THIRTY-FIVE DAYS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19904, 25 September 1926, Page 22

THIRTY-FIVE DAYS.

Written iv the Otago Daily Times. By the Rev. D. Gabdneb Miller. The smallest classic of religion in the world is the New Testament, No other book has exorcised such a mighty influence on the thought of the world. It is written round the life and personality of one who is universally admitted to bo the greatest human that over lived. Thousands' of books have been written, based on the New Testament, all attempting to explain this personality. One would have thought that by this time there could be nothing fresh lo say about the Carpenter of Nazareth. Yet the consensus of opinion is that He is so many-sided. His radiant personality is so rich and varied. His influence so deep and profound unon human life, that the tale is even yet in the openchapters. It is wonderful to relate that, though Jesus Christ lived until lie was

23, we know practically nothing about Him until He reached the ago of 30. More amazing still is the fact that of these three latter years all that the historical biographers tell us can be compressed within the space of 35 clays. The record of five weeks in the life of one who lived 19 centuries ago still stirs the hearts of men. Wo cannot estimate our debt to the four men of tho first century who gave the world tho only authentic accounts of Christ we possess. It is obvious that before these written records came to light there must have been not only oral teaching of a very definite character, but also a written account of tho “sayings” of Jesus. This is evidenced by the common background of the first three narratives, called the synoptic gospels. The four written records known as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, though written at different periods during the first century and by men widely apart in temperament and ability are amazingly unanimous on .the mam .

tures of the life and teaching of Christ. Their common word-portrait of the Master is one before which men of every age bow their heads in reverence and in awe. Roughly speaking, the first written record of Urn life of the Son of Man came to light about 5 years after the crucifixion. This record is known as the Gospel of Mark and is a vivid aocouunt of an eyewitness. probably Peter Matthow a story came about five years later and is composed largely of the sayings of Jesus. Then came the gracious and human re “ r ° written bv Luke, a doctor and a close friend of the Apostle Paul. Towards the end of the first century the Life of Jesus, bv John, came to light. By this time Christian belief was being formed in opposition to the well-defined philosophies of * 'John’s biography of Jesus, while held bv most people to be the most spiritual of all the records, Is also a philosophy that gives Christ an eternal setting, and as such is still keeping eminent scholars busy. Now, during the record of those Jo days, we can see how Jesus changed the outlook of men, not by solving their problems, but by relating human life with all its content to a two-fold revelation regarding God and man. To Jesus' there were only two ultimate realities in the world, God and man. What God is and what man is and can become were tor Jesus the supreme factors m me. His own life, His death, resurrection, and spiritual indwelling in the lives of men are centred in, and can only be explained bv. His revelation of God and man. I his two-fold revelation is the unique contribution Jesus made to the world, .and the story of-it produced the New Testament. Jesus startled the men of His day by the revelation that GOD IS HUMAN.

A religion stands or falls by its conception of God. No religious teacher has ever fully comprehended the content of God. Even Jesus, Whose penetrating insight has never been matched, and Whose filial relationship with God is the very nerve of Christianity, did not know all that was to be known about God. But His knowledge of God came as a shaft of sunlight into a world of half-lights. He told men with a note of certainty in. His voice that God was interested in men and women and that the distinguishing characteristic of God was not His aloofness from men, but His nearness. “Look at Me,” Jesus virtually said, all you see in Me, God is that and more. One has only to think of the idea of God inherent in other great world religions to realise with wonder and awe and praise this marvellously human note in Christianity. Had Jesus < done nothing more than reveal to men this new idea of God, He would have been held in veneration as the greatest of all sages. Repeatedly He pictured the humanity of God, but nowhere with such clearness, insight, and sympathy as in the story of the prodigal son. There, the central figure is not the foolish box’, but tho father of the boy. In that story Jesus was drawing a picture of God, not picture of the degradation of sin. Rend the story again in that light, and the humanity of God becomes the most precious factor in your belief. To believe, in the word of Jesus, that God is human, that He understands and shares the struggles of men, that God does not deal in crowds, but in units, that He cares for “me.” is to be delivered from the fear that chills the'spirit of .man as he lives his life amidst the merciless forces of the cosmos, and to dwell in the circle of peace and security. The second aspect of His revelation is that MAN IS DIVINE.

It is amazing what Jesus found in men. No other teacher dreamed that ifaen could possess a tenth part of the moral grandeur and spiritual power as Jesus elicited from them. He believed in man, in his possibilities and in his potentialities. Man to Jesus was not a worm, but a son of God. There is no more interesting study than tracing the effect of this belief of Jesus upon the men who came within the circle of His influence. It is a revelation that borders on the miraculous. It shatters the soul-destroying dogma that “you cannot change human nature.” In no way does this belief of Jesus make light of men’s sins. Jesus was not blind to the stern reality of sin. But when He looked upon a man He saw beneath the surface to the kind of man he might become and showed him how, by God's help, he could put off the “old man” and put on the “new man.” Man may be akin to the beast, but it is true to say that he is a near relative of God's. These new values of God and man are the supreme gifts of Christ to the world. All that Christ was and did and is, are centred in the heart of them. And yet, the story of His life and work is the story of 35 days. “A thousand times more alive, a thousand times more loved since Thy death than during the days of Thy pilgrimage here below. Thou shalt become so truly the corner-stone of humanity, that to tear Thy name from this world were to shake it to its foundation. Take possession of Thy kingdom, which, by the royal road which Thou hast shown, ages of worshippers shall follow Thee.”