Lester Start’s Works

1Disciples of Christ Today

Lester Start

Text: These twelve Jesus sent forth. Matthew 10:6.

I wonder how many of you have experienced that feeling I have in reading the New Testament, the feeling that so many of the stories are not finished. Certain characters appear on the pages of the Scripture for only a brief instant and then vanish into oblivion. We catch tiny snatches of events through casual references, but the intriguing stories are sometimes never finished. For example, you all remember the story of the rich young ruler who came to our Lord and asked Him what he must do to inherit eternal life. And Jesus answering him said, “thou knowest the commandments.” And the ruler replied, “these have I kept from my youth up.” Then Jesus said, “there is still something which you lack. Sell all your goods and give to the poor; then you will have treasure in heaven.” We are told that the young ruler became very sad when he heard this, for his wealth was great. But we are not told what the young man did. Was his love for his money too great to let him follow Jesus, or did he obey the command and put his trust in heavenly treasures? Here was a good man, eager for the truth of the Spirit; we cannot help but feel a profound sympathy for him in his problem - but we are left in the dark as to his decision, and can only guess the results. And what happened to that man called Simon of Cyrene, the man who carried the cross for Jesus up the hill called Golgotha? How did this experience affect him? Tradition has it that he became a leader in the early church, but the Gospels leave us in the dark as to his fate.

There is no need to cite more examples - they are all too familiar to require mention. As we read the Bible, we find many brief references that are never completed, and in order to make them complete we must rely upon our wits and imagination to read between the lines and to fit the tiny pieces together into an intelligible whole. When we come to examine the lives of the disciples, we run squarely into this problem. The few references we have do not give us a clear picture of the nature of these men. Some of them are merely mentioned by name. And yet it is important to know just what kind of men these disciples were who were to become the intimate companions of our Lord for these men formed the springboard for the early Christian movement. To get a picture of them, we must examine carefully, even the casual references to them; and as we do so, we find them emerging as individuals.

What kind of men did Jesus choose? What were their qualifications? Let us pretend that we here, all of us, form a nominating committee to examine the candidates for Jesus’ discipleships. We will examine the qualifications of each very carefully, bring up everything we know about them and see if we can discover what kind of men Jesus wanted with Him. It’s always fun to be on a committee of the sort, one which investigates people and digs up all sorts of information that the candidates would just as soon leave hidden.

As we look them over, they don’t seem to be a particularly impressive looking lot. They all look like fishermen, hard workers; and I don’t think any of them has been to a theological school. There is one, though, who doesn’t look like the others. He is very well dressed and looks as if he has a lot of money. His name is Matthew. Let’s see about his qualifications. His past experience? Present occupation? Why he’s one of those publicans, one of those tax collectors for the Romans, who pays the government a certain amount for the privilege of collecting taxes from the Jews. And if he doesn’t get enough to suit him, he invents new taxes. He doesn’t seem a likely candidate. No one would accept him. He is disowned by the Jews, and is just an ancient Quisling for the Roman rulers. He’s probably a good businessman, and knows how to make money, but hardly a fit companion for Jesus.

Let’s examine another. There’s one here who is quite a mathematician, one of those matter of fact men who know what everything costs. He’s the sort of fellow you can depend upon to figure out what the Sunday school picnic will cost. He can estimate how much bread it will take to feed a multitude if no one eats too much, with just a little figuring. Philip is his name. A good practical man, but with absolutely no imagination and very little faith. Do you think he will qualify?

Here’s another fellow almost like him. He’s a sort of Palestinian man from Missouri. He won’t believe a thing unless he’s shown that it’s true. He believes seeing is believing, and he doesn’t see too well. He’s a moody, gloomy sort of fellow too; always pessimistic and sure he will meet misfortunes. He is a pretty dogged chap, once he gets hold of an idea, but it seems that he might be capable of doubting even the Master. Will Thomas do as a disciple?

There’s another fellow, older than the rest, who is candidating. Getting bald now-only a few patches of hair left clinging like reluctant patches of snow after a spring thaw. His age is against him, of course. If we want a doctor, we want one with lots of experience; if we need a lawyer, we want one who has won lots of cases and maybe knows a few judges; but if we want someone in the church, he must be young, the younger the better. This fellow may have old-fashioned ideas. Aside from this, they say he’s an awful tightwad - objects to spending a penny. He’d be a good one to hold the funds, but he would be sure to object to spending anything; if someone wanted to honor Jesus by pouring perfume over him, Judas would probably say “That might have been sold for a good price”. I don’t know that we can trust Judas.

There is a pair from the same family, John and James, the sons of Zebedee. They’re likely looking candidates-fishermen, if you will, but very successful ones. They have the best boat on the lake, and always know where the fish are biting. They’re an ambitious pair. Did you notice their nicknames? They’re called the sons of thunder, and no wonder. They aren’t at all backward about tooting their own horns. If we choose them they would want to be promised seats at the right hand of God.

We aren’t doing so well so far. Let’s try another. There is one here called Simon the Zealot. He might qualify if he weren’t so fiery tempered. But these zealots are fanatic patriots; they can’t stand the sight of Romans in Judea. This Simon is sure to cause trouble; he’d be likely to chop someone’s ear off if he became angry. Hardly a fit companion for Jesus.

There are some others to examine, Peter and Andrew, Nathaniel, Thaddaeus and another James. Good men in their way, but they all have their faults. None of them is outstanding really; they’re just a group of ordinary fishermen after all. If it were our duty to nominate these candidates, we would probably want to look around for more promising ones. These do not seem fit company for our Lord. Instead of being perfect God-like men, following the will of God in all that they do, they seem to be the ordinary run-of-the-mill kind of men that you would find anywhere. They are like you and me; they have their good points, but they are certainly far from perfect, far, far below the example of Jesus.

2

These were the kind of men the disciples were. Imperfect, ordinary, openly sinners in the sight of God. We would hardly choose them as disciples, but the important point is this: Jesus did. He did not look around the land for the Doctors of Divinity, the Pharisees, nor did he hunt up the pious mystics and the saints. He chose the imperfect ones, the sinners, the very ones that would seem unqualified, the publicans and sinners, for these had need of the message of Jesus. Their souls were thirsting for the water he might give them.

Think what this great act means to us today. If Jesus himself chose the ordinary man to be his intimate companion, then there is hope for us, for you and me. Just as Matthew and Thomas could find room in the all embracing love of Jesus, so can we today turn to Jesus and know that He will receive us, even as the father of the lost son received him. For this is one of the great teachings of Jesus, that all men are worthy of good. The kingdom of God does not work on a merit system. Each individual life is sacred in the sight of God.

The early enemies of Christianity criticized the religion for the very reason that it drew to itself the lowly, and humble, the uneducated and outcast. But Jesus taught blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. He was the champion of the common men, and knew they had the potentialities for greatness if only given a chance. The story is told that when the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, first outlined his plans to interested churchmen, he was discouraged in his ambitions. “Your plans are very fine”, he was told; “there is a crying need for the reforms you anticipate. Those who need the church most never get to it; the church must come to them. But ministers cannot leave churches for that; who will do the work?” And William Booth pointed to the throngs crowding the pubs in the London slums and said “These will be my ministers when they have been made men through the help of Christ”. And it is through men like these that the Salvation Army was built. William Booth had learned the lesson that Jesus taught long ago. All men are valuable in the sight of God; even those who have become degraded can find hope in Christ, for he calls even the sinners to be with him.

One of the greatest tragedies that comes with war is the destruction of this ideal of the sacredness of all human life. The title of a recent bestseller puts the new attitude quite succinctly, the title which states, ” They Were Expendable”. This idea strikes an unpleasant chord in our minds as we think of it not so much because the soldiers described had to be sacrificed for the sake of the large body of their comrades, but because in the necessities of war men must be used as pawns on a chess board, and treated as we treat inanimate objects. Forced by grim necessity we forget the value of these lives and become callous to the fearful carnage going on. Our magazines and newspapers and motion pictures are doing us service through their pictures and stories of the war to get us used to what war means in terms of death and destruction.

It does not take long, however, for the initial horror to wear off and be replaced by a resigned callousness that life is pretty cheap after all. This is a natural attitude to take because it is a reflex mechanism in the face of an unpleasant prospect. But it is a dangerous attitude, for it enables us to view calmly the slaughter of innocents, and serves to make us forget our moral responsibilities to do all in our power to change the conditions which breed wars so that these men do not die in vain. We cannot be indifferent to our responsibilities; and it is our responsibility to keep alive the ideals so many are dying for, the right for all men to be free in the sight of God.

There was once a Chinese convert to Christianity, whose name was Lo. As he was studying the Bible one day he came across that great verse at the end of the Gospel of Matthew and read, “lo I am with you alway”. Lo got a great deal of comfort out of this verse and he thought it strange and wonderful that Jesus knew his name and was speaking to him personally. We can smile at Lo’s simple faith, but when we think about it, we must admit that Lo was right. Jesus was speaking to him personally, just as he speaks with all of men, and says, “come, follow me”. Every life is precious in the sight of God, and the message of Jesus is directed to all of us.

Jesus knew the depths and heights in the soul and mind of man. He knew the potentialities that every man holds locked in the secret chambers of his heart. And Jesus gives us the key to unlock these abilities, the vision to raise our eyes from the dust to the stars. So far as the world is concerned - “full many a gem of purest ray serene the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air”. But for Jesus, no man is unseen in the eyes of the eternal, and he tells each and every one of us, as he told his disciples “I am with you always”.

