Jesus Is Risen
♦’ And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy:’
Matthew xxviii. 8.
ESUS died and was buried on the preparation,
the day before the Sabbath. The darkness
that covered all the land passed away before
he died; but the darkness that hung on his disciples’ hearts did not clear away till after he was risen. Their hope was buried with him in his grave; but it rose with him from the grave again. That Sabbath was a dark day for the followers of the Crucified. When the Sabbath and the week were ended, and the dawn of the first day approached, the two Marys set out together and climbed the hill to see the sepulchre. Mark, they did not expect to see Jesus, dead or living. They knew that the great stone covered the mouth of the cave; but they will “go and look upon the place where the Lord lies. Love will not give an account of its ways. It is a great instinct that rules the life, and it will take its own course. To -o and stand near the spot at dawn, when there will be none to observe them, and look upon the stone and weep, — this is what these women will do, and nothing can keep them from it.
As they approached the spot, the earth shook. It was not an earthquake of the ordinary kind. It was a ministering angel that alighted on the earth, and made it shake in order to shake the stone away, that these two seekers might see that the tomb was empty.
The countenance of the angel was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. This bears close resemblance to the appearance of the Lord when he was transfigured on the mountain. I have observed that when princes appear in state, their attendants are arrayed in robes that are like their own. The glorious apparel of a prince’strain is understood to shed lustre on the prince. All the angels of God worship him, and here a messenger going the errands of the Crucified is arrayed in a glory borrowed from his own.
The keepers — Roman soldiers — trembled; but the angel, passing them over unnoticed, said to the women, “Fear not YE, for I know that ye seek Jesus.” Blessed word; and it holds good to-day. There is no fear to them that seek Jesus. Seek, and ye shall find. “Jesus which was crucified.” Already in that word there was the beginning of hope. It was dawm on the hill in a double sense — “WAS crucified.” The past tense already prepared the way for a more articulate message: “He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
JESUS IS RISEAr. ,5^^
Redemption was now wrought; the next step in the eternal counsel is to get it proclaimed. Both at tlic fu’st and the last points of Christ’s life on earth angelic messengers are needed. His incarnation was a new thinr in the world: it was God’s visit to men. When it is made known on the earth, men will be employed to spread it over the earth; but there is a first promulgation of the fact, for which men are not competent. Angels brought down the tidings of his birth, and angels brought down the tidings of his resurrection; but when they reached the earth, the tidings spread from man to man, and will so spread until the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
The message by the angel is given to women, and the women were directed to carry it to the disciples. When it reaches them, it will spread; for they have been trained, and will soon be commissioned to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
Angels to the women on Calvary; the women to the twelve; the twelve to the world. So the fiery cross was carried from mountain-ridge to mountain-ridge; one bearer laying it down, and another taking it up, until it had summoned all the clan to the standard of the chief.
The false message which brought sin into the world and all our woe was given first to woman, and by her was communicated to the man. The resurrection of the Lord — the healing of that early death wound — was communicated in the same way. From an angel to woman, and from woman to man, and from man to the world 16o JESUS IS RISEN.
came death. From an evil angel, through the link of woman to mankind, the evil tidings spread and covered the earth. From a good angel to women, and from women to men, and from men to the world, came life — the life of the world.
Through woman came the Word, the Word who was made flesh and dwelt among us, — God’s message and meaning to our race. And it pleased the Father also to employ woman to break the news of his resurrection to his disciples, and so supply apostles with the theme of their preaching, — and so supply apostles with the lever whereby they might raise a fallen world.
It is not much preaching that we get from angels’ lips; but there is a little here, and that little very precious. The commission he brought and laid on the two Marys was, “Go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead;” and in order to prepare them for obeying, he said first to them, “Fear not ye.” One who is overwhelmed in spirit by despair is not well fitted to run express on any mission: “A broken spirit who can bear?” You may have observed that when your heart was heavy your knees were feeble. The joy of the Lord is the strencth for runninq; the errands of the Lord. Accordingly the angel gave their spirits the cordial before he imposed the race upon their limbs.
