"BEHOLD THE PLACE WHERE THEY LAID HIM"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24254, 23 March 1940, Page 2

"BEHOLD THE PLACE WHERE THEY LAID HIM"

Written for the Otago Daily Times By the Rev. Gardner Miller

On the first Easter morning, long ago, something so very wonderiul happened mat even after nearly years we still leel ihe thrill of it. Some women found a grave empty. And ever since every grave in the world has nobody in it. A cemetery is the emptiest place in all the world. It may enshrine manv lovely memories, and I do not think we do wrong to keep lovelv the places where we lay our 1 beloved dead, but we make a very serious mistake if we think for a moment that our beioved are really there. The grave is only the place where we lay our beloved; it is not the dace where they stay. Ever since that glorious truth filled my own soul all gloom connected with funerals passed awav for ever. And. if I may be pardoned a very personal remark, all professional and traditional statements about : death and the grave I scrapped for good. Every Sunday is Easter Sunday to me. I walk on to the platform every Sunday with the knowledge that I am not going' to speak about a dead man I always am sure that I am the ambassador of a living and reigning King. I wish every believer would daily realise the value to their faith, as well as the stimulus to their dailv living, that the fact of the living Chrisi brings I have sometimes let mv thoughts roam over the terrible losses that would be ours' if Christ had not risen. Supposing the story instead of telling us that the grave of Christ was empty told us that the women found His body and tendered those gentle offices to the dead which the hurried burial on the Friday evening had made impossible! It would have meant thai the memory of Christ would have faded out. These gentle women, and crhers. wou'd during their life-time recall the things He said and did but the next generation end the next and the next would have found it becoming difficult to recall much about Him. Eventually He would have been forgotten, except, perhaps, for some story or legend about Him that found its way into writing. The memory of a good man is a pattern to follow, but it is like a rope of sand to a man trying to climb out of a pit. Not even the glory and tragedy of the Cross are of,any avail if Christ had been found in His grave. The Cross must be vindicated before it can become the power of God to our"salvation. The empty grave, is the proof that the Cross is more than the death of a good man. The emply grave is an open declaration that on the Cross a'Redeemer faced death and defeated death. Never for a moment allow yourself to be persuaded that the body of Christ had been lifted out of the grave and hidden somewhere else. If that had happened then it would have been found out long ago. The authorities would have been too glad to have had proof that the dis* ciples of Christ were impostors who had fobbed a clever trick upon simple people. No. there is no fact so clearly established as the fact that the women found the grave empty. Thev saw the place where He had been laid, but Him thev saw not. Instead of Christ being a lovely memory only. He is now a living presence everywhere. If I did not believe that I talk to a living Christ every day. if I did not believe that a living Christ is in this.world trying, through you and me, to make it like His heart's desire, then.l would be a traitor to mv calling. , This week I have listened .to tales of desertion, drunkenness, evil living. disease, and if I could not put these troubled souls in touch With a- living Christ Who understands and helps I l would be a man without, a message offering puzzled and distracted men and women nothing but words. A 'dead man is of "no. use to ..anybody. .A. dead Christ may stir our pity, but He could not give Ms power over our temptations. A living Christ is God's answer to death and sin and despair and hel1 * * *

" Behold, the nl?ce .where they laid Him." How gloriously frank these words 3re! There is no attempt at an explanation—just the glad announcement of a fact. And that fact, the fact.that He was not there, not only is God's answer to sin and death, despair and hell, it is also the creative power that gave the world its two greatest gifts. And these gifts are the Church and the New Testament. If there had been no empty grave there would have been no Church. The Church was born because death could not hold Christ. The religion of Jesus —Christianity we call it—is the only religion in the world that has an Easter. In other words, it is the only religion that refuses death the last word. Now it was the Easter experience that brought the Christian Church into being. Look at these men who were thrown into despair because of the Cross! Look at them again after the glorious truth of the empty grave has gripped them; they are different men altogether. No longer coward 3 and cravens, they are bold and impetuous, risking danger and death to declare the great news that the Crucified Jesus is alive and that no man need even again be in bondage to sin and death. The Christian Church that neglects the truth, the missionary truth, of the empty grave has denied her birthright. It was this living Church of the long ago. this Church that had a flame in its heart, that gave the world the New Testament. Can you picture the world without this greatest of all books? If there had been no empty grave, then the Word of God would have ended with the Old Testament. We would still have known something about God, but only enough to prostrate ourselves befcre Him in abjection. We would never have been able, or have had the right, to call God Father, had there been no New Testament. It is the risen Christ, who made the grave a thoroughfare. Who turns gloom to gladness and fills the human heart with hope that is undying. If these women on that first Easter morning had heard the words, "Behold, the place where He lies," then death would be the victor and the grave the end, sin Would still triumph and all of us would be prisoners to circumstances, and immortality would be a mockins dream. But that is what they did not hear. What they heard was, "Behold, the place where they laid Him." The place, not the Person! Christ is risen. He is in the world now. If He is not, then life has no meaning. I know He is alive.