Parables of the Cross Part 2

The reason is this:--that into the being that is ready to let the self-life go, G.o.d the Holy Ghost can come and dwell and work unfettered; and by that indwelling He will manifest within us His wonderful Divine power of communicating vitality--of reproducing the image of Jesus in souls around.

It is true that it is a rule that sometimes has exceptions: there are those to whom a blessed life of fruitfulness to G.o.d comes in a simple way, with seemingly no hard process of dying involved, just as there are plants that reproduce themselves by bulb and tuber, sucker and shoot, without going through the stripping and scattering that we have been watching. But the law of creation is "the herb yielding seed and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself." And let us count it all joy if this law is carried out in us.

"If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Whether it is laid down in toil among the lost, or in travail of soul among His children that Christ be formed in them, either way there will be life brought forth.

It does not follow that every seed will spring up: it is not so in the natural world. The plant's business is to scatter it, not withholding, not knowing which shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good; once scattered, the responsibility is transferred to the ground that receives it. But the aim of the plant--the goal of all the budding and blossoming and ripening--is that every seed should carry potential life.

Thus are we responsible, not for the tangible results of our ministry to others, but for its being a ministry in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, such a ministry as will make those around us definitely responsible to G.o.d for accepting or rejecting the fulness of His salvation. If so, the "signs following" will not be wanting.

It will be to the one the savour of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto life, but "whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, they shall know that there hath been a prophet among them."

But even when the plant's goal is reached, it is not a finality.

"There is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning. Every ultimate fact is only the beginning of a new series."[Footnote*:Emerson]

"While the earth remaineth seed-time and harvest . . . shall not cease."

Life leads on to new death, and new death back to life again. Over and over when we think we know our lesson, we find ourselves beginning another round of G.o.d's Divine spiral: "in deaths oft" is the measure of our growth, "always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh."

This bit of sphagnum shows the process in miniature: stage after stage of dying has been gone through, and each has been all the while crowned with life. Each time that the crown has sunk down again into death, that death has again been crowned in the act of dying: and the life all the time is the apparent thing: the daily dying that underlies it is out of sight to the pa.s.sing glance.

Yes, life is the uppermost, resurrection life, radiant and joyful and strong, for we represent down here Him who liveth and was dead and is alive for evermore. Stress had to be laid in these pages on the death gateway, but a gateway is never a dwelling-place; the death-stage is never meant for our souls to stay and brood over, but to pa.s.s through with a will into the light beyond. We may and must, like the plants, bear its marks, but they should be visible to G.o.d rather than to man, for above all and through all is the inflowing, overflowing life of Jesus: oh let us not dim it by a shadow of morbidness or of gloom: He is not a G.o.d of the dead, but a G.o.d of the living, and He would have us let the glory of His gladness shine out.

Think of the wonder of it--the Fountain of Life Himself wells up within us, taking the place of all that we have delivered, bit by bit, into His grave. "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."

Little have we proved, any of us, the resources that lie in that mighty indwelling, little have we learnt what it is to have all our soul-fibres penetrated by its power. May G.o.d lead us, no matter what the cost, into all that can be known of it, here on earth.

And the results need not end with our earthly days. Should Jesus tarry our works will follow us. The closing in of the signs around us make it seem as if we should not taste of death, and as if the time left us to work and suffer for Him were growing very short; but if that last gate has to be pa.s.sed before our spirits are sent free into the land of perfect life, G.o.d may use, by reason of the wonderful solidarity of His Church, the things that He has wrought in us, for the blessing of souls unknown to us: as these twigs and leaves of bygone years, whose individuality is forgotten, pa.s.s on vitality still to the new-born wood-sorrel. G.o.d only knows the endless possibilities that lie folded in each one of us!

Shall we not let Him have His way? Shall we not go all lengths with Him in His plans for us--not, as these "green things upon the earth"

in their unconsciousness, but with the glory of free choice? Shall we not translate the story of their little lives into our own?

For all their teaching of surrender and sacrifice is no fanciful mysticism; it is a simple reality that can be tested at every turn--nay, that must be so tested. If we are apprehending Christ's death in its delivering power, our homes will not be slow to find it out.

O Jesus the Crucied I will follow Thee in thy path. Inspire me for the next step, whether it leads down into the shadow of death or up into the light. Surely in what place my Lord the King shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be.

Amen.