The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1914. EASTER AND ITS MESSAGE

New Zealand Tablet, 9 April 1914, Page 33

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1914. EASTER AND ITS MESSAGE

igjjvva fr\nm HAT the , Apostles from the earliest days fu really believed in the true physical ResurSn|!l L rection of the body of Jesus from the grave jf is beyond doubt, and is not seriously quesVJWSK tioned even by the most advanced unbelievers. They had seen miracles of « r resurrection before, and knew what was » ' implied when they asserted the fact of their Master’s rising from the dead. This belief of theirs runs right through the teaching of the New Testament, and is declared with unfaltering tones. According to four evangelists the holy women, and after them, some of the disciples, on coming to the tomb at the dawn of Easter found the tomb empty. ‘ He is not here, He is risen,’ they are told by the angel, and they believe. During the forty days that followed, many witnesses on several occasions were firmly persuaded they saw and spoke to One Who had risen in the body, even in the body that had been crucified, for it still bore the print of the nails and the spear-mark'. To His apostles especially ‘He showed Himself alive after His passion, by many proofs, for forty . days appearing to them, and speaking of the Kingdom of God, and eating with them.’ (Acts i., 3.) St. Peter in his first discourse openly proclaimed that Jesus had been raised from the dead, for His flesh could not taste the corruption of the tomb. St. Paul is particularly emphatic : ‘ For I delivered unto you first of all what I also received ; how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures’ (I Cor. xv., 3-4). So sure is the great apostle that he is willing to stake all on this supreme fact: ‘lf Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain; yea, and we are found false witnesses of God ’(I Cor. xv., 14). There was no illusion about this belief. ”Hfe v who left Jerusalem for Damascus on a mission of persecution became absolutely convinced on the way that he had seen the Lord in the heavenly glory ; a sudden and revolutionary change took place in all, his ideas of. God, of Christ the Messiah, and the world. ■■ Christ’s enemy became Christ’s. slave. ■ . '■> ' * It is not possible to explain this persistent : belief on the part of the apostles otherwise than through the fact of the Resurrection. Two . considerations should make this clear. On the, one hand, the apostles 1 were simple, guileless, and honest. Their testimony was given in plain, calm way, with a remarkable absence of excitement and, amazement. Despite the ' oft-re-peated. predictions of their Master, they had sadly con-, eluded that they would never see Him —His career ■had ended in defeat and disaster. I We had hoped that it was He Who should -redeem Israel.’ They would

not at first take heed of. the report of His Resurrection brought in by the holy women, and one of them went so far as to declare that ' unless he were able ,to touch the wounds he - could . not . accept the fact. It cannot therefore •be said that these men were only ‘reading from the hope of their hearts instead of from the sight of their eyes.’ They knew, too, how dangerous it would be for them to proclaim in the presence- of the Jewish rulers that Christ had risen. Can stronger testimony be produced for any other fact in history? Has it ever been known in the annals of evidence that a body of simple-minded men should bear, witness to a fact which beforehand they were not able to believe, and whose declaration could only involve them in the last danger, and in the end should believe it so firmly that their faith has made them into heroes and saints?’ On the other hand, while these immediate witnesses were stirring Jerusalem to its depths by their proclamation of the Resurrection of Jesus, no attempt was made by anyone, not even by the priests who in putting Him to death thought they had gained the victory, effectively to silence these preachers by pointing out the ' dead body or by showing how fraud had been used- to take it away. ‘.Did not in this case spells could not.’ * The obvious conclusion from the unimpeachable fact of the Resurrection is that He Who thus rose from the tomb is God, . and His religion divine. He claimed to be God, and in proof thereof predicted that He would rise after death. It is impossible to believe in this twofold factbold prophecy and the transcendant fulfilment of it—arid continue to say that Christ is only man. But the Resurrection of Christ, based as it is on the immovable rock of historical fact, has also an intimate bearing on another matter of vital concern to us; it opens up ‘a sure and certain hope’ of immortality. ‘ And when this mortal (body) hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “ Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory ? O death, where is thy sting ? But thanks be to God, Who hath given us the victory through our Lord > Jesus Christ’ (I Cor. xv., 54-57). ‘ Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more. But. you-(shall) see Me, because I live and you shall live ’ -.(John xiv., 19). The deepest . desire in the heart of every man is for a happy immortality—for another and a better world after this, life with its sorrows and its sin comes to an end. He . looks-for some evidence on this point that will satisfy his reason as well as his heart, and cause light to. arise in his darkness. He finds it in the fact that Christ rose after death and is alive.for evermore. ‘ The resurrection of Him Who was crucified means that in the spiritual straits of life no man "will be left alone, that the crushing sorrows of life are not without their more abundant consolation, that we are not finally separated from those whom we love, and have lost, and that the day is yet to break upon this present night.’ .