1925
Easter's Revelation Has Opened New Vistas
Natural Science Silent in the Presence of the Great Belief and Expectation
Easter brings completion to the sciences!
All the secular sciences conduct man as far as death, and there they stop. The door of the tomb is a wall, tall, strong and insurmountable by them. Geology, geography, astronomy, chemistry, physiology, biology and its other divisions bring us on, with an always increasing precision, to an understanding of life's functions and activities, up to that point. There they drop us, for beyond death natural science has not learned to travel. It has no formulae to express anything on the other side of the closed door of death.
And after much bruising of brain, and vain beating of hands against that obstacle, it confesses itself beaten, it has come to an impasse, it declares that because it cannot pass, that there is no passage, nothing beyond — the tomb is the end of all!
Either that, or it accepts the Easter miracle — as it must, if it will be fair towards evidence, towards historical revelation and towards theology, "the queen of all the sciences" — and acknowledges that Easter's revelation crowns all human knowledge, and opens before it new, endless vistas for exploration and future progress.
It would be a sorry conclusion to all science if it brought us only to an ending in the corruption, the annihilation of death. And an unsatisfactory ending! For the great majority of mankind never has, and never will believe that the closed tomb ends everything! Life here is too full of inequalities to make that just! The analogies in nature, which find no definite ending for anything else but life, help to prove it untrue! And justness and truth are the keystones upon which natural science builds up all its theories to arrive at ultimate fact.
Science, which is perhaps the projection of the ripest and best of humanity, needs Easter.
For Science cannot avert death! Men live to their threescore and ten, or beyond that for a few years of labor and sorrow, as they did in the Psalmist's days, before science had traveled very far along the roads of development. But since Easter rolled away the wall from the tomb, science may now claim to bring men onto the threshold of a new and glorified life, the resurrection life. The tomb is now but an episode in lives which were — always were — immortal.
Easter shows the tomb is open on the other side from us — open onto a new garden of Edenic soul life, the Paradise of God. And someday it is to open on our side also, and let those blessedly resting ones out into renewed bodily life, which cannot be bound between a birth and a death.
For one man actually, undeniably went through the tomb into that Paradise, and came back at Easter with an everlasting, undying body!
Just as the little crocus looks up stiff and straight, as a prophecy that all the temporarily dead bulbs and roots and seeds will arise in their own time.
Science teaches the imperishability of matter, and it is true logically endowed when, advancing a step, it teaches also the immortality of man.
Then there is but another step onward, to a grateful acknowledgment of the truth taught by the well attested fact of the Resurrection, that as He rose so shall all our dead also arise at the great Easter, which shall fulfill the promise of all the Springs!
It is the mission of the Church, which is His body here and now to complete the thus inspired teaching of the natural sciences, and show us that everyone who really desires so to do may spend eternity along with its King and Owner, after the last Easter has opened forever the tomb of death! — Montreal Family Herald.
Showing posts with label tomb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tomb. Show all posts
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Monday, May 7, 2007
The First Easter
1917
Rosily dawned the day in the far east. On the shore the cool waves broke gently, fluttering foamy drops on the yellow sand. Away from the rocky stretches of green, lilies bloomed slender and tall, while with cups curving to catch the errant little breeze which carried their sweetness beyond the hills. In the stony crevices wild flowers glinted out from dew wet leaves. Half hidden by pale lily blooms, a dark stone guarded the entrance to a cave among the rocks.
Early in the dawning Sabbath glow, two women, gentle voiced and sorrowing, came slowly down a flowered path, bearing in their arms perfumed napkins and precious spices in carved boxes. They were clad in flowing gray garments, and their heads were bent in meek weeping.
As they drew nearer to the lily sentineled tomb, the one who walked ahead raised her eyes, dark with pain, to the open doorway, and quick wonder lighted their depths, and she turned, whispering: "Ah! Mary Magdalene, the stone already is rolled away. He hath done this thing."
With eager steps they left the growing day and entered the darkened sepulcher. But as they went they saw two angels seated at the tomb, two men with strong, glorified faces and glad, bright eyes, and their robes were bright as if the sunlight were shining through. The two Marys paused, startled, awed by the great light.