It is inspiring to learn as we study the lives of the disciples that Jesus wanted the ordinary man with him, that he considered all men valuable in the sight of God. But more important to learn is what the companionship of Christ meant to the people who knew him. One cannot read the pages of the New Testament and not feel the tremendous influence which Jesus exerted on the lives of those about him. Through his spirit, these ordinary men became surcharged with the power of God, which completely transformed the direction and meaning of their lives. They became new men as all their energies were focused by the power of Jesus and swept toward God. The tremendous power of Jesus seized them and in spite of their past weaknesses made them fit to be called the sons of God. As the wind seizes the sails of a ship and sweeps it onward, so the mighty power of the Spirit transformed these men and carried them in the path of Jesus.

When that great evangelist Moody was holding a series of meetings in London, a young medical student attracted by the crowd entered the hall out of curiosity. But when he left his life had been changed; for the first time he understood the summons of Christ and was ready to follow Him. A few days later, one of his fellow students smilingly questioned him on his changed attitude. “I understand you got religion the other night”, he sneered. “No, my friend,” the young man replied, “I didn’t get religion; religion got me.” Religion, the power of God, did get this young man, and surcharged him with a spirit that carried him on to a great life of service to mankind. For this young man was to become the famous Dr. Grenfell whose work in Labrador is a living proof of the power of the Spirit.

When Jesus was crucified, it looked as if the disturbances stirred up by him were at an end. What movement can continue when its leader has been put out of the way? But the cross, the symbol for defeat, became the symbol of triumph for the Spirit of Christ lived on in the lives of his disciples enabling to spread the teachings of Jesus and establish the tiny societies which became our Christian Church. All their energies became God directed in the common aim to show their conviction that Jesus was not dead.

How does this Spirit work in man? The operation of an electromagnet furnishes a helpful illustration. An electromagnet consists of a core of soft iron around which is a coil of insulated wire. As electrical power flows through the wire, the iron becomes a powerful magnet. The secret of this new power lies in the fact that the current so influences the arrangement of the molecules that they point all in the same direction, while without the current they point in different directions. Only as the countless molecules point in one direction does the iron gain the power of the magnet, and it is the electrical power which creates this unity.

So our lives gain the power of the Spirit when through the influence of Christ our lives become focused and point in one direction, toward God. A great thinker once said “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” As all our energies and thoughts point toward God, then the power of the Spirit may flow through our lives and we become new creatures, transformed by the surging power which comes from God.

This is the message of the Lenten season which we find as we study the influence of Jesus. God cares for all men, even those who are imperfect and through the Spirit of His Son we become transformed and made worthy to be called the Sons of God.

1WHAT EVERY FARMER KNOWS

Gal 6:7. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.

Introduction. The farmers know. that the fruits they reap depend. upon the seed they plant. The fruits will not result without tee roots from which they grow. Note parable of soils; Jesus’ use of farm knowledge to illustrate his teachings. How we sow is important in our general life as it is in running a farm.

I The Importance of the seed, as motive and direction.

The child is father of the man. As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. We become like our environment. Worm becomes color of leaf he eats. [Imp. Of education] Midas turns everything into gold. This is a profound psychological insight showing that after our actions take a certain direction, we no longer have control over them. Illustrated from Aristotle, and from the teachings of Jesus. (Evil has its source in evil impulse). We forget this today, thinking law and reason can rule man; his evil impulses must first be healed through Christ.

II The Inevitable fruits of the spirit and the flesh, are eternal life and corruption.

[Inevitability of reward]

The pattern the seed follows is inevitable. Thistles beget thistles and wheat, wheat. The reward is inevitable, though the interval may be long. [corpse] Be sure jour sin will find you out, even though it may not be found out. Illustrated from Dosteyevski. There is the same inevitable reward for good seed. [family business] Perhaps not material rewards, but the only really worthwhile reward, the life of the spirit walking in light, living as a child of God because this is the right way and the good life. We must not be discouraged if the harvest seems far off; we plant the seed but God gives the increase. [justice of God] We must not minimize our good efforts because they do not seem ideal. A beginning must be made, and the pattern set.

III God watches over the seed and its panting.

Be not deceived; God is not mocked. He is on the side of right. We will not be successful in the harvest if we use potato peelings for seed instead of the potato. We must put into our lives good seed; be not weary in well-doing. God is not mocked, and the reward of man’s husbandry is according to his plan. Be mot weary in planning for world brotherhood - redemption of humanity in agony. Plant buckwheat to get rid of weeds in meadow.

[ape and jar]

WHAT DO YOU STAND FOR

1WHAT DO YOU STAND FOR?

A Palm Sunday Sermon

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, a period set aside and solemnly celebrated by Christians throughout the ages. As we celebrate Palm Sunday this morning, we join that mighty throng, but, more important, we join the spirit of the actual events which took place in that last week of the life of our Lord. We join the joyous chorus of those who waved the palm branches, welcoming Jesus riding triumphantly into Jerusalem, of those who sang “Hosanna: blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord.” But as we join in the happy chorus we can see from the vantage point of the centuries a shadow falling on the sunny scene, the shadow of a cross stretching forward to a hill called. Golgotha, a bleak and barren place, where the man who was welcomed so joyously was hanged, deserted by those who had lined the streets to cheer him. More, the very voices that cried hosannas were those that later screamed “Crucify him”. “These things understood not his disciples at first,” reports John. Even the disciples did not recognize at first the kind of King they were welcoming, the unique personality they were standing for. But we from our vantage point, with the whole drama before us, this great epic of salvation before our eyes completely, have no cause to misunderstand. We know who He was; we know what He stood for. And. if we join the Palm Sunday cries of welcome, we know what we are standing for. We know that as we stand to welcome him, we must stand for him; we know that the joyous cries will die in our throats as we see Him on the cross; but standing for Him means standing by Him now though everyone else desert Him, believing firmly in the resurrection of that power and. goodness from God which can never die. In short, Palm Sunday presents us with the question, “What are you standing for?”: a momentary excitement of weak welcome, or a share in the spirit of the cross and resurrection; a bystander at the celebration of a particularly vivid and colorful religious holy day, or a witness to and sharer in a deep and abiding religious experience? Do we stand for the fickle and foolish crowd, or do we stand for Jesus?

For make no mistake about it: each and every one of us stands for something. Every one of us has a power of representation, whether we are aware of it or not. We see this power of representation clearly in the characterizations of individuals that appear in literature. Some of you, I am sure, have read that great classic, Pilgrim’ s Progress ; you will remember the characters that appear; their names describe them. There is Avarice, and Lust, and Slander, and Faith and Hope, and Christian moving confidently against all kinds of obstacles. And Dickens is noted for making his characters stand for certain qualities: Uriah Heep, the epitome of false humility, Scrooge, the picture of blind churlishness. And Shakespeare’s Hamlet represents weak vacillation. These characterizations are so impressive in literature, because they remind us of life.

In life as in literature people are known by certain characterizations and. these characterizations or representations are nothing else but the things these people stand for. Think for a moment of great figures in history. Take away from them the things they stood for, and their characters are empty. Take away from Lincoln, for example, his love of freedom, his devotion to humanity, his gentleness, his love of country, and what do we have left? Stripped of the things he stood for, he becomes an ungainly, grotesque figure, and object of ridicule. Conversely we can think of people in positions of leadership who do not stand for the same high principles of devotion to truth and goodness, and they become objects of scorn or contempt. [Napoleon?] “We are like,” said Plato long ago, “the things we admire and love.” Our characters are determined by the things we stand for. Our characters are blank until we add the things we stand for. We are like the bleak wire of a light bulb, alive and incandescent only by the flow of something outside ourselves.

Remember, all of us represent something to others, and most important, to the one who counts most, God. “O, wad some power the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as others see us,” sang Bobbie Burns. To see ourselves as others see us. We may wonder about this. Why we are what we are, and that’s all, we may think. We’re what we appear to be. So might that lady have reasoned who was the inspiration of Burns’s lines. But she didn’t look as fine to others as she sat proudly in all her finery in church, for Bobbie Burns, for one, saw a louse crawling up her bonnet. We do not see ourselves so clearly as others; we are too close to see what we are standing for, probably because we do not stop and think about what we are standing for.

But if we do not stop and look at ourselves, if we do not pay attention to what we are standing for, we will find ourselves standing for the wrong things. The habitations of our lives are like the chambers of that house in Jesus’ parable: swept clean of evil spirits, it plays host to countless more evil spirits because it did not become filled with good spirits. We cannot assume that we will automatically become vehicles of good powers; we cannot assume, as so many tend to do, that we are completely righteous without ever giving a thought to our deeper duties to God and Man. For there are evil forces to contend with; those same evil impulses which crucified Jesus long ago are at work today, crucifying the highest in us. There is the face of evil in our midst. Perhaps it will be an incentive to a moral awakening in America to see the face of evil directly, as we have been seeing it recently in the televised reports of the Senate Crime Investigation Committee, in which we have seen the faces and in one case the nervous hands only, of leaders of the underworld. The face, the representation of evil is all about us. And it need not be the face of a criminal. Unless we stand for the right things, we will find ourselves giving expression to it. It may wear the face of impatience. How much trouble this causes. Lack of sympathy. cup of water. lack of charity. indifference to duty.

