THE RICHES OF LIFE

Evening Star, Issue 20985, 26 December 1931, Page 2

THE RICHES OF LIFE

Sermon preached last Sunday at the Morningtou Methodist Church by the Rev. James Richards. Text, 11. Cor., viii., 9: Though He was ■ rich yet for your sakes He became poor that ye through Hia poverty might be rich. Riches are usually associated in our minds with pockets that jingle, a bulgy wallet, and a big bank reserve from which to replenish supplies. Wealth suggests ownership of material possessions—a fat slice of earth, an imposing dwelling, a lordly limousine, sumptuous repasts, and many changes of raiment. Judged by this crude estimate of possessions how fabulously rich Christ was in his pro-incarnate life. His all silver and gold; the sheep of all pastures and the cattle upon a thousand hills; earth and sea and the fullness thereof. And as for this little earth, which He could take away in His vest pocket, so to speak, how trifling a fraction of His resources does it represent. The worlds, millions of them, strown casually through space, with all their stored treasure and boundless supplies, wore His, for “ all things were made by Him.” Behold, then, this Universal Lord renouncing ail the vast and varied wealth of creation. He is born in a manger, where cattle sheltered and fed. He is brought up in the lowly homo of a hard-working carpenter. Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but lone and homeless did Ho live out His days of ministry. He was dependent for sustenance upon the hospitality and kindliness of friends. Ho was cursed and hounded out of the world, crucified between thieves, and liis mutilated body deposited in a borrowed grave. How wealthy in knowledge pre-incar-nato Christ was. The motor ear is to mo a maze of mystery, a box of tricks. 1 have had nothing to do with tho making and little to do with the mending of one. It is different with tho experienced motor mechanic. Ho can diagnose its spasms, pull it to pieces, rectify its disorders, and set it sturdily upon its legs again. All its moods and tenses arc familiar to hipi, _ In Christ all things visible and invisible wore created. Known to Him were all the secret powers and processes of creation. Un-

veiled before Him the one far-off divine event towards which the whole creation moves. All the artistry and harmony of the universe were a rejoicing to Him. All mystic and secret loro to Mini an open book. Had Christ come to earth possessed of that infinity of knowledge, thinking its long, long thoughts and speaking its language He had been as a foreigner among men. What fellowship could that light have with our darkness? His message, couched in terms of eternal wisdom, had been unintelligible. But He emptied himself of that fullness. Tho babe of Bethlehem was not some sophisticated creature like nothing that had ever appeared on earth before. The comprehension of an archangel was not found in that boy of Nazareth. The guile and craft by which tho baby in our households is taught to use its limbs and faculties wore practised upon Him. He grew in wisdom naturally as other boys grow. As a teacher He thought and spoke in the terms of His times. Compared with, tho vast range, the endless variety, and the heavenly grace of that higher knowledge, how impoverished and constricted cron liis intellectual life on earth. Riches of pure, eternal, and spiritual being had been His in that preincarnato state. Tho Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man. And tho man said ‘‘ Am I your debtor ? ’ ’ And the Lord said, ‘‘Not yet, but keep it as clean as you can, And then 1 will let you a better.” Hero wo dwell in the house of a brute. From it wo derive many satisfactions and exhilarations. Keeping it clean is splendid discipline—healthy and necessary preparation for a more stately mansion of indwelling. And yet at times how irksome the humblings and restrictions this body imposes on us. To drag it round all our earthly days, like a shell-back snail. To be bossed and bullied by its clamorous appetites. To aspire to the stars, and yet not able to rise from tho ground, except by moans of a noisy, smelly machine. To suffer aches and pains through it, and only rid ourselves of it at last by painful' processes of disintegration and death.

Open to Christ had been all the wide ami pleasing prospects of tho universe. Free to Him all the pure pleasures that are at tho Father's light hand. No Sergeant-major Time to force pettifogging limitations there. No clumsy house of a hruto to impede movement, bind the spirit’s powers, and cloud the vision. Yet Christ leaves that exalted state and takes upon Him this vile body of flesh. Ho was tempted in all points like as wo are. The passions of the body in Him, like wild beasts, lusted and strained for mastery. Flo felt the gnawings of hunger, the fever of thirst, the ache of bodily weariness. In Gcthsomano Ho sweated as it were great drops of blood. On Calvary His soul painfully straggled for release from the body so brutally marred by men. In that preincarnate state what riches of fellowship ha'd Christ enjoyed. Imagine Socrates and Michael Angelo and Dante and Shakespeare and Johnson hobnobbing somewhere beyond tbo bounds of time. Each bringing forth things old and now from tho treasury of mind and heart. Each stimulating tho other to fresh flights of imaginative discourse. What a flow of soul and feast of wit that would be. Rut tho converse of even tho most exalted of earth cannot bo compared with that of God the Father, God tho Son, and God tho Holy Ghost. Beyond the utmost reach of our thought is that shared reason and love and ecstasy, in that transcendent life also tho bright angel intelligences did homage to Him who is tho effulgence of the Father’s glory—admired, honoured, adored, an,d obeyed Him who is the express imago of tho Father. Here on earth some few reverenced Him and did Him honour. Lovers He found, sometimes in the unlikelicst. Rut to the many His teaching was like easting pearls before swine. Tho people of His town cast Him out. Tho folk of His own household had little sympathy with His aims and methods. Tho religious leaders of tho time said: “He hath a devil, and is mad.” Tho mob cried “Crucify Him.” Consider Him who had to endure such contradictions of sinners—the pettiness, prejudice, bigotry, and ill-will with which His gracious overtures of friendship and rodooiniig love were received. Why did Christ renounce that wealth and embrace this poverty? That He might lift us from our poverty to His wealth. Ho came as tho champion of all poor and despised folk. He came to break oppression and set the captive free. Ho came to open to all mankind, to every soul of man, the liberty of tho Sons of God, tho opportunity for wealth of character and fulness of joyous life. Ho came to lift us out of tho gloom of ignorance into tho light of truth, to load us to the sources of universal wisdom.

Ho camo to free us from subjection to the earthly and sensual, to deliver ns from the dominance or timo and sense, and the dread of death, and endue us with. His own imperishable plentitndo of life. He stopped to lift ns to heavenly fellowship that wo might think tho thoughts of God, and know tho deep and tender rovoalings of tho Holy Spirit, and walk with Him our Saviour in imost intimate and blessed communion.

Shall -wo not open our hearts to receive this priceless wealth. It is freely, pressingly, offered to us in Christ Jesus. Turn from your sin. Cease from your raking in the mire. Open your heart to Him who is Life and Light. As many as receive Him to them gives He tho right to become sons of Clod, heirs of Cod, sharers with Him in tho boundless and enduring riches. With heart of desire and empty hands come to Him now, and begin’ to know tho redeeming grace and power of the crucified, risen, exalted Christ, and share tho unsearchable riches that arc ours in Him.

Some of us, like tho Corinthians to whom tho words of our text wore originally addressed, have confessed Christ. But, like them, -wo may not be acting on our profession as generously and energetically as wo should. Perhaps we’ve forgotten the abject poverty from which Christ is lifting us, tho glorious wealth into which Ho is bringing us, and have become selfcentred and stodgy >in our experience. Let ns now go oven unto Bethlehem, and contemplate afresh this amazing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor that wo through His poverty night become rich. Then the hardness will melt from our hearts and our generous, com passionate sympathy and love run out towards all needy, lonely, and lost souls. Have yon found the heavenly light? Pass it on! Souls aro groping in the night, Daylight gone; Lift your lighted lamp on high, Bo a star in someone’s sky; He may live, who else would die? Pass it on!