DEVOTIONAL COLUMN

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 139, 16 May 1925, Page 11

DEVOTIONAL COLUMN

PRAYER. O Lord, wo thank Thee for all Thy mercies to us. We pray that wo may be most thankful for the greatest anil may rejoieo more in that Thou dost make us partakers of a Divine nature than in all the. blessings which perish with the using. May we seek the best things first, most earnestly, and throughout all our seeking after the lower good, help us, we pray Thee, that our lives may not be torn in twain by sometimes being directed towards the things that are seen and temporal. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

READING. Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. —lsaiah 26, 4. ENGLAND’S PREMIER AND CHRISTIANITY. “Some people have talked as though Christianity had done its vviork in this world. There is lack_ of imagination in that remark, for Christianity’s work has hardly begun.” GOD’S DREAMS. Drearn3 are they, but they are God’s dreams ! Shall we decry them and scorn them ? That men shall love one another, That white shall call black man brother, That greed shall pass from the marketplace, That lust shall yield to love for the race, That man shall meet with Gtod face to face — Dreams are they all But shall we withstand them— God’s dreams! Thomas Curtis Clark. sinT" “There is nothing so narrow as sin; there is nothing so horribly mean and crafty as worldliness.” Dr. H. .Gray. AT THE CROSS ROADS OR OFF THE CROSS ROAD? Who said “Christianity is at the Cross Roads ?” Who ever said it, betrays ignorance of Christianity. The noads never cross with God. Man comes to a cross road, but never God 1 Man may. bo confused as to the way he will take, but this is not true of our God. for it is written: “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world.” Man may lose the pathway, but God does not. Man may look for a way, but God is “the Way.” Christianity is not at the “cross roads.” Christianity has not reached a pause that is perplexing. There is no crisis. How carl there be a crisis where there is a Christ p Is is the folly of fools to talk about. “Christianity at the cross loads.” Christianity is Christ and it is with Him always as it was when here in earthly visitation, “He knows what He will do.” God is not clinging to the horns of a dilemma. He is not on a journey through a blind alley. He is not feeling out of darkness. He is the God of all knowledge and foreknowledge. There is not such a thing as Christianity at, tho cross roads. The plan of God will not be defeated. ... .. The present confusion indicates no fadlire on the part of God, but it is the failure of man. That the state of things is as they now are was fully known unto God and foretold by God. It is not because Christianity, which is Christ, is failing, it is man, who has failed at the end of each of God's epochal divisions of time, failing agnin at the end of the present age. Christianity is not at the “cross roads,” for Christianity is Christ and He has never been at the cross roads. It is not that “Christianity is at the cross roads,” but rather that some socalled Christians are off the Cross road. The Cross of Christ is the heart of the Christian hope. The Cross and its crucialitv cannot be over-estimated. The centrality of the Cross is the issue. Men are off the “Cross road.” “The way of the Cross leads home.” On the pathway, of the Cross there will not be found cross roads. The cross road has been lost. Men by vain philosophy and human religion htfve detoured around the Cross. They must come back to tire road—the only road to God! “The way of the Cross leads home.” God met every human problem at the Cross. There was there nothing left, unfinished. When Christ died on the Cross it was a Divine doing! The erueiality, centrality and potentiality of the Cross cannot be over-estimated. When men are off the “Cross road” they are at the cross roads.

The eclipse of the Cross would mean sunless days and starless nights for man. The Cross is God’s great luminary. The “Lamb” sacrificed is the light of the City. There are no signposts to God off the Cross road. “The way of the Cross leads home.” _ . Those who call themselves Christians and deny the Cross, havo no claim on Christianity or the name Christian. The Cross is the heart of Christianity and without the heart- the body is dead. No! No! “Christianity is not at, the cross roads,” but. men who deny it are off the Cross road and (he way is lost until again their feet are on the Calvary way, “The Way of the Cross leads home.” There was a meeting at the Cross one day which caused a sensation throughout the whole universe. The unreconciled attributes of God met there, if we may say such. The unreconciled attributes of God met there in claim and left with every claim settled. The justice of God_ received all that, justice could ask. The Cross met e.very claim of justice and justice was satisfied. The righteousness of God found every requirement at the Cross. The holiness of God could ask for no more than the Cross gave. The mercy of Cod flowed from the Cross in streams of abundance. Mercy was freed at the Cross.