There are those about us who are known and respected for the good things they stand for.

Each represents something; each stands for something; what do you stand for?

II. The lowest of us can stand for the highest. drop and the ocean. lantern and the sun. honesty, love, devotion. So many great things to stand for. what do people think of when they look at you? what do you stand for? religious loyalties? Whistler and the picture

III. Standing for something requires faithfulness

1VISIBILITY LIMITED

Luke 12: ;3-21 (The parable of the rich man who would build bigger barns). “But God said unto him, Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee.”

On the northern slope of one of the Steuben hills facing the long rolling peaks of the Adirondak foothills is a tiny farmhouse. It is an ideal spot to build a home for stretching out before it is a vista that is incomparable, and one can imagine what an inspiration it would be to have this view before him every time he looks’ out of the window. A few years ago, however, the old barn which stood behind the house burned down and had to be replaced. But when it was rebuilt, for some strange reason the farmer built it in front of the house instead of behind, and now instead of seeing the view of the mountains as you look from the house, you see a magnificent new barn. The beautiful vista is completely blotted out as the barn looms up blocking the vision of the hills beyond. The visibility of the beyond is limited.

The barn is really a magnificent structure, built according to the most modern methods. From the concrete stanchions to the tightly shingled roof of the mow it is perfectly, constructed to make the best use of the space in the most efficient way. The tile silo at one end is built to last for generations. And the new lightning arresters add a crowning touch to the perfection of the building. One cannot help but admire the building, but still, after one has inspected and admired and then looks out on the view of the mountains, he cannot help but wonder why that farmer built the barn where he did. It could just as well have been moved a hundred feet to the right or to the left, and opened up that outlook over the mountains. The barn is very nice but why put it right there? Why blot out that source of beauty and inspiration which could give those who live there a vision of the beauty of nature and the certain suggestion of God? Why must their visibility be limited.

This situation is a visible and striking example of what happens in the lives of many of us. We may not have barns to build in front of our houses to blot out the view, but in our everyday lives we do what amounts to the same thing. By our preoccupation with daily affairs we have no time or vision with the things of the eternal; we forget that man does not live by bread alone. Like this farmer who was so preoccupied with his cows and crops that he could see nothing but the barn, so our lives are all too often so preoccupied with the necessary details of daily living that we blot out the things of the eternal, the vision of God.

The parable of the rich man who would build bigger barns to hold his substance which was read in the Scripture Lesson gives us a message from the lips of Jesus about this very situation. There was a certain rich man who appears to have come by his wealth honestly enough. He had a good farm and it yielded heavy crops. He was probably a good farmer and added to his wealth by careful work. He did not add to his fields by oppression or cheating. Nor was he a miser and stingy with his money, for he planned to build bigger barns to hold his possessions for the express purpose of retiring and enjoying his wealth. For he tells us: I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. He was a practical, foresighted businessman who had arrived at a high point of success. He was probably a big man in his community; because of his success people would respect his judgment and admire him. And yet says Jesus, God called him a fool. And He called this man foolish because he failed to make a distinction between himself and his possessions, because he made of his possessions his whole life, and forget that there were other values. He had limited his vision as did the man who built his barn in front of his house thereby blotting out the vision of things beyond. The lives of these two men are absorbed in their livelihood; they make no distinction between the things that are within and the world without. And they do not hear the warning cf God :”this night is thy soul required of thee.”

That is the reason why we think it strange and wrong for that man to build his barn in front of his house instead of behind, and why the man who would build bigger barns to hold his possessions was called a fool by Jesus - not just because they showed interest in material things, but because all of their attention was so taken up by the material things outside, they had no concern with what was beyond these things or within their souls. Their vision was limited and they could see only things. It is not because the possessions themselves are necessarily an evil. When Jesus told the rich young man who wanted to inherit eternal life, to sell all and follow Him, he was no, I think, putting forth a universal rule; rather he was setting down an individual prescription. The anathemas of most moralists and religionists against wealth are usually misguided, thoughtless, and insincere. The act remains that we inhabit a material world and live in a realm of things. We live in a world of matter as well as one of spirit, and a wise religion will not ignore either Team?? Of the duality. Possessions to some degree are a necessity to man’s freedom. But if one is so concerned with the things, his soul is bound to suffer from neglect, and who knows but that this night thy soul is required of thee. The result of such preoccupation is that one suffers from intellectual and spiritual inertia. And all the possibilities subsisting within become stolen through preoccupation with what is without.

This is why we object to the man building his barn where it blotted out the view of the mountains. This means that all the multitudinous messages of earth and sky and hills and trees move unseen and unheard by this man; his eyes and ears were closed to anything beyond the barn. And so the rich man in Jesus’ parable could not see beyond his possessions. As a result, he died while he yet lived, for although he still walked and breathed he could not see the deeper values which make life worthwhile. As a tree sometimes dies from the top down, so they died to the significance of the things about them. The woodland flecked with leafy light and shade find them blind. The beauty of the stars leave them unmoved. The mystery of the growing season means nothing more then crops to them. God in the beauty of nature has no witness here. These men are doomed by the apt words of Rudyard Kipling “and because we know that we have breath in our mouth and think we have thought in our head, we shall assume that we are alive, whereas we are really dead”.

The result inevitably, then, of such a point of view toward life is to develop a spiritual and intellectual inertia which is in the long run fatal to a happy and useful life. We can see clearly the menace of materialism in the world at large today. The menace does not lie so much in the fact that we are concerned with material things but that this is the extent of our interest and we leave no room for anything else. No one would wisely suggest that we turn back the clock and live as our forefathers did, the simple life devoid of the benefit of modern invention. It would be foolish to leave the power loom for the spinning-jenny or the tractor in favor of the hand-plough or the automobile for the ox-cart. These things must not be lost. But we must keep up with these developments with a corresponding development intellectually and spiritually; we must redeem our moral and spiritual “lag” and keep pace with our material developments. We must widen our vision to see the true basis of values.

Increasing material powers are not safe except with a proportionately improving character. A drunken man afoot may be dangerous, but the danger is multiplied a hundred fold if the man is permitted to drive a car. If a man is angry he may be able to do a great deal of damage with his two fists; but how much more he can do if he is armed with guns or bombs. Thus enlarged powers of materialism spell enlarged peril if the soul does not grow in power to keep up with the material power. If the soul lags behind the advance of the body, the advance of the body will be destroyed. If the world without takes the bit in its teeth in mad flight and drags the world within bruised and bleeding at the end of entangled reins, the runaway must be stopped until the driver can take new control. Society can endure for a time without new inventions and improvements, but it is very doubtful how long it can endure without a better spirit. When livelihood absorbs life, when the without breaks contact with what is within and destroys it, then the day darkens in folly.

The progress we see in invention is not something we can put our

trust in unless we can keep up with it by a corresponding progress in spirit. we cannot assume that all things move onward and upward to a great and glorious goal automatically; the old easy optimism has been rudely shaken out of us in the stirring and stormy years of the last decade. The fact of the matter is that man has an inveterate capacity for sinking just when it would seem that the opportunity for progress is best. Let men come down from the wilderness of the mountains into the rich river beds where the good pasture grows, and soon they settle down to a life of ease and sloth and slavery. The first generation may produce a Joseph but under his shadow the rest lie supine. Let men live in some sea-girt island protected from their enemies and what do they care for the rest of the world? Content with their possessions and what they call security, they are blind to the world. Let science teach them how to make great machines and their manhood seems to shrivel beside their inventions. We are little greater for all our wonderful appliances in this twentieth century if we have gained them at the expense of our strength of spirit. When we cross the ocean on great floating cities, it is questionable whether we are just as vital men as the Vikings who faced the stormy Atlantic in their frail craft generations ago. If we have wealth we luxuriate, if poverty we hug our chains. Let nature give us narcotics for the assuaging of pain and we become slaves to drugs. Let freedom be given and it becomes low license. Give man religious freedom paid for with the blood of sacrifice and it becomes religious indifference.

This is what progress means if it is only in one direction; if our vision is centered on materialism and we cannot see beyond to other values. Without a vision of the beyond we lack purpose and without purpose we do not step onward and upward, but downward and backward.

This is an idea that is not at all unfamiliar to us today; we are constantly being reminded that the ills of the world are due in part at least to some such cause as this. Ye know this and yet we don’t quite know what to do about it. We can at least recognize the situation and be prepared to think intelligently about it, even if we feel inadequate to change it. But in our own lives we can see that the barns we must build do not blot out the other values in life which are so important; we can take stock of our own situation and see whether we are putting such importance on our barn that we cannot see beyond it to the wider values of God. We can place these material values that the barn symbolizes in a position where it will not take up our whole attention.

Different sermon??

