To Preach Christ

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 36, Issue 6, 1 September 1945, Page 1

To Preach Christ

(An abridged sermon preached by the Rt. Rev. C, A. Cherrington, Bishop of Waikato, at the opening of the Waikato Synod.)

What does the world want? What do all men need? What is the message? The answer is : To preach Christ. That is what the world wants.

All of us clergy at our ordination were set' apart to be "Ministers of God's Holy World" and we received authority to "Preach the Word of God," as one of the two great duties laid upon us.

1 What is the word of God that we are to preach? What is to be our message always? There is only. one answer— "To preach Christ."

And exactly what does that mean?

(1) The New Testament presents Jesus m the character of the Christ. That is how He was first preached. Compare St. Peter: God hath made both Lord and Christ that same Jesus whom ye crucified.

The Christ, or Messiah, was He whom the Jews looked for. All their best hopes lay m Him. But it was for quite other reasons that the Apostles preached Him as Christ. It was by His Resurrection and Exaltation that they were able to preach the Jesus whom they had known as one who lives and reigns as Lord and King. Jesus is on the right hand of God. He is behind every revival of spiritual life m the Church — He is the Christ and can be preached as such.

(2) And for this, of course, it is necessary to be fully acquainted with His earthly life. This was the case with the Apostles. To preach Christ does not mean to take leave of the life of Jesus m any sense; it is preaching that Jesus, whose earthly

life they knew, to be exalted and sovereign. -

But, on the other hand, it is not preaching Christ even if we tell the story of Jesus m a most vivid and

moving way or even to preach His suffering and death as a most moving tragedy with power m it to purify the soul by pity and terror. There is no preaching of Christ that does not rest on the Apostolic basis. His .

exaltation' to power and therefore His perpetual presence.

What the Gospels Give Us.

(3) And the Gospels give us what, is necessary and sufficient for the preachers' needs. The. great life stands out boldly as depicted by tKe authors. They assert that He was what He was as attested by (a) prophecy, i.e., the general trend of the Messianic hope; (b) by the works He did and the power that those works implied— culminating m the greatest of them all, His Resurrection from : the dead and, His Ascension into Heaven. He was unique* (4) What then those who first called Jesus, the Christ and preached Him as such meant to do was to put Him m a place which no other could share. It is impossible to consider our Lord as one of a series, one who can be classified or compared with others. From the beginning Christians called Jesus "Lord." His was a name above every other name. 'To preach Christ." "He is Lord and only begotten." He holds a unique relation to us, He is Lord; -arid a unique relation to God, He is only begotten. This is the fact impressed upon us by the New Testament.

To preach what Jesus preached is not Christianity unless the thing preached is preached m its essential relation to Him. One of the most important points m the preaching of Jesus was "The Kingdom of God." What is meant by- preaching Christ here? We have to remember that the Kingdom of God as preached by Christ owes allegiance. *t6 Him as King. It is to that that it owes its character. Paramount and Exalted. It is a realm m which Christ reigns, paramount and exalted, and only those who pay Him absolute fealty and devotion can possibly enter it. Thus the Kingdom of God on earth is the kingdom whose citizens look to' Christ, first and last, as their leader and inspiration and are ready to submit all their lives for His Divine inspection and approval. (5) How did Jesus think of Himself so as to be able to impress that upon His followers and Ap"ostles? (a) As Messiah: That is what He declared Himself to be. He is fulfilling all pious hopes and longings. He is inaugurating the Kingdom of God, over which He reigns and of which He is Lord and only King. (b) As Judge: Now, His very presence judged men. Some there were who gathered round.Him. They have passed, from death into life. Some there were who rejected His call. "If I had not come • they had not had sin: Now they have hated both Me and My Father.'' (c) Son of God: "All things have . been delivered unto Me," etc. (St. Matt, xi.— 27). • Here Jesus claims m the most exact terms to have had the whole task of revealing God to man — the whole task of saving men committed to Him. There is no such' thing as preaching Christ, unless we preach this.. He is the Mediator for all men of the knowledge of God the Father— it is of that knowledge of God on which eternal life depends. You can easily see that on the preaching of Christ vastly more can be said. I only have -touched on the very fringe of it. But I hope I have said enough to show how very important our office and our duty of preaching is. We clergy have to do it and the laity have to see that we that we do. And it is our task to preach Christ. That .is what the world has always needed and it needs it now. I only hope that my few words* have enkindled or awakened your

enthusiasm for this greatest of tasks —to preach Christ, to preach Him who is the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, the Jesus of the New Testament; as the Son of God, powerful and mighty to save, the only Lord, the King of King, the true and only Potentate to whom be the glory, honour and blessing for ever and ever. Amen.