Besides exhorting them not to fear, he gave them ground to bear their joy: “The Lord is not here; he is risen.” The angel knew his part well, for the whole theory of missions is here. To invite the messenger first yESUS IS RISEN. 16 1
near, that himself may know that the Lord is risen, and his own soul rejoice in the living Saviour, — this it is that will qualify him for going quickly to bring word to the disciples, or to the world, of the resurrection of Christ.
Mark how much the angel makes of the resurrection. In his theology, that is the article of a standing or a falling Church. It would appear that the words “Jesus is risen” are the first and the second and the third articles of the angelic creed. It is this that he imparts first of all to the women, in order to cheer their hearts and sustain them in their mission; then when he sends them away, the message he puts in their mouths is still the same thing: Tell his disciples that Jesus is risen.
To the end — as long as the preaching of the gospel lasts — all effective evangelization proceeds in this way.
‘* The Lord is risen “is at once the hope that sustains the preacher’s heart in secret, and dwells upon the preacher’s lips in the great assembly. The resurrection of Christ is at once the tidings he proclaims, and the confidence for himself that enables him to proclaim it. As all the rivers run into the sea before our sight, precisely because all the rivers run out of the sea unseen in the mysteries of nature; so all the missionaries pour out the cry upon the world, “The Lord is risen,” because for themselves in secret the resurrection of the Lord is the day-star arisen in their hearts.
“They did run to bring the disciples word.” It was the word within them that impelled them to hasten. It
(512) 1 1 was the word in their heart that made them run with the word on their hps.
They were wound up ere they came to the sepulchre. Their spirits were on the utmost stretch of desire and love; but the angel’s message was a mighty weight that set all the machinery of their being in motion. When these erave Oriental women turned down the hill in the direction of the city, they quickened their pace until, without a word to each other, they simultaneously broke into a race. The act was not ordinary: it would be accounted strange. I delight to see a meaning in their act; I delight to interpret its meaning to myself, placing it under the light of the completed gospel. I find in it much instruction and reproof
For once, — and the variety may be useful, — instead of gathering our lessons from the words of the Lord and his witnesses, let us gather them to-day from the act of the two Marys on that Sabbath morning, as they left the empty tomb behind and made their way toward the city: “They did run to bring the disciples word.”
I detect a grand key-note here. It is not only the message carefully learned and correctly told; it is not only the faithful witness-bearing, whatever danger may be incurred. Over and above all this, there is an eagerness, an enthusiasm, and a haste in bearing the message of redemption, which are in keeping with the case, and mark the conduct of true disciples in all places and at all times.
The King’s business requireth haste. This is strictly natural; it is a universal law. All great tidings travel quickly, whether they be glad or grievous. The velocity of great news is proverbial, and the manner of the race is mysterious. Before the telegraph was invented, great victories and great defeats travelled over continents and reached those most interested, in ways that have never been completely explained. Although we may not be able to point out the details in each case, we can indicate the general law. It is here: the tidings were very great; they were charged with life from the dead for the world; it was an instinct irrepressible in those who knew them to break into a run, in order to bear them soon to those whom they concerned.
When the tidings are great, and real, and felt, the message-bearer runs with them. When the women told the disciples, the disciples published them to the world; and the apostles did at their stage what the women did on theirs, — they ran with the news. Read the Acts of the Apostles. See the track of the Apostle of the Gentiles across the nations. It is like the track of the sun in the heavens, — he runs his race, and he runs it rejoicing.
There was a long blank in the middle ages. The message was lost, and the messengers did not run. There was no haste, for they had let go the King’s great business, the resurrection-life of Christ. Instead of the angel’s method, leading the seekers to the place where the Lord lay, to show it empty, — instead of fixing the spiritual sight on the Redeemer exalted, they contrived a show which persuaded people they had still his body within their reach. They forgot his resurrection to die no more, and made a multitude of mimic sacrifices, pretending that each was the crucified body of the Lord in the hands of the priest and in the lips of the penitent. This was no such message as to compel people to run with. The Lord Jesus, who had been dead, now alive for evermore, — this is the burden of the Lord which the apostles bore, and the possession of which compelled them to bear it over all the earth. “Woe is me, if I preach not the gospel!”