Perhaps an illustration will serve to make this clearer. A minister who believed in putting his religion to work in practical affairs became interested in helping a boy whom he met on the streets begging. The minister saw that if the dirt that caked the boy’s face were removed and if the rags he was wearing were changed in for some decent clothes the boy would be an attractive looking lad. He was a bright and intelligent youngster too, the minister discovered as he talked with him. The minister decided therefore to put his Christian principles to work and help this boy in an effort to give him a chance in life. He began by buying the child some dinner and then bought him some new clothes. The boy said that he had no home so the minister made arrangements for a place to live for him. He did everything that was in his power to help the boy on. He got him started in school, kept him supplied with the things that he needed and felt that he was doing a service of God in helping this homeless waif, get along in an unfriendly world. This is such a pleasant story because of the noble efforts of this minister that we would expect a happy ending and learn that this poor orphan became an important and useful member of society. But this is not what happened. It was not long before the minister found out that the boy was not attending school regularly -it was almost impossible to get him to Sunday school but worse yet he did not seem to show any gratitude to his benefactor and kept doing the things that he knew were wrong. He would not learn to tell the truth, and he still found the streets more attractive than a pleasant home. And even though he was given what he needed, whenever he had a chance he would put on old clothes and go back on the streets begging for money. Things went from bad to worse until the minister finally realized that the boy wanted the gifts of this good man but he was not willing to live up to the obligations on him to use these to the best advantage. He simply did not want to be good. And so the minister reluctantly arranged for him to attend a school for correction where kindness would be tempered with discipline.

All to many of us are like this boy. We have the opportunity and advantages that will enable us to lead a better life more in accordance with the will of God. We have been given the opportunity and the means to lead the good life as Jesus would have us, but we simply are not interested in doing this - we don’t want to go in this direction. We want to share in all the advantages; we want to think that we shall inherit eternal life, but we are not willing to do what we should do ourselves to insure this. We are not willing to carry out our obligations and lead the life we should lead.

Fill? we are seeking the wrong values

There is another mistaken notion which we hold in relation to this questLon of salvation. We seem to think that it is brought about automatically by our intentions. We don’t realize that it is a process which takes time and effort. Illustration of girl taking music lessons to be equal to her loved one. It is a sort of feeling of exaltation sometimes with no foundation - evangelists getting saved at every camp meeting (toss tobacco out the window and then get it). There is something to be done all the time.

[This salvation comes through the power of Christ in us which we get from a mystical union. Theology of Paul (how Christ changes life - violin) Toscananni illustration Greek life of religion not concerned with morals

Secular life of today not concerned with morals.]

It seems to me that too many of us are like this young man. We feel the need of that which Jesus promises us; we want to tap that divine source of power which those whose confidence is in God feel, but we are not willing to do anything on our own part to bring about the situation we desire. Jesus’ answer to the young man comes to us today in this story; sell all and follow me; put all your trust in God instead of doing it that way. Jesus’ requirement is an absolute requirement; we cannot serve God and Mammon. We must decide to put all our loyaty on one or the other. Jesus tells us that the requirement is all, or nothing at all.

We don’t like this severe requirement, and yet we want to feel that we merit salvation. We are caught on the horns of an unpleasant dilemma, but we have figured out a neat way to solve our problem so that we can have our cake and eat it at the same time. We feel that we may inherit the kingdom of God and still not follow the requirements laid upon us by believing that urn salvation comes to us through the crucifixion of Jesus alone. We enjoy it vicariously because of his triumph over evil; it is external to our own efforts and we feel that we have nothing to do with it. We have magnified a single aspect of the doctrine of the Atonement to such an extent that this seems to be the total picture of salvation. We explain it this way: On the one hand we have a picture of a perfect God and on the other hand sinful man. How can there be any union of the two? How can man rise above his sinful nature to the perfection of God? He knows what he should do for the most part but he does not have the power to do it. In the words of Paul, The good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. In order to bridge this gap between the sinfulness of man and the perfection of God, God sent his only begotten Ion to live in the flesh as

the man Jesus. Jesus met the evil forces of the world of flesh and conquered them. He took on the sin of man and was victorious over it; the final victory came when he was nailed to the cross and the scoffers shouted as they mocked him, “Now then, 0 man of God, where is thy God to save thee?” He conquered even over death, for he appeared again to his followers and he is present today to those who would look for him. Thus Jesus’ sacrifice becomes a basis for our salvation; through his suffering and victory he pays for the sins of man and through him man is redeemed.

But this is not the complete story. Jesus’ sacrifice gives us a basis for salvation but the rest is up to us - we must begin from here. Jesus’ sacrifice is not enough in itself - this gives us the starting point only. We cannot say that this alone assures us salvation, that we have no obligations on our part in the process much as we would like to. Through our faith in Christ we can now become empowered to do that which we should do and avoid the evil that we would not. Through our union with the spirit of Christ we are empowered to lead Christ-like lives. This is the requirement that we cannot afford to ignore, for this is essential. We cannot fool ourselves into thinking that we have no responsibility, no part to play - that everything is being done for us out of the love of God and that we may contently sit back with the comfortable assurance that everything has been taken care of. We must follow the teachings of Jesus and through the power of Christ do that which is required of us. The spiritual life of salvation is not in the misty future; it is a life lived here and now according to the spirit of Christ - and we must lead this life if we are to inherit the kingdom of God. For as Jesus tells us, “Not everyone that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”

1UNDERSTANDING LATER

Text: John 12:16a These things understood not his disciples at the first.

Today we commemorate one of the most colorful holidays in all of our Christian tradition, the day of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Except for the Ressurection morning this is the happiest day that Jesus and his followers were to know. Less than a week Was to pass before the shadows of the cross darkened His way, bringing sorrow, heartache, and remorse to all the joyful throngs now surrounding Him, but this was a day of rejoicing unmarred by sorrow and fears. For today the thronging and joyful crowds expected fully that Jesus would immediately establish the Kingdom of God about which He had talked so freely and frequently. Jesus sensed this expectancy and tried to explain to the people his purpose by a parable. Luke tells us: “He spake a parable because he was nigh to Jerusalem and because they supposed that the Kingdom of God was immediately to appear.”

After sharing with the multitudes the parable which they did not understand Jesus sent two of his disciples into the village of Bethphage telling them that there they would find a colt tied, and to release it and bring it to him. And he said that if the owners of the colt objected, to tell them that “The Lord hath need of it”. The colt was brought, and the disciples threw their coats over the colt and Jesus sat upon him, and the procession started to Jerusalem. As they drew near to the descent from the Mount of Olives just outside Jerusalem, the whole multitude began to rejoice and to praise God for all the mighty works which they had seen saying, “Blessed is the King that cometh in the name of the Lord”. It was a joyous and exultant crowd that followed Jesus into Jerusalem. The disciples and followers with palm branches in their hands waving high in the air, sang with joy the praises of their Messiah on his way to establish the Kingdom of God. We can imagine the gay and happy scene. It is the spring of the year. Little children dancing along in front of the procession strewing freshly gathered flowers in the path of their Friend, mothers casting down their precious rugs before him, people crowding around to catch a glimpse of the great Messiah whose fame had traveled far and wide. At last the Master of Men was gaining the recognition which he deserved, as the multitudes shouted his praises and proclaimed him Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

The gospels describe in great detail this triumphal entry of Jesus, and the great acclaim of the people. But in the gospel of John is one penetrating insight which is my text for this morning. The writer after describing the triumphal entry makes this statement: these things understood not his disciples at the first. The disciples and the multitudes acclaimed Jesus’ entry but they did not understand it until later. In spite of the parable that Jesus had just told, in spite of his constant teaching that his Kingdom was not of this world, the people fully expected him to institute the Kingdom in Jerusalem according to the Jewish Messianic ideal of a great national leader. He was entering into Jerusalem to claim his Kingship over the Jewish people and to lead them to freedom and glory, thought the crowds who followed him with joy. Little did they dream that within a short week sorrow and suffering would come to the Son of Man they were honoring as the King above all. Even as the triumphal procession was entering Jerusalem the Jewish and political leaders were planning to do away with this man who was potentially so dangerous to the political order. Jesus instead of becoming the political leader suffered at the hands of those in authority. The great hopes of a Jewish Messiah were soon to be completely crushed, and Jesus was to show his sovereignty in a manner that no one could anticipate. That is why the writer of John said, all these things understood not his disciples at first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things to him. They did not understand his ride to triumph until later. The glory that they bad expected ended in failure and tragic disappointment; Jesus failed to live up to their expectation of a Jewish Messiah, but proved himself King of a different sort. But all this the disciples did not understand until later. When Jesus was arrested and crucified, they fled Jerusalem in fear and disappointment until his reappearance showed them the true meaning of his triumphal entry.

[They hailed him King as He passed by

They strewed their garments in the road

But they were set on earthly things

And He on God

They sang His praise for what He did

But gave His message little thought

They could not see that their soul's good

Was all He sought.

They could not understand why He

With powers so vast as His command

Should hesitate to claim their rights

And free the land.

Their own concerns and this world's hopes

Shut out the wonder of His news;

And we, with larger knowledge, still

His way refuse.

He walks amoung us still, unseen,

And still points out the only way,

But we still follow other gods

And Him betray.

John Oxenhaus??]

We often like to think that those who knew Jesus enjoyed a great advantage in that they would be sure to fathom and understand his significance and his teachings. If only we were among the chosen few who traveled with him and lived intimately with him, we say, then we would surely appreciate his !nessage. But the truth of the matter is that even his disciples did not understand his mission until later. They were full of the inspiration that fired everyone who knew him; they were convinced that here was the Son of Man; but they did not understand his real purpose until later.

This is hard for us to realize. How could those who knew Jesus have mistaken His purpose? How could they have spent so much time with him and not tnderstand him? It’s puzzling until we realize that this is the way with life - we understand the significance of people and events only later. Only after an event has occurred and we see the results of it do we appreciate it’s meaning; only after the people we have known are gone do we fully appreciate what they meant to us. We see this illustrated clearly in the events of history. It is a truism that history repeats itself, and yet it is just as true that peoples and nations do not seem to be able to learn from the experiences of history, just as the experience of a parent seems to be useless in helping his child to learn. This is because there is always so much in the world which is never understood - until later.