Then the mother of Christ knelt low and wept but a voice thrillingly tender called to her saying, "Woman, why weepest thou?"
And she lifted her eyes at the words and answered softly, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him."
But the voice came again, glad and full of rejoicing: "Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified He is not here, for he is risen!"
Wondering, the mother gazed, her starry eyes searching the brightened sepulcher. Then she rose and walked with Mary Magdalene from the place.
Descending the path in the golden sunlight, her gray robes brushed against the uplifted flowers, dew flecked, wondrous sweet. Stooping, she bent her head to the shining lilies "Live," she murmured, "as expression of the divine beauty of the Son of Man, as examples of his wondrous mercy and boundless love and as the symbol of his resurrection. Henceforth you shall be the flower of purity and spiritual beauty of the holy Easter day, of the great new life which floods the earth through the power of the Son of God." — Patricia Gray in Philadelphia North American.
Rosily dawned the day in the far east. On the shore the cool waves broke gently, fluttering foamy drops on the yellow sand. Away from the rocky stretches of green, lilies bloomed slender and tall, while with cups curving to catch the errant little breeze which carried their sweetness beyond the hills. In the stony crevices wild flowers glinted out from dew wet leaves. Half hidden by pale lily blooms, a dark stone guarded the entrance to a cave among the rocks.
Early in the dawning Sabbath glow, two women, gentle voiced and sorrowing, came slowly down a flowered path, bearing in their arms perfumed napkins and precious spices in carved boxes. They were clad in flowing gray garments, and their heads were bent in meek weeping.
As they drew nearer to the lily sentineled tomb, the one who walked ahead raised her eyes, dark with pain, to the open doorway, and quick wonder lighted their depths, and she turned, whispering: "Ah! Mary Magdalene, the stone already is rolled away. He hath done this thing."
With eager steps they left the growing day and entered the darkened sepulcher. But as they went they saw two angels seated at the tomb, two men with strong, glorified faces and glad, bright eyes, and their robes were bright as if the sunlight were shining through. The two Marys paused, startled, awed by the great light.
Then the mother of Christ knelt low and wept but a voice thrillingly tender called to her saying, "Woman, why weepest thou?"
And she lifted her eyes at the words and answered softly, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him."
But the voice came again, glad and full of rejoicing: "Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified He is not here, for he is risen!"
Wondering, the mother gazed, her starry eyes searching the brightened sepulcher. Then she rose and walked with Mary Magdalene from the place.
Descending the path in the golden sunlight, her gray robes brushed against the uplifted flowers, dew flecked, wondrous sweet. Stooping, she bent her head to the shining lilies "Live," she murmured, "as expression of the divine beauty of the Son of Man, as examples of his wondrous mercy and boundless love and as the symbol of his resurrection. Henceforth you shall be the flower of purity and spiritual beauty of the holy Easter day, of the great new life which floods the earth through the power of the Son of God." — Patricia Gray in Philadelphia North American.
The Empty Tomb
1917
Resurrection of Jesus Meant the Unfolding of the Purest Things of Life
When the angel pointed to the stone rolled away from the of the sepulcher and invited inspection of the empty tomb, what a magnificent allegory for life was written to the scrolls of humanity! Life is lived in action, say they who lay emphasis upon the strenuous life. But what action? The action of the ideal, the action of the parable of human existence. Erase the parables of beauty and lore and of love and service from the experiences of mortals, and religion vanishes and life loses its appeals to the higher aspirations and life's service becomes sordid and unworthy. The allegory of the empty tomb is the tremendous contribution of the resurrection to the life of humanity. It is inspiring to dwell upon a risen Lord. It is even more inspiring to dwell upon a risen life — the aggregate life Of hoping and struggling and effortful humanity. Civilization sits at the tomb of the divinest of men and with its mystical loom it weaves into the resurrection of Jesus the theme of advance and unfolding of the purest things of human life.