There were some great heavings in Europe during those middle ages, and some great expeditions undertaken in the name of Christ. There was death, but not death’s stillness. The Crusades were great impulses and great outgoings, — not one or two, but great armies went forth with a message to the dark regions of the East. But, ah, how different! They bore not the word that the Lord had risen: they bore fire and sword. ‘’ My kingdom,” said Christ, “is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.” It was “of this world” the message that the crusaders bore.
The age was dark; the people were blind; they went off the line. Conceive the difference between an engine with its train shooting along the valley with its pillar of white cloud trailing behind to mark its path and speed, and the same engine, off the line, plunging and hissing in a morass. Such is the difference between the early disciples, who knew the living Lord, and lived themselves in the Lord, and those carnal multitudes who with carnal weapons surged over Europe to place a dead Christ, — a name, — upon the throne of an earthly Jerusalem.
With this century the true tidings began again to be a burden of the Lord in the hearts of those who had heard the joyful sound. Carey, and Judson, and Martyn, and Brainerd, and many others, got visions of the empty sepulchre,^ — got knowledge that the Lord is risen, — got their own soul’s life hidden in the risen Lord. Forthwith they are constrained to spread the news: they “will depart quickly from the sepulchre,” — they break into a run, and make way across the nations to tell that the Lord hath risen indeed.
There was a conflict. The night was annoyed at the dawn. The darkness raged and attempted to extinguish the light. Everywhere the contest raged. The civil authorities in Lidia refused to allow the first missionaries to settle on the soil: the missionaries took refuge on Dutch territory, and thence conveyed their message to the continent. In the General Assembly of the Scottish Church at Edinburgh, men who officiated in the pulpit, but who had not discovered that the Lord is risen, demonstrated that the heathen were an interesting and contented people, and that it was wise to let them alone in their picturesque worship and innocent ways. Others arose and quickly left the sepulchre, having discovered that the Lord is risen: they went themselves, or if too old for that, stirred up others to go into all the world and publish the good tidings.
I know not any life, since the apostles’ days, that more completely embodies the idea of rimning to bring word to the world that Christ has risen, than the life of William Burns. I knew him personally, when I was his fellow-student, soon after his own heart had taken in the tidings. I knew him in his ministry in Scotland. I stood beside him when he published the tidings to the Roman Catholics in Canada. I have heard of him when he penetrated into the very heart of China, to deposit his burden there. His life, from the day that he knew the risen Lord, was one 7nin with the good tidings to the whole world; and now the breathless runner has completed his course, and been admitted into rest.
Some bright gleams are now clearing through the darkness, — some symptoms begin to appear that the runners have not run in vain. In some districts of India the fastenings of idolatry begin to give way. Glad news have been echoed back from the island of Madagascar. The government has deliberately and solemnly brought out the royal idols and cast them into the flames, and declared on the side of Christianity. In Africa and China also there are proofs that the missionaries have not run in vain. The Lord whom they serve will provide.
This haste is not limited in its outgoings to those who are far off, or who have a dark skin. The haste belongs to the heart that has the message. It cannot lie still.
In the wars of the Scottish clans, if the burning brand was brought by a panting messenger and laid down at a clansman’s door, it was a point of honour and allegiance yESUS IS RISEN. 167
that he should seize it and carry it on. It is thus with the bearing on of the word that Christ has risen. Run with it to them that are far off, and to them that are nigh.
There is need of haste in this business. Bring it quickly to the young, in order that their path through this world may be in the sunlight, and not in the gloom of night.
Bring it quickly to the old, that they may have peace in their latter end. Haste with the word “Christ has risen,” to all, that the course of life may be happy, and the end of life safe.
The word means that Christ lives, — that he is in the eternal world: and the edge of it is very near us, — as near us now as the sea is near the margin of the land. The Lord is in that land, — is touching the life of this land. So, that when his disciple thinks of being led over, it is “to depart and to be with Christ.”