“THEY HAVE TAKEN AWAY MY

LORD.”

(By Rev. R. H. Strachan, D.D.)

“They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laidHim.”—John xx.. 13.

It is almost beyond our power to imagine what the death of Jesus must have meant to Mary Mugdalene. In St. Lnko’s vivid phrase, “Out of her He had cast

seven devils.” The words suggest the depth of moral slavery and degradation from which He had saved her. It, therefore, was no common bond that was broken by His death. Even to stand by His grave gave her security against the old bad life she had abandoned. And now His tomb has been violated. "They have taken away my Lord, I know not where they have laid Him.” Carlyle tells that on Mirabeau’s funeral day a man of letters entered a Paris restaurant. The waiter r& marked, “Pine weather, sir ! ' "Yes, my friend,” cume the reply, “but Mirabeau is dead.” The dear symbol of Christ’s grave was more to her than a living world.

Mary, we are told, saw in the empty grave “a vision of angels.” I think that this evangelist, in his allusive way, means us as he often does, to read between the lines and to be astonished that such a sight did not convince her. Does he mean that she saw two angels gazing at that which “angels desire to peer into,’ bending in wonder and adoration at the depth, of love that was revealed in our Lord s subjection to death? But Mary looked on this sight unmoved. Why ? Let us ask ourselves. Have you and I never had moods of grief, despair and perplexity when it was not nearly onough to know that the things that have happened aro known to God and His angels'? Mary’s sight of these angels in the empty grave is like our hearing words of Scripture that speai movingly of the inner meaning of sorrow; words* which "Ure glorious and comforting, but do not penetrate to* our own hearts. Our need

is for the presence of ’’my Lord"’ lias boon taken away. Mary’s absorption in her own heart’s loss, is suggested with matchless restraint. She speaks to one whom she thinks is the gardener, as though lie, too, must know of her loss. Amid all these many graves, to her there is only one. No matter how eloquently, how beautifully, how convincingly tho everlasting truth that Christ rose again, be told, in order to know that it is everlasting Mary and wo must rediscover it in ourselves.

Thoro are many earnest loving souls to-day who in a somewhat different sense echo Mary’s complaint. Are there not somo who think of what used to be and what is in the religious life of our day, who aro saying “They have disturbed the place where the lay” ? Questions that once seemed firmly and finally closed again seem to stand open as ominously as to Mary that open grave in the garden. Our Lord lias been taken away, uud we know not where they have laid him. It can never bo a bad thing for us now and again to feel that our assurance of Christ requires to be rooted more deeply than in ways of thought and practices of religion hallowed by age and custom. It is a. good thing that the cry should be heard to-day, when so many are disposed to acquiesce, however unwillingly, in the loss of Christ’s real presence in their hearts. It is to those who thus cry “They have taken away my Lord” that lie will reveal llim6elf again. “To mourn His absence is to desire and to invito His presence: and to invite His presence is to secure it.”

Mary turns and sees the Lord standing heliitid her and close beside. It :s true sho made a mistake in thinking Ho was the gardener, but it was soon dispelled by the living voice of Christ. Chysostom suggests beautifully that she tuned because she saw in tho eyes of the angels that {•'ey were looking at someone hidden *:om her. Turn your gaze where the angels are looking, where the history and doctrine of the Church and the noblest Christian experience points. The seeking is not ad on ono side. Ho will discover llimself to you, a.s of old, in the sound of Ilis .voice calling you by name. “He callcth his own sheep by name.”