It needs time and life to interprete experiences and events. Even an insignificant appearing event may have results which are far reaching, results that can be appraised and understood only after the evert has occurred. We discover the full meanings only in retrospect. What we ourselves bear and share become meaningfull in what they have done to us and in what we have done with them. Thus we give meaning to the past, and make victory or conquest out of sorrow or defeat, perfect a happiness or transform a pa in.

It was the great work of the early Christians to reinterprete the events in the life of Jesus into a new meaning which gradually evolved after they began to understand his true meaning in the days following his crucifixion. They began to see that their idea of a Jewish Messiah had failed miserably, and yet they were convinced that Jesua was a unique and divine personage. Gradually therefore his teachings began to acquire new meanings, and by the time the gospel of John was written, the original Messianic ideal is supplanted by a new interpretation of the Kingdom as a spiritual kingdom. And so they turned defeat into victory by properly understanding the mission of Christ; the cross which had been a symbol of defeat and shame was transformed into a glorious symbol of triumph. But this was not understood even by the disciples - until later.

We today can derive comfort and inspiration from this one fact, that we do not fully understand events until later. There is a purpose working in the world which we cannot always fathom, but as we look back over events, so often even the unpleasant and harsher ones we see were for the best. Even a failure can be a blessing in disguise, for it directs us to a different effort and line of endeavor which will mean success. Phillips Brooks, one of the greatest preachers America has ever known started his career as a failure. Immediately upon finishing his studies at Harvard he was engaged to teach at the famous Boston Latin school. But in the middle of the year he was forced to resign, because he was completely incapable of enforcing discipline among his students, and they literally drove him from the classroom. He felt this failure keenly and spent a year in trying to decide how he might make something of his life. He finally decided to enter the ministry and became an outstanding success. His failure served to show him that it is better to be a great preacher than a poor school teacher. So the events of our lives take on new meanings as we look back on them. Just as pain tells us that something is wrong and needs to be remedied, so the unpleasant failures in life serve to direct our energies in new channels.

[Events affect us but we affect events remaking them]

We often think that if we had our lives to live over again, we should lead them much differently. J. M. Barrie once wrote a play on this theme. In it he showed that if we did have the chance to lead our lives over again, we should do the very same things that we had already done and not changed the course of our lives at all. This is because even if we did have the chance to do over again what we have done, we would not have the necessary knowledge of experience to change our actions.

The massive events of history can only be understood in retrospect. The decisive battles of the world assume significance only as we see their implications in the later developments of history.

We acclaim or condemn things often without understanding what they mean. While, the multitudes were proclaiming Jesus, they were calling out “Who is this man?” There are some things we cannot understand until later, and yet we should in all cases attempt to fathom the importance and meaning of events; examine the values involved before we pass judgment. Reading newspapers 6 mo. late.

[Political and international events should be judged intelligently.

Misunderstanding makes us condemn friends

Is this the only way we can learn? By looking backwards?

Is there no standard?

Our ultimate task is to understand Jesus?

What did the Palm Sunday mean?

The answer is up to us.

(No agreement as to His interpretation

Jesus as a negro?

Second return?

Was it a product? Of the passing hour or a new epoch of history?

A promise never to be fulfilled or a commission empowered to change the world

We understand later that we should follow Jesus

The Lord rides to triumph as we follow in His train]

1Truth Within Man

Lester Start

It is curious that those things which are closest to us are at the very things we overlook and seek elsewhere. We have all heard the story of the man who left his property seeking riches only to find that on his own land were acres of diamonds that he had overlooked. Too many of us are like this man; we seek in the world about us those values for which our souls are thirsting only to find in the end that our thirst is never really quenched and that our seeking ends in despair. [lives of quiet desperation] But if we look in the right direction we will find what we are seeking.

Jesus gives us a hint of where to look in John 4:14 where He says, “Whosoever drinketh of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water, which I shall give him shall become in him a well springing up into everlasting life”. These are the words Jesus spoke to the woman of Samaria as she was drawing water from Jacob’s well. He told her that the water from that well would not quench a man’s thirst for long, but that the living water of Christ shall become an unfailing fountain in man springing up into everlasting life. Notice where this well is. It does not reside in some external source as Jacob’s well from which we dip ladles of spiritual power as we need it; rather it is found “in him”, as Jesus said, in you, in me, in all of us when we drink of the living water of Christ. [Story of well in Scotland]

To find the water our thirsting souls need, then, we need to turn our eyes from the “Jacob’s wells” of tradition and popular opinion to the inner source of the water which satisfies, which is found, as our text tells us, within man.

When is it that we do feel ourselves closest to the divine source of power? When Jesus was suffering anguish before His crucifixion He turned to God in prayer alone in the Garden of Gethsemane for the comfort and strength He needed. And so we, in times of travail, go into our chambers and shut the door to seek the voice of God within in prayer. When we pray together in worship, we close our eyes and shut our minds to the distractions about us to look within. The music in the worship service acts to clear our minds of cares and distractions, gently obliterating disturbing thoughts to give us a sense of inward rapport and intimacy with God. We find God, too, when we are absolutely alone. We tap the inner resources when in our solitude we are deprived of the insulation afforded by the thoughts and company of others, when alone in the country, for example, with the wind and the sky for companions, we are forced to view our inner selves in all their nakedness, and can truly say of God, “Wither shall I flee from Thy presence?”.

I once asked an old farmer of my acquaintance why it is that country people believe so firmly in God. He said, ” Well, I guess it’s because when you’re out in the fields all day, you can’t very well miss Him.” And so it is; it is much harder to find God when we are distracted by the frenzied activities about us, but when we look deeply into our hearts, we cannot very well miss Him. The kingdom of God is within you, if you but look to find it there.

Because the Spirit of Christ is within, the crowd often prevents us from finding it. When we become a part of the crowd, we are all too likely to become merged into the social context to such an extent that our individuality is destroyed and submerged. We no longer think according to our inner convictions; we think as the crowd thinks; we act as the crowd acts. The crowd is all too likely to become a tyranny, which destroys creative endeavor. Hence we dare not believe what our hearts tell us if it does not correspond to what the crowd believes. And the daily affairs keep our minds busied with distractions.

This does not mean to imply that we should shun social relations. The social consciousness which springs from the ethical requirements within us making us cooperating agencies toward a common ideal is the outward manifestation of the Kingdom of God. But the crowd spirit which strangles the individual’s inner feelings of relationship to God by making Him conform to external standards which may not be good constitutes a real danger. Danger of forgetting to think, losing sight of God. It is the pressure that makes us find our values in externalities, in worldly reputation, wealth and power; and in the more extreme cases, the spirit which makes a group of law-abiding men into an avenging Ku Klux Klan. Remember, it was a mob that spat upon Jesus; no individual could have done it. And it is the voice of the mob engrossed in ihs petty diversions and activities that scorns the voice of God, because in the clamor it cannot hear Him.

This inward spring of living water is outwardly expressed in terms of love, friendship, cooperation and mercy. Our great social works have this source for it impetus. However, sometimes we lose sight of this inner source of the good life and think we can regulate the social order in such a way that we can create the ideal world. We put our great rational minds to work on the disorder of our social order, make a final synthesis of integration, and say, “Here is the Kingdom of God.”. But if we have left out the vital source in the inner experience of the living water of Christ, the magnificent system becomes, as in the words of Shakespeare, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. We cannot become Christians by regulating habits outwardly. The result is our modern Pharisee who contributes heavily to the Community Chest, so that his name may appear in the papers; who goes to church every Sunday, to gain the reputation of being devout, who works for better conditions in this factory, so that he can get more work from his men. Outwardly this man has all the appearances of a Christian, but in his heart is not one drop of the milk of human kindness; he acts ethically only because it is to his own material advantage. We must look to the source of our ideal world order not in such habits says this man parades, but in the unfailing well of the Spirit of Christ within us, from whence comes love. [World after war-love must rule]

An ancient adage attributed to the seven wise men of Greece reads “Know Thyself”. This is a motto Socrates, the father of philosophy, used. He always insisted that he could not teach because he knew nothing. He was, as he described himself, a spiritual midwife bringing out the truth which is within each man. This is the method we must follow to find spiritual truth. To become a Christian we must reveal ourselves to find the wellspring of the eternal within choose it, and to live by it. It is not a choice between alternatives, between different types of theology or social theories. It is a decision of faith to choose what our highest ideals dictate. Look within to find your real nature and follow it. Listen to the words of Jesus as He says, “Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not”. The water which he gives you becomes within you a well springing up into everlasting life. Know thyself first and then choose thyself.

Thou must be true thyself

If thou the truth wouldst teach;

Thy soul must overflow if thou

Another’s soul wouldst reach;

It needs the overflow of heart

To give the lips full speach.

1Truth Within Man

Lester Start

It is curious that those things which are closest to us are at the very things we overlook and seek elsewhere. We have all heard the story of the man who left his property seeking riches, only to find that on his own land were acres of diamonds that he had overlooked. Too many of us are like this man; we seek in the world about us those values for which our souls are thirsting only to find in the end that our thirst is never really quenched and that our seeking ends in despair. [lives of quiet desperation] But if we look in the right direction we will find what we are seeking.

