Gloria Crucis Part 9

What remains for us to do on this Easter Eve but, with truest penitence, with utter loathing of self, and utter longing for Him Who is our true self, to cast ourselves at the Feet of Christ?

2. But the second thought of Easter Eve is one of boundless hope. But remember, hope can only begin at the Feet of Christ. For Christian hope has evermore its beginning and its ground in humility. We only find safety, comfort, joy, encouragement, as we lie, prostrate in penitence, before our Redeemer. It is clear, is it not, what we mean by all this?

We are, simply and naturally, to kneel before our Lord, and acknowledge to Him all our untruth, all our disloyalty, all the manifold failures of our service. And the very fact that we can do this sincerely and honestly, is the earnest of all good things to come in us. If only we can make this genuine and heartfelt confession, there is no degree of moral recovery beyond our reach.

For on Easter Eve we try to realise once more that greatest of Christian truths, the _power_ of Christ's Resurrection. The power which was manifested in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the power which is universally present in nature and in mind, which is the reality behind all forces of nature, which all forces reveal. It has been finely said, that "the opening of a rose-bud and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are facts of the same order, for they are equally manifestations of the one force which is the motive power of all phenomena."

We see that power in the glories of the opening spring; we are conscious of it in ourselves, in every good resolve, every upward aspiration. There comes to us the inspiring thought, that the physical and the moral Resurrection alike, in nature, in ourselves, in Jesus Christ, are different manifestations of one and the same power. Was the Resurrection of the Lord a mighty fact, the greatest of all the facts of history, a transcendent and astonishing miracle? The power which wrought it is in me; the same wondrous fact, the same stupendous miracle, if I will, may be accomplished in me.

That was the very meaning of my Christian calling--that "as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father," so I, by the self-same power, might be raised from the death of sin, and enabled "to walk in newness of life." The Death, the Burial, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are not merely historical facts, external to me: they are meant to be spiritual facts in my own experience, in the experience of all Christians. And spiritual facts are beyond measure greater in value and meaning and influence than those historical facts which happened in s.p.a.ce and time, in order to serve as signs and symbols of the inward and eternal realities.

So let us come to our Easter Communion, not only in the spirit of penitence, but in the spirit of undying and unconquerable hope. There is no limit to that which the power of G.o.d, symbolised, embodied externally, in the Resurrection, may effect within us, in the region of our moral and spiritual life. Or rather, there is no limit to the exercise of the Divine power, save that which we ourselves impose upon it, by our failure to correspond with it. Now as ever it is true, true of the work of G.o.d's grace upon our souls, as of the healing power of Christ over the bodies of men, that "according to our faith" it shall be done to us.

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.

PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

FOOTNOTES

{0} Some of them also in the Parish Church of Colton, Staffordshire.