SERMON IV. CHRIST ON EARTH AND CHRIST IN HEAVEN. (PREACHED AT JERUSALEM IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH ON THE SUNDAY BEFORE ASCENSION DAY, 1853.) JOHN XVI. 28. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. THESE words express, as we all know, what in theological language has been called the union of the two natures, the divine and the human, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. But they also express, what indeed that doctrine itself expresses when turned into practical language, many other thoughts on which it is profitable to dwell; here, as in a thousand other cases, the words of Scripture awakening many thoughts and suggesting many lessons, besides or instead of the single truth which they convey when turned into merely human language. It is the difference between the sight of the actual place and that place known only through descriptions or pictures. The picture or the description may give an accurate representation of the form, the outline, and the colour of the place, as it appeared at the moment when it was described or delineated. But it is only the actual place itself which can catch the lights and shades of the very sky and atmosphere, and which can call up the feelings, the associations, the convictions that are naturally engendered by a recollection of the events that have passed over it. So in the case of the verse I have just quoted; look at it in the light of the time when it was first uttered, and instead of its dimensions contracting they will grow larger and larger. What then was their original object? It was to prepare the Apostles for that greatest of all losses, the loss of the Friend, the Guide, the Comforter, who had been with them for the last three years, on the mountain and the lake, in the city and the desert, in joy and in sorrow. That Presence, which had been to them the life of their life, was to be withdrawn from them. The Cross, the Sepulchre, and lastly the cloud on the hill at Bethany would receive Him out of their sight. Where should they look for the future? how should they look back on the past? To soothe, to elevate the feelings which this great change would occasion, these and many like words in the last discourse were intended. I. First, what they had already enjoyed was theirs for ever; "He had come into the world from the Father." What they had seen, and heard, and handled with their hands of the Word of Life, no future absence could ever tear from their hearts or their memories. The world which had been so blessed to them could never again be what it had been before. It was hallowed in its every part. The light which had been shed upon it would linger yet, for days and years, after the Sun of Righteousness itself had set. They could never again be what they had been before, they could as soon lose the consciousness of their own existence as the recollection of that Divine Master who had dwelt with them so long and so familiarly. But this was only half the truth; He had come into the world from the Father, He had lived as man with man, in the world amongst the children of the world. But He was now to leave the world and go to the Father. Intimate as had been their relations with Him on earth, yet those relations were to cease and to merge into one still higher. He was to leave the world, and be with the Father: He was to be to them what He was to all mankind, to all mankind what He was to themthe Light, the Life of all; no longer in the flesh, but in the spirit; no longer the Man of Sorrows, but the brightness of that glory which He had with the Father before the world was. It is this twofold truth concerning our Lord which formed, if one may so say, the whole character of the Apostles and of Christianity itself. On the one hand the historical and local presence of Christ converted them from fishermen into Apostles, and wrote on their hearts those traits of love and wisdom which are recorded in the Gospels, and which inspire A A the Epistles. But on the other hand it was only when this earthly intercourse was exchanged for a higher and more universal Presence, that their minds were raised above any mere local or outward superstition concerning Him; "thenceforth" (to use the strong expression of S. Paul) "they knew Him no more after the flesh;" He had passed into the heavenly places where He sits at the right hand of God, and their life was hidden with Him in God. II. Such is the most general truth conveyed by these words, especially appropriate at this season when we commemorate the Resurrection and Ascension of the same Jesus Christ our Lord. But the words admit also of more special applications of divers kinds. (1.) We learn what our relation to the world should be, and what it should not be. That world in which He lived and moved, and every relation of which He sanctified by His presence, is not to be despised or neglected by us: "Even the lifeless stone is dear For thought of Him who once lay here: |