Jesus gives us a hint of where to look in John 4:14 where he says, “Whosoever drinketh of the which I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water, which I shall give him shall become in him a well springing up into everlasting life”. These are the words Jesus spoke to the woman of Samaria as she was drawing water from Jacob’s well. He told her that the water from that well would not quench a man’s thirst for long, but that the living water of Christ shall become an unfailing fountain in man springing up into everlasting life. Notice where this well is. It does not reside in some external source, as Jacob’s well from which we dip ladles of spiritual power as we need it; rather it is found in him, as Jesus said, in you, in me, in all of us when we drink of the living water of Christ. [Story of well in Scotland]

To find the water our thirsting souls need, then, we need to turn our eyes from the “Jacobs wells” of tradition and popular opinion to the inner source of the water which satisfies, which is found, as their text tells us, within man.

What is it that we do feel ourselves closest to the divine source of power? When Jesus was suffering anguish before his crucifixion he turned to God and prayer alone in the Garden of Gethsemane for the comfort and strength he needed. And so we, in times of travail, go into our chambers and shut the door to seek the voice of God within in prayer. When we pray together in worship, we close our eyes and shut our minds to the distractions about us to look within. The music in the worship service acts to clear our minds of cares and distractions, gently obliterating disturbing thoughts to give us a sense of inward rapport and intimacy with God. We find God, too, when we are absolutely alone. We tap the inner resources, when in our solitude, we are deprived of the insulation afforded by the thoughts and company of others, when, alone in the country, for example, with the wind and the sky for companions, we are forced to view our inner selves in all their nakedness, and can truly say of God, “Wither shall I flee from Thy presence?”.

I once asked an old farmer of my acquaintance why it was that country people believe so firmly in God. He said, ” Well, I guess it’s because when you’re out in the fields all day, you can’t very well miss him.” And so it is; it is much harder to find God when we are distracted by the frenzied activities about us, but when we look deeply into our hearts, we cannot very well miss Him. The kingdom of God is within you, if you but look to find it there.

Because the Spirit of Christ is within, the crowd often prevents us from finding it. When we become a part of the crowd, we are all too likely to become merged into the social context to such an extent that our individuality is destroyed and submerged. We no longer think according to our inner convictions; we think as the crowd thinks; we act as the crowd acts. The crowd is all too likely to become a tyranny, which destroys creative endeavor. Hence we dare not believe what our hearts tell us if it does not correspond to what the crowd believes. And the daily affairs keep our minds busied with distractions.

This does not mean to imply that we should shun social relations. The social consciousness which springs from the ethical requirements within us making us cooperating agencies toward a common ideal is the outward manifestation of the Kingdom of God. But the crowd spirit which strangles the individual’s inner feelings of relationship to God by making him conform to external standards which may not be good constitutes a real danger. Danger of forgetting to think, losing sight of God. It is the pressure that makes us find our values in extremities, in worldly reputation, wealth and power; and in the more extreme cases, the spirit which makes a group of law-abiding man into an avenging Ku Klux Klan. Remember, it was a mob that spat upon Jesus; no individual could have done it. And it is the voice of the mob engrossed in the petty diversions and activities that scorns the voice of God, because in the clamor it cannot hear Him.

This inward spring of living water is outwardly expressed in terms of love, friendship, cooperation and mercy. Our great social works have this source for it impetus. However, sometimes we lose sight of this inner source of the good life and think we can regulate the social order in such a way that we can create the ideal world. We put our great rational minds to work on the disorder of our social order, make a final synthesis of integration, and say, “here is the Kingdom of God.”. But if we have left out the vital source in the inner experience of the living water of Christ, the magnificent system becomes, as in the words of Shakespeare, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. We cannot become Christians by regulating habits outwardly. The result is our modern Pharisee, who contributes heavily to the Community Chest, so that his name may appear in the papers; who goes to church every Sunday, to gain the reputation of being decent, who works for better conditions in this factory, so that he can get more work from his men. Outwardly this man has all of the appearances of a Christian, but in his heart is not one drop of the milk of human kindness; he acts ethically only because it is to his own material advantage. We must look to the source of our ideal world order, not in such habits says this man parades, but in the unfailing well of the Spirit of Christ within us, from whence comes love. [World after war-love must rule]

An ancient adage attributed to the seven wise men of Greece reads “Know Thyself”. This is a motto Socrates, the father of philosophy, used. He always insisted that he could not teach because he knew nothing. He was, as he described himself, a spiritual midwife bringing out the truth which is within each man. This is the method we must follow to find spiritual truth. To become a Christian we must reveal ourselves to find the wellspring of the eternal within choose it, and to live by it. It is not a choice between alternatives, between different types of theology or social theories. It is a decision of faith to choose what our highest ideals dictate. Look within to find your real nature and follow it. Listen to the words of Jesus as he says, “Then, if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not”. The water which he gives you becomes within you a well springing up into everlasting life. Know thyself first and then choose thyself.

Thou must be true thyself

If thou the truth wouldst teach;

Thy soul must overflow if thou

Another’s soul wouldst reach;

It needs the overflow of heart

To give the lips full speach.

1Truth

Lester Start

The passages read in the New Testament lesson illustrate the problem for the contemporary Christian. On the one hand lies the promise of the truth of God which makes men free; on the other is the worldly wisdom that finds, not liberation, but cynicism or despair. The first is found in Jesus’ great affirmation to those who are led by the Spirit of God: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” The other is represented by Pilate’s plaint and, so frequently, ours, “What is truth?”

One cannot help but sympathize with Pilate’s point of view. Here he stood as representative of the great Roman empire with its tradition of law infused with Stoic wisdom, placed in a notoriously difficult colony because of the unwillingness of the people to abide by the laws of reasonable men, despairing at the problem of keeping order, and hearing one more claim to a special truth from the Messiah who had been brought to his tribunal. No wonder that he voices this plaint - “What is truth?”

And Pilate’s plaint is ours - here we stand in a world increasingly comprehended by the empire of scientific laws, where all is to be understood under the rational laws of empirical knowledge, but in a notoriously difficult situation of conflicting powers, partisan interests, and opposing ideologies, in the midst of war and rumors of war, so that we despair at finding any peace or order or freedom for the human spirit. And so we to ask “What is truth?” when presented with a special revelation drawn from a crucified Messiah of long ago.

There are so many claims and counterclaims to truth! For all our efforts to achieve it, we wonder if we have come any closer to the dream of freedom and happiness. We feel with Ecclesiastes - vanity of vanities - all is vanity - and he who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow, because he sees so much more clearly how little the spirit of truth avails. One is tempted to wash one’s hands of the problem - like Pilate - shrug off the question of ultimate truth and perhaps follow in the spirit of the poet Houseman who counseled:

Think, no more lad, laugh, be jolly,

Why should men make haste to die?

Empty heads and tongues a talking

Make the rough road easy walking.

And the feather pate of folly

Bears the falling sky.

But folly cannot bear the collapse of our world of ideals. What about the truth that liberates?

I.

You shall know the truth etc. Of course there is a sense in which this is true - but in a qualified way. The whole course of Western civilization has marked the history of man’s progressive conquest of nature through the spirit of Greek science. Truth about the operation of nature’s laws has given man freedom - through technology he has gained freedom from backbreaking toil. With the promise of automation - still greater freedom from monotonous work is indicated, along with the problem of finding things to do when this work is done away with. Through medical technology man has gained freedom from plague and disease - along with the challenge of curing new disorders peculiar to civilized patterns of behavior. Man has freed himself from old superstitions and fears. By understanding the operations of nature, man no longer attributes lightning to Zeus, or calamities to the wrath of the gods. He has freed himself from superstitious terrors, yet finds himself fearing a new kind of man-made terror by night and fallout that wasteth by noon day.

In short, with all our conquest of nature, we have failed to understand or conquer human nature. With all the promise of freedom that truth about nature brings, we still have difficulty in freeing man from a sense of estrangement, loneliness and despair because of man’s inhumanity to man, from a spirit of meaninglessness, because man’s vision of a purpose and goal is clouded.

Like Pilate, we find that the promise of truth has a hollow sound. That is why it is so futile to identify of this kind of truth, knowledge about the laws of nature, with the redemptive Spirit of Christ. He was not the spokesman for the new science, or a public relations expert plugging progressive social reforms in the light of new knowledge. The truth that unlocking the secrets of nature reveals is the revelation of power, sheer limitless power, but power without purpose or direction. So we still do not know whether by unlocking the secrets of the atom we have begun a great new era of peace and plenty or paved the way for a final explosion that will rival the liveliest visions of the last days.

It is interesting to note that the Greek god Pan, originally a nature deity who came to be identified with all of nature, all things, is the root from which the word panic comes. If this is all the truth there is, the sheer blind powers of nature, then panic in the face of this seems natural. If truth means the power of manipulation, not only of nature but of other selves, if life is nothing but a struggle for power for its own sake, then life seems to point to panic or despair. Power without a reconciling purpose is destructive; power without ideals and vision is blind. Truth that gives us power without purpose is incomplete. No wonder it has a hollow sound. No wonder it cannot satisfy.

II.