The dark fates that had cut the thread of the mortal life of the one who served a brief ministry of word and deed among his fellows, at the same time released the mechanism of almightiness. The human passed that the divine might be revealed. The mortal was lost in the immortal. The world has attestation to the limitlessness of life and therefore the illimitable reach of the divinest of its aspirations and endeavors. The risen Christ is adored because he is risen. Had he simply suffered he would have been pathetic. Ennobling as suffering is in triumph, it is useless to defeat. Jesus Christ did not simply suffer — he triumphed. This is the need of the ages and of all time and of all life. It is needful for men that they shall triumph over the deadening facts of materiality. It is necessary that they shall triumph over the cabining and cramping confines of mortal existence. It is necessary that they shall have the horizon of their soul's meaning made coterminous with the expanse of love and of hope and of faith. It is necessary that there shall be fulfillment to life and not an ending of it. It is important above all things that the drama of existence shall not close in a tragedy. The world would have flung the divine claims of Jesus Christ to the winds of sophistry and contempt had he not arisen from the tomb and confirmed the faith of his fellows in the power of the life that he lived in the flesh to abide after the flesh had been impaled by the darts of death.
Let those who would contrive or contest the resurrection take a petal from the lilies of pure ideals that blossomed by the tomb of the Savior. Let those who will enter into discussion as to the scientific aspect of the great Easter occasion — the world is redolent with its glory. Mankind rejoices in its liberty. Humanity is exalted by the vistas of infinity that lay outside the tomb from whose door was rolled away the sealed stone. Life is the one great theme of mankind. Death is an anachronism. Fulfillment, rejoicing, power, strength and endurance, these are the qualities that belong to the risen life — the life spiritual. For only as the announcement was made of the risen Jesus Christ from the dead was there opened to man's range of the ages the spiritual realities this side of the grave and the immortal heritage on the other side.
Resurrection of Jesus Meant the Unfolding of the Purest Things of Life
When the angel pointed to the stone rolled away from the of the sepulcher and invited inspection of the empty tomb, what a magnificent allegory for life was written to the scrolls of humanity! Life is lived in action, say they who lay emphasis upon the strenuous life. But what action? The action of the ideal, the action of the parable of human existence. Erase the parables of beauty and lore and of love and service from the experiences of mortals, and religion vanishes and life loses its appeals to the higher aspirations and life's service becomes sordid and unworthy. The allegory of the empty tomb is the tremendous contribution of the resurrection to the life of humanity. It is inspiring to dwell upon a risen Lord. It is even more inspiring to dwell upon a risen life — the aggregate life Of hoping and struggling and effortful humanity. Civilization sits at the tomb of the divinest of men and with its mystical loom it weaves into the resurrection of Jesus the theme of advance and unfolding of the purest things of human life.
The dark fates that had cut the thread of the mortal life of the one who served a brief ministry of word and deed among his fellows, at the same time released the mechanism of almightiness. The human passed that the divine might be revealed. The mortal was lost in the immortal. The world has attestation to the limitlessness of life and therefore the illimitable reach of the divinest of its aspirations and endeavors. The risen Christ is adored because he is risen. Had he simply suffered he would have been pathetic. Ennobling as suffering is in triumph, it is useless to defeat. Jesus Christ did not simply suffer — he triumphed. This is the need of the ages and of all time and of all life. It is needful for men that they shall triumph over the deadening facts of materiality. It is necessary that they shall triumph over the cabining and cramping confines of mortal existence. It is necessary that they shall have the horizon of their soul's meaning made coterminous with the expanse of love and of hope and of faith. It is necessary that there shall be fulfillment to life and not an ending of it. It is important above all things that the drama of existence shall not close in a tragedy. The world would have flung the divine claims of Jesus Christ to the winds of sophistry and contempt had he not arisen from the tomb and confirmed the faith of his fellows in the power of the life that he lived in the flesh to abide after the flesh had been impaled by the darts of death.
Let those who would contrive or contest the resurrection take a petal from the lilies of pure ideals that blossomed by the tomb of the Savior. Let those who will enter into discussion as to the scientific aspect of the great Easter occasion — the world is redolent with its glory. Mankind rejoices in its liberty. Humanity is exalted by the vistas of infinity that lay outside the tomb from whose door was rolled away the sealed stone. Life is the one great theme of mankind. Death is an anachronism. Fulfillment, rejoicing, power, strength and endurance, these are the qualities that belong to the risen life — the life spiritual. For only as the announcement was made of the risen Jesus Christ from the dead was there opened to man's range of the ages the spiritual realities this side of the grave and the immortal heritage on the other side.
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