them masters of all, masters over sin, sickness, sorrow, and death. This master, so crowned, ia the fruit of that which has broughc him forth, he is the complete self-consciousness tbat belongs to Divine manhood. This perfected son of man, this Jesus, is the only one that can present the D vine son of God, he is one with the Father by and through this link between them.

This self-consciousuess, this knowledge of onenejs with the Father, has been developed by degrees, and it has its fnll representation in the Jesus, bhe full growu sou of man. The Jesus possesses the mastery that has been grown to step by step, developed by degrees, or according to the law of creation, which is the taw of God. Whatever we to-day pronounce evil, or believe ourselves to be subject to and controlled by, such as disease, suffering, or discord, wbatever we say makes us to suffer and die, these are tbe thorns thac will cut and hurt us until passed, grown out of, plucked by the master-hand of God-likeness.

Every one of these thorns in the flesh, an expression which means the pains of selfconsciousness, must be plucked before we can say, " I have overcome the world," for the crown would be incomplete without the last thorn. Paul's thorn was not removed when he besought the Lord that it might depart; all supplication to that end is prompted by ignorance, and receives the only answer possible, '• My grace is sufficient for thee." The law is at work, and we may petition in vain for the removal of the thorn, until we have learned what it is, and why it ia there. It is personal, mortal sense that so implores God because of lack of understanding of the thorn; the answer shows that we muse reap ox pluck them out ourselves.

You have the power to gather these thorna one by one, and this power is yours through the atonement or unity with the Father. The royal diadem which this orown represents ia pure self-consciousness, or a consciousness in accord with man's real nature, without personal or material seuse. These penalties of materiality, these thorns that we auffer from, rule the mortal who is governed by flesh; he writhes and cries, he complains and struggles under their ating, not knowing the power to piuck them out, not knowing that this power is his io the discernment of their nature and his own.

Little by Utile the school of experience teaches us, and we become released, we pluck these thorns and hold them with the grasp of conscious power. We treat them as our servants, whose master we are, having proved our right to ait at the right hand of power and govern them.

The Adam is subject, the Jesua ia master. Between these two extremes lie all the different stages, which are in an ever ascending scale from first to last, one thorn after another plucked from the ground which brings it forth, until evwy ao-oalled sorrow and pain has lost its power to wound, and we become its master. Then we stand crowned as the immortal aotia of God. We cannot uproot these thorns until we see and know them for what they are, for not until then do we know our power over them. When all are plucked out, and the " Well done, good and faithful servant," sounds true and clear, tbe royal crowned son, victor over the world and the things of the world is born to us, he has done with the world, and aaya, " It is fiuished." What can 1 say to make this application personal, how may I roase yon to win aad wear this crown, undismayed by the scourging at the hand of sense ? The scourging is the inevitable accompaniment of the crown of thorns, and both precede the crucifixion, and all of these muse be passed before the Easter morning can come. The scourging ia the misjudgment that is directed towards us when the world insists upon interpreting our efforts at good as evil; the church and State, the ecclesiastical and civil law, society and caste unite to scourge ns. We must receive and bear this scourging at the hands of the High Priest and scribe, the Pharisee, the hypocrite, and the soldier that make np the mob; we must bear it until th*ir limitation is outgrown by our own progress, and this royal crown is won and possessed. The scourging ceases there, and he who has received it passes out of their hands, and beyond their power for ever.

When you have reached the place where you have the right to wear this crown, the scourging of fake judgment and resentment and wickedness in high places that seeks to hurt and wound cannot reach you, you have grown beyond it, and it has no acing that

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can hurt you. The very means that the Jews used to hurt and defeat Jesus, made the ladder up which he trod the Divine height. The refusal of church and State and society to recognise your character while you are plucking out these thorns is the highest tribute to your work. He who wins this crowu must be content to stand iv the world's arena, in the forum of sense limitations, seemingly defeated. Until you are willing to bear suffering, wrong, so-called disgrace, to have the finger of malignant hate pointed at you, you have not won the crown. And yet this seeming defeat weaves this very crown, and puts ie upon the brow of the son of God. Listen, as you win and wear this crown, as your soul is bene upon surmounting yon height which must be scaled by spiritual aspiration. Two sounds seem to contend for mastery, tbey come up like the roar of ocean lashed by contending winds, seeming to drown your spiritual music One is tbe hoarse clamour that cries the suicide of sense as it shouts " Crucify him ;" the other rises like a Magnificat over and above these storm lashed waves of hate and misrepresentation, like a Jubilate iv which the deep-mouthed symphony of heaven finds voice as it says, Come up out of the reach of scourge and whip, out of the atmosphere of hate and scorn, out of the mud of ignominy, the realm of malice and blows, iuto the realm of power, and glory, and domiuion.

The thorn-crowned Christ looks at us through a bulwark of murder aud hate, but that picture, the rockiug of the earth, and the aliadovving of day, are all framed in the glory of Easter magnificence. The murderous cry, the ribald jeer, the hate and malice, the countenances distorted by murder, and fat with glutted lust for destruction, these are the storm-lashed waves reaping their thorns, while he who has woven his into the mighty crown of power bears it above the tempestuous sea iv the "Peace be still" of the Divine consciousness. The world is the judgment hall, your Christ is upon trial, your Pilate sits enthroned—the conscience that will pass its verdict upon the Christ; the High Priest and Scribe are there with perjured lips and darkened hearts, the Judas is there clutching the price that would betray to fleah aud sense, bat over all the babel, over the night of crucifixion, over the demands of Pilate, there rises the words " Behold your King," that announce to the world the Divinity of man.

" Behold your King," crowned with the thorns that he has sown and plucked, strong in the majesty of the power he baa manifested ; behold him, yours, not across the chasm of centuries that separates him from you, but here now, iv the centre of your own firmament of thought he stands, with the cross and crown. Mark you, this crown of thorns is laid down when the portal of sense is passed ; this side of the door it is taken off, and on the other side the crown of power is received, and eternity ushers in the morning that commences the perfect, manifestation of God in man. 325