SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 10 May 1930, Page 19 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

B i ii By

REV. A. H. COLLINS

MAN’S CHIEF END.

“Father glorify Thy name.” — Saint John XII. 28.

John Ruskin held and taught that Gothic is the form of architecture best

suited to Christian churches. A Greek

temple, with pillars and rounded windows, . i l . exact proportions, cramps the mind and imprisons thought. But the Gothic minster, with its flying columns, its pointed roof and door, like hands folded in prayer, carries the mind away and beyond to the unseen and the infinite, and the immeasurable. The difference is the difference between logic and poetry. The prayers of Jesus are Gothic. Like flying shafts and pointed arches, they rise above the dusty levels of life and greet the bended skies, and our text is like the golden cross that caps and crowns the edifice. Man is at his best when he prays, for kneeling at the feet of God, the soul

breaks through “the muddy vesture of the flesh,” and face and form are transfigured. It is not too ii.uch to say that Jesus Christ was never more truly Son of God than when He prayed, and never more serviceable to men. To mark the things for which Christ prayed and the spirit in which He prayed is to receive a lesson in the sacred art of intercession. THE STORY OF THE FATHER. I need not dwell on the occasion of this prayer. Our Great High Priest had entered on His last long agony, and realised the sorrow that lay ahead. “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father glorify Thy name.” In the face of death and in sight of the cross. Jesus Christ was supremely careless of comfort or pain/ and supremely devoted to the glory of the Father. The passage expresses the very spirit of the Master, in all He ever said or did, and we who bear His Name may well make it the motto and the motive of our life. To glory is to glow. The sun glows. It is possessed of splendid glory, but when clouds cross the darkening sky, and when night falls, the sun is obscured. When the clouds pass away, and earth turns its face to the East; the sun glows. “Father glorify Thy name,” means remove the earth-born mists—ignorance, pride, sin—and turn men’s hearts to the light as Milton sings—- “ Thou celestial light, “Shine. inward,; and the mind “Through all her powers irradiate, “There plant eyes., all mists from thence “Purge and disperse.” For just as the sun has stored part of itself in coal seams, and our machinery is driven by “bottled sunbeams,” so God has implanted part of Himself in the lives of men, but the light is smothered, and the love obscured, and our witness is dimmed, and on our lips the prayer means remove the thoughts, desires and habits which darken the soul by hiding the face of the Holy Father. THE GREAT PURPOSE OF LIFE. Thus the words unveil the secret purpose of life. Readers of Scotch upbringing will remember the first clause of the shorter catchism; “What is the chief end of man? —Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever.” Thomas Carlyle in speaking of modern materialism made this confession. “The . older I grow, and I am now upon the brink of eternity, the more comes back to me the first sentence of the catechism, which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes, ‘what is. the chief end of man ? - To glorify and to enjoy Him for ever.”’ The root of all true living is to devote life to God/ I do not speak as one who has earned the right to blame; but in all humbleness of heart I say that the end of human life is neither wealth, nor fame, nor length of days, but conformity to the will of our Maker, and life will never go right while self is enthroned and God is ignored.

Robert Murray McCheyne wrote in liifl diary, “The greatest need of my people is my personal holiness,” and the same is true of each one. of us. If the work drags and the Kingdom of God tarries, it is not due to defective organisation, but to our imperfect perception of the will of God and our failure to put His honour first. If the electric bulb does not glow and shine, it io due to one of two causes, either the connection with the dynamo is broken, or the wire has touched earth, and the power is drained off. If we were better men we should do better work. The supreme need of the world is not men and women rarely gifted, but men and women with first-hand experience of God and devotion to His glory. In the 17th chapter of St. John, Jesus Christ is reported as saying, “I have glorified thee on the earth.” And then, as if in explanation, He adds, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” Man’s chief end is to finish the work God has givep him to do. ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD. This does not mean the limitation and impoverishment of life; it is' the reverse. Life is not all Sunday and church. We have to do things that involve toil and strain, and seem remote from religion. Our Lord Jesus laboured in the carpenter’s shop and He glorified God amid the litter of the workshop no less than the worship of the temple and the sacrifice on the Cross. A ‘man’s secular calling may be done to the glory of God. Thus St. Paul writes, ‘ Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” And yet we may “covet earnestly the best gifts,” from inferior motives. We may desire spiritual influence from dread of defeat and because its possession would mean credit and renown. We may wish to be good because it means safety and reward. But the true motive of religion is not rewards and punishments but regard for the glory of God. We should do right because it is right, regardless of all consequences. ,

