The Heavenly in the Earthly

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels.” — 2 Cor. iv. 7.

What treasure? The apostle tells us in the preceding verse; it is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” — it is the treasure of Christian revelation. Why should this revelation be given in earthen vessels? why, indeed, except that thou to whom it is given art of the earth. Would it be well for thee if thou couldst only find Christ away from the earth, if the Divine life could only be revealed to thee when thou thyself wert withdrawn from earthly concerns? Is it not a divinely beautiful thing that Christ should meet thee in the world’s common things, that thou shouldst find the heavenly treasure even in the earthly vessels? Sometimes it has seemed to thee as if to find the heavenly treasure thou wouldst need to retire from the world, to go away into some sequestered spot where the old pursuits and duties and avocations would exist no more. Yet in flying from the earthen vessels thou wouldst be flying from thy treasure. It is not in thy freedom from earthly weakness, earthly contact, earthly struggle, that thou art nearest to the revelation of thy Lord; no, my brother, it is in the weakness, in the struggle, in the contact with earthly things. Art thou in the wilderness of temptation? thou bearest, indeed, an earthen vessel, but it holds for thee a possible treasure of richest, purest gold; there, if thou wilt, thou canst meet the Spirit of Him who foiled the tempter and chose the narrow way. Art thou in the midst of the great thoroughfare where toils the busy crowd, surrounded by its sins and jostled by its sorrows? the vessel is, indeed, of earth, but the treasure is golden; there, if thou wilt, thou canst meet the Spirit of Him who beheld the city and wept over it. Art thou down in the valley of humiliation, bearing in thy heart the burden and the heat brought to thee by the world’s day? thine may there be the costliest of all treasures; for there, if thou wilt, thou canst meet the Spirit of Him who yielded up in Gethsemane His heart to a Father’s will. Would st thou have a revelation of the cross? then must thou take up thine own cross — not an imaginary cross, not a sentimental cross, not a cross in the air, but the common earthen cross that falls to the lot of every man. Thou must take up the little petty cares of daily life, the trivial annoyances that are often worse to bear because they are trivial, the commonplace troubles that await every step of life’s walk and every pressure of life’s contact. Thou must take up, above all, thine own personal cross — that which men call thy weak point, and which thou wouldst gladly exchange for the cross of thy brother; thou must lift it and bear it manfully in the strength of the Son of Man. So shalt thou know Him; thine earthen vessel shall reveal to thee a treasure of revelation, and that which seemed to be the source of thine utmost weakness shall lead thee to the highest goal — the light of the knowledge of God.