There is another kind of truth we inherit from the Biblical tradition - and this, of course, is the truth Jesus represents. It is the teaching that the world is not so much a system of nature to be understood, but a history of events that are to be interpreted as the purposes of God. Man’s salvation lies not in understanding the laws of a static nature, but in following the purposes of God by obedience to His commandments. This is the unique revelation of Biblical religion - God is in the world - in history - reconciling man to Himself.

It is an ancient truth, the development of which can be traced in the religion of the Hebrews. It is the truth solemnly reaffirmed in the Jewish holy days - how the Lord has led the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt to the promised land - the great declaration of freedom. It was God who led them safely through the sea - who fed His children in the wilderness, led them into Canaan - who gave His law to Moses. It is God who is at work in all things, leading His people to the spirit of righteousness. Thy way, O Lord, is in the sea, sang the Psalmist

Even the enemy becomes an instrument of the purposes of God, when the children of Israel fall aside from the law of righteousness. As the prophets correctly warned, Israel is destroyed by her apostasy. The theme grows through the prophets - until God is the God of all peoples and all history, and the Jews are to be understood as a light to the Gentiles.

The theme reaches its culmination in the New Testament revelation that God became flesh in Christ, thereby showing His redemptive love, and providing the perfect example of the godlike for man. What clearer symbol could there be of the supreme truth that God is concerned with the world of men, that God is in history, reconciling man to Himself. For God so loved the world -

There are two kinds of truth suggested by Athens and Jerusalem a Greek one and a Biblical one and we cannot ignore either. The very words for truth suggest a compressed philosophy we might well examine. The Greek word for truth is V8Z2`l that which is unhidden - the clear, the evident, that which can be seen as real being. For the Hebrew truth is aman (amen) - that which is faithful, certain, or sure, that which can be relied upon, as God. For the Greeks, truth was a matter of [Sun] (4V*i@L: for example the light of truth ,seeing the true order of being - a theoria. For the Bible truth is a matter of hearing the commandments of God, to discover His purposes - a hearing and faithful obedience. The still small voice within is the symbol of truth. The Greek truth is spatially oriented - the true is that which eternally is - the abiding real. For the Bible, truth is temporally oriented - the true is the revealed pattern of the purposes of God in history. The Greek mind turns to objects - the Biblical to events. The Greek view is static - the Biblical dynamic. The Greek view thinks in terms of world cycles. The Biblical view thinks in terms of progress toward kingdom of God.

III.

It is the distinction between seeing and hearing that gives us the clue to the distinction between reason and faith. To the Greek, scientific truth consists in seeing an order of nature, understanding its operations, so that we may have the power of dominion. Biblical faith consists in hearing the word of God, believing in God’s presence, obeying His commandments of righteousness, and single-mindedly devoting oneself to His purposes.

It is precisely this Biblical faith or truth which corrects the one sidedness of Greek reason. And in a general sense, if we are to appreciate anything truly, we must do more than see it - we must be sensitive to it, respond to it, listen to it, hear it. Buber used to say, “speak to me so that I can really see you.” And religious truth involves that same attentive responsiveness.

Take the problem of human relations - man’s inhumanity - man’s estrangement from his true self and from his fellow man. Consider the way we twist the Golden rule - how we consider others as objects to be manipulated. [Lonely crowd - staring -]

We see others as objects - but when we hear another, we must respond to the other not as an object but as a self. And what is love, if it is not the response of a self to a self - and the caricature of love, if it is not treating the other as an object. Another is an it, when he is an object to be seen. The basic commandment of love can never be followed until we hear the other, and respond to the other as a self - not on object.

Take the problem of the meaning and purpose of life - the meaning of the world as a whole. It is so hard to see God in the world. That is why the traditional arguments for God are so inconclusive. The religious relation has always been a response to hearing the word of God as it is revealed in divine history. Hear the word of the Lord - was the theme of the prophets. Thus saith the Lord - the statement of authority. Here, again, the problem of faith is clarified. Faith, then, is not a kind of seeing darkly a truth which we hope to see more clearly by a higher theoria or knowledge. Faith is hearing and responding to the word of the Lord, trusting in His purposes, being faithful to His commandments, standing firmly by His Spirit of righteousness. It is precisely this kind of faith, this commitment to God’s purposes as revealed in history, that we mean when we speak of faith in love of Christ. Those who have faith in Christ do not have a higher knowledge in the Greek sense.

This is why worship and personal devotion are so important. One does not go to church to “learn about religion” as one might learn about modern physics or literature. Or to be told to be good. Those who think this stay away.

One goes to hear the word of God. The real task is to discover God in history in our world - to listen - to try to find out His purpose for us now and sense His presence. Going to church should be more like going to a concert than a lecture.

They have something else - and something more - commitment to a cause - confidence in the purposes of God and His love - and most important of all - in this age of anxiety and estrangement - the spirit of reconciliation - reconciliation to God because they can find a meaning to their lives in terms of his love and reconciliation to their fellow man as the love of God is reflected in their love of others - not seeing others as objects to be used, but responding to others as selves to be listened to and heard.

Conclusion.

There are two sources of truth - truth as power (means) truth as purpose( end). Both are found in each tradition - dominion in Old Testament - purpose and Plato.

Bible stresses image of God

Implications - turn to dimension of faith - believe in reconciling power of love.

Hear the word of God - respond to His will

turn in prayer - hear God

another dimension intimations from art and beauty.

The inner light.

Share in love of God -

break down barriers -

devote oneself to the creative purposes of God.

This is the union of power and purpose.

The liberating power of learning requires learning two truths.

Greek gives power (means).

Bible gives purposes (ends).

For the truth that liberates we need both. Old Testament Dominion.

Relevance

“Young people’s group has helped me to admire and respect God”

hear God - hear need.

Believe in love - inner light.

Reconciliation - break barriers.

Unite power and purpose

1TRAGEDY OF SLEEPING

Text: Matthew 26: What, could ye not watch with me one hour? (v 40b)

It is always hard to know how to talk to a double congregation such as the one we have this morning. If I talk only to the children, then the older ones become bored, and if to the older ones, then the children become disinterested. We will compromise then, and speak first to the older ones and then to the children but with the hope that there will be enough of interest in both parts to merit the attention of all.

My theme for this morning might be called the Tragedy of Sleeping, for I want to point out the acute danger that lies in not being aware of one’s responsibilities in relation to what is going on, in sleeping when there are important things to be done. By this I do not mean to deny the necessity and the good of sleep, which refreshes and renews our strength and spirit enabling us to undertake things which seem impossible when we are tired, the sleep which “knits the raveled sleeve of care’. I am thinking more of it in the figurative sense of being asleep to one’s responsibilities and function in life, the sort of sleep which is symbolized by the famous story of Rip Van Winkle. You all remember the story. Rip Van Winkle lived in one of those little towns in the Catskill mountains at the time when this country was very young and not yet a nation. Rip was an easy-going sort; his only worry in the world was his wife, for he is one of the best or worst examples of the henpecked husband there is in all fiction. His favorite pastime therefore was to go off in the mountains with his flintlock musket and a dog to hunt, way off in the mountains where things were peaceful. On one such day after a long tramp he felt very sleepy and lay down for a few minutes rest. When he awoke, it was with the strange feeling that he had slept longer than he had intended. In the first place his clothes were all ragged and worn; he felt a long white beard that he certainly did not have when he fell asleep, and his musket was all rusted. He went back down the mountain to his old town and found everything strange: the people were strange, even the town had changed with many new buildings. Then he finally found someone who remembered him, he discovered that he had been asleep on the mountain for twenty years, and had slept through all of the important happenings of the American revolution. This is just a story, of course; there was never any person who slept so long. And yet how many people sleep through their lives; how many can lead long and useless lives without ever wondering why they are alive, without ever considering that there are things they might do, there is a purpose and a destiny they might fulfill. And the greatest world shaking events can leave them undisturbed, and unaware. And what is worse, they are ignorant of the responsibilities they have toward the world about them.

We find the same lesson as we look at that instance from the life of Jesus which was read in the scripture lesson. Jesus was facing the greatest trial of his career. He knew he was about to be betrayed; he knew the torture and death that such a betrayal would mean, and so he went to the garden of Gethsemane to prepare himself in prayer for what was to come. ‘This is the chief function of prayer, to fortify oneself to face the task s that are before him, - to seek to learn the will of God, and finding it, face the future with confidence, knowing that with God’s help there can be no task greater than the power to carry it out. And so Jesus went into the garden. And he took with him three of his disciples, Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John. And he told them, “my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Stay ye here and watch with me”. And then in agony and travail of soul he prayed, that he might be spared the bitter cup he had. But then he prayed that great prayer, “not as I will, but as Thou wilt, let it be.” And when he came to his disciples he found them, not praying with him, seeking to help their master, but sleeping peacefully. “Could ye not watch with me one hour?” he asked. And again he went into the garden to pray, and coming back found the disciples asleep again. Finally, after a third interval of prayer, Jesus came back and told his disciples, “Ye may sleep on now and take your rest, for the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners”. While Jesus was praying in the garden at the most crucial moment of his whole life, his disciples whom he had taught to pray were asleep.