But men powerful as Napoleon, victorious as Caesar, confess, what simpler men knew by instinct long before, that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. We find our circumference very near the centre, everywhere. An exceedingly short radius measureii 'al

our strength. We can know little of material things; nothing but their phenomena. As the circle of our knowledge widens it® ring, we feel our ignorance on more numerous points, and the Unknown seems greater than before. At the end of a toilsome life, we confess, with a great man of modern times, that we have. wandered on the shore, and gathered here a bright pebble< and there a shining shell—but an ocean of Truth, boundless and unfathomed, lies before uc, and all unknown. The wisest ancient knew only this, that he knew nothing. THE POWER BEYOND US. We feel an irresistible tendency to refer all outward things, and ourselves with them, to a Power beyond us,'sublime and mysterious, which we cannot measure nor even comprehend. We . are filled with reverence at the thought of this power. Outward matters give us the occasion which awaken® consciousness, and spontaneous nature leads us to something higher than ourselves, and greater than all the eyes behold. We are bowed down at the thought. Thus the sentiment of something superhuman comes natural as breath. This primitive spiritual sensation comes over the soul, when a sudden calamity throws us from our habitual state; when joy fills our cup to its brim; at “a wedding or a funeral, a mourning or a festival”; when we stand beside a_ great work of naturfe, a mountain, a waterfall; when the twilight gloom of a primitive forest sends awe into the heart; when we sit alone with ourselves, and turn in the eye, and ask, What am I? Whence came I? Whither shall I go? There is no man who has not felt this sensation; this mysterious sentiment of something unbounded. This also defines the true motive of prayer. When I turn to the Old Testament and scan the prayers of Abraham, Moses, David—those mighty intercessors—l discover they were not much concerned with the things' that are prominent in the modern Church. They were concerned for God’s good', name. I find they said, “Thy . glory,” “Thy glory.” “For. Thy name's sake blot out our iniquity.” “For,Thy name’s sake hear us.” Help us for. Thy name’s sake.” “What will the nations Say if Thou doest it not?” Their concern was the honour of God. The same -is true of the New Testament. “Hallowed be Thy name.” “Father glorify Thy name.” But when I enter our praying assemblies and still more when I .search my own heart, I miss this spaciousness and detachment of soul. DISAPPOINTING PRAYERS. Our prayers are not Gothic, they are Greek temples. Alas, they are sometimes not temples at all but clay huts. They lack the sense of wonder and awe and adoring. “God bless me and my wife, our Jock and his wife. We four and no more.” “God bless our home, our church, our nation.” All of which .is right as part of our supplication, but “Father glorify Thy name” is roomier, more catholic and more Christian. Our thoughts of God and His kingdom are too wizen and contracted. Our prayers are too much concerned with self. We need to plan and pray on a bigger scale. We need to escape from the personal and the local into the ampler space of the prayer, “Father glorify Thy name.”

j Finally this is the motive of all high service. The Lamb of God stoodJjeside the altar, and the hour of sacrifice drew near. All the types and shadows of the ceremonial law were soon to find their perfect fulfilment. But then Calvary would have been marred if the I offering had not. been a free will offeri ing. y The essential glory of that deed I of love was that what Christ did was ■ done out of supreme devotion to the i Father’s glory. Service at the price of i sacrifice is the law of the world, and - cannot be evaded without loss. A cheap i. religion is doomed. Service that costs nothing is worth nothing. The world was saved because Christ could not save Himself. REVERENCE FOR HIS NAME. Do we understand that the saviourhood of Christ means the Lordship of Christ in all things, in thoughts, plans, motive and will? Wilfulness is disloyalty to the Lord who redeemed us. “Thy will be done,” even though it mean our undoing. “Father glorify Thy name,” is man’s chief end. All of which means reverence for the name of God, which will make us better and braver men and women. If the man of science feels this awe in the presence of an ascertained fact, arid feels himself compelled to follow truth,'and will not “make his reason blind,” how much more shall we profoundly venerate the revelation of God in the person' of Jesus Christ! With what immovable fidelity should we pursue to its remotest implications the doctrine of God’s Fatherhood which Jesus tpught! With what reverence should we safeguard the doctrine from’ attack, and labour to secure its adoption as the working principle of life over all the earth! “Father glorify Thy name.” "■ Father, hear the prayer we offer: ; Not for ease that'prayer shall be, But for-strength, that we may ever Live our lives courageously. Not for ever 4 'in green pastures fDo we ask our way to be; But by steep and rugged pathways Woiild we strive to climb to Thee. Let our path be bright or dreary, Storm of sunshine be our share; May our souls, in hope unweary, Make Thy work our ceaseless prayer. Amen.