It is a disturbing thought to think that men so close to their Master as the disciples were could be so lax in their responsibility to stand with him. Perhaps it is not to be wondered at that so many of us today fall short in our responsibility to live those principles which he taught us, which we pretend to stand for. Gould ye not watch with me one hour? Jesus asked his disciples. And he asks the same thing today, whenever we think of our responsibility toward those about us. But too often we are asleep when the great opportunities and great events of our lives require our watching and acting. The tragedy of sleeping leaves as its epitaph of remorse the plea, “if only I had known”. And so we sleep and fail to watch what is happening. And because of our sleeping we allow evil conditions to spring up and destroy those things we value, forgetting that Jesus warned us always to watch and pray that we enter not into temptation. Just as garden pests will attack and destroy our crops whenever we relax our watch, so evil forces come into power and destruction when we are asleep to their presence and reality. So the whole world could sleep while the conditions for a war were breeding; so we may sleep when the need for a new world based upon brotherhood faces us. So we sleep when we have the opportunities in our own lives to improve and grow. And we sleep when a world full of confusion and instability puts a bigger responsibility upon us to guide our youth in paths which are good, to teach them values that are enduring in a world spinning in confusion. The alarming rise in juvenile delinquency makes us all agree that something must be done, but so often we are asleep to the first responsibility which begins in the home. Those who work with delinquents are unanimous in the opinion that very little of it is caused by viciousness; it is all too often caused by ignorance and by the fact that the young are not being guided into constructive activities. In the industrial cities especially young people run wild because their parents haven’t the time or the interest to watch over them. In the everyday interest of earning money for a living, an interest which has grown greatly recently, because of the many opportunities to earn big wages, all other values are neglected, and the people sleep. They find no time to cultivate an interest in what the world has come to consider the enduring values; they have no time to seek God in an effort to improve their lives according to the standards taught by Jesus, standards we acknowledge are right and then are too indifferent to follow. And so we worry about juvenile delinquency while seventeen million children in the country are not taught to attend Sunday school.

Once Dr. Klossen a minister now at Cleveland, impressed with the fact that his people were too indifferent to the demands of religion contrived an effective way of showing them they were spiritually dead. He is a minister who is always thinking up new ways to put over an idea, and his churches are always full of people who come to hear him if only to see what his next trick will be. His morning service was in the nature of a regular funeral service. There was even coffin in the front of the service. At the close everyone was invited to come down and “view the remains”, but the inside was lined with mirrors so that everyone looked at a reflection of himself. It’s one way of getting across a point, I suppose.

There is this important point, however, that there is an acute danger of becoming indifferent to responsibility, in the genera1 rut and routine of ordinary living. Being a Christian means something more than professing certain beliefs; it demands a constant watching and working to live those principles which we say we believe. We must not sleep as did those disciples when the great crisis of Jesus’ life was at hand; we must be alert to support what he stands for in all that we do.

There is a great parable of Jesus which teaches us the same important fact, that we should be alert to our responsibilities in life. It is the parable of the talents. The story goes like this. There were once three servants whose master went away into a far country on a long journey, before he went he divided up his goods among the servants to care for the while he was gone. To one of them he gave five talents, to another two and to another one. A talent meant in those days a certain sum of money, quite a large sum, for as near as we can estimate it amounted to something between 1600 and 1900 dollars in our own money. Today we speak of talents as certain traits of ability which one may have; this use of the word comes directly from the parable, because the lesson of the talents applies to natural abilities. The first man was a. shrewd businessman. He followed the markets closely, noted the prospects of the crops, kept informed on the moments of caravans, and on the basis of the information invested the money wisely and well so that when the master returned he had earned a l00% profit and returned to his master ten talents. The second man with the two talents was an honest and hard worker and by the sheer fidelity of his toil he made the two talents yield four. The third servant was of a different stripe, however. He hid his money in the ground, the ancient equivalent of a bank, where he would run no risk of losing it, and so when the master returned, he had the one talent to return to him. To the first two men the master gave praise: “Well done, good and faithful servants”, he said. And he gave them even more talents to supervise. But the third man aroused the anger of the master because he had hidden the talent and not used it to gain more. And so he took the talent away from him and gave it to the others. Now this is not intended to be a guide to how we should manage our money matters; it is not intended as such; it has a deeper meaning to show.

We read that the lord gave to the servants varying amounts of money, different talents. This seems to be a clear statement of the inequality of human endowments. As we grow older, we see that certain gifts and talents are ours but that others which we may wish very much we had, seem to have been denied us. Thus certain people have great talents in a particular line. Shakespeare has five talents in writing, Edison five in inventing etc. Most people have only mediocre talents, perhaps two, and others, handicapped with only one. We like to think that God created all men equal: he does give all men an equal opportunity to prove themselves. But men are not equal either in ability or opportunity or advantages. But there is the comforting fact we learn from the story that men with different talents are not expected to show the same results. The first two servants received the same praise from their master although one had earned five talents and the other only two. Just to the measure in which a person is gifted is he held accountable. And the greater gifts, the greater the talents we have, the more there is required of us. We often wish we had another’s superior talents and we forget that those superior talents involve greater responsibilities which balance the advantage. We should note too from the story that no one is left without a talent at the beginning. The man who had only one talent lost it not because it was small but because he did not use it.

The rewards that these men received give us a new system of measurements, when we see that the man who earned two talents received the same approval as the man who earned five. It reminds us of the story of the woman who put all she had in the box at the temple, and it was only a mite, the smallest coin there was. Jesus observing this act said that hee had given more than the rest because she gave all that she had. So here the question is not how much have you gained but rather how much in comparison with what you had. What have you done with what has been intrusted to you? There is no penalty for having small talents, nor is there any reward for having superior abilities.

The third man was blamed by his master because he failed to put his talent to use. He lacked imagination and he failed in courage. His talent was small, and the anger of the master may seem strange. But this points out the great truth that no talent no matter how small can afford not to be used; every talent even the humblest is needed in the order of life - that is why every life is precious in the sight of God. The great cathedrals of the medieval world required the many talents of great and gifted men to build the great arches, to make the carvings and the paintings. Only highly gifted and skilled hands could have done it. But other hands equally faithful were required to dig the foundations and lay the masonry. Every man’s gift is necessary in the rearing of the temple. And so in a great orchestra - each man is important and vital to the work of art that is being performed. The tuba may only play a few bars during the whole performance, but its part is as important as any of the others. When we realize that every man’s talent is necessary, the distinction between great talents and small ones becomes somewhat stupid and false. The failure of the one talent man is just as bad as that of the ten talent man. After all it is doing the best job out of what you have that counts; it is making the most of whatever opportunities and talents you have that determines your success in life. It is the single voice that sometimes makes important decisions in breaking a deadlock; there are opportunities where even a small task can affect great events’. “There is waiting a work where only your hands can avail; and so if you falter, a chord in the music will fail.”

This third man failed, then, because he was asleep to the value and importance of the talent which was intrusted to him. He failed to see how important his little gift was. And, more important, he failed to show courage in using it. He did not want to risk this talent and so he buried it in the ground, forgetting that nothing is ever gained without risks. This is the real reason for the man’s failure; this is why his master treated him so harshly. He did not realize how fruitful this world is for talents. If we use a talent, it grows in power and useful. And when we fail to use our talents we see how fatal the world can be to them. If we neglect our talents, they vanish. If we try to save them by hiding them in the ground, they rot away. Take away the talent from him, said the master. This is a sober statement of the law of life. A talent used with discretion results in increased talents; if left stagnant it will disappear. Feed a capacity for music or for mechanical invention and it will grow with an ever deepening root; neglect it, and it will disappear like a morning mist.

This seems a hard lesson for us to learn because we are all too prone to keep our talents to ourselves and not risk them by spending them. We are asleep to the possibilities of their increase and count only the possible cost. We can not bury our talents in the vain hope that they will last; it is only in the risks of using them that they can grow. As we use them, and as they grow stronger we will find that they can open up to us more and more possibilities for progress. It is only as this country uses its great talents in a wider cooperation after the war that it will survive as a great power.

This is perhaps one of the best messages we can find in the teachings of Jesus for the attention of young people. Neglect not the talent that is within you. Do not be asleep to your talents and the need for using them to possess them. And as we do so, the sky will seem full of stars of limitless possibilities.

1THREE INTERPRETATIONS OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS

I. Dickie “The Organism of Christian Truth”

Extracts from pages 190 - l98.

Extracts from pages 325 - 327.

“a Miracle is a religiously significant event, an occurrence which speaks to us with a Divine impressiveness a1together special or extraordinary of the presence and power of the Living God in human life.” p. 190

“Christian faith is essentially faith in a God who interposes by miracle. What gives the modern attack upon the idea of miracle its point and apparent cogency is the underlying assumption… that everything that happens in the world is the necessary and inevitable outcome of things as they already are. There are no new factors introduced or indeed introducible into the cosmos. There are no new beginnings - no creative activity of God still found in the world. But this is a hypothesis which is scientifically unprovable and from the religious point of view inconceivable. All religion holds, as we saw, that there is an increasing purpose running throughout the ages, and is compelled to interpret that increase as due to the living personal, creative activity of the Living Personal God. Every accession of Divine strength and guidance to every believer is a new factor in the wor1d’s history - a new creative energy of God, added to the cosmos of existing things. To deny that there are any new exercises of creative power is to deny freedom both to man and to God Himself. It is to hold that there can be no real personal communion between God and man, but that everything is absolutely determined by things previously existing.” p. 192

“The late Professor Max Mueller found the kernel of the modern conception of the world in the idea that ‘there is law and order in everything, and an unbroken chain of causes and effects holds the whole universe together.’ This is not only a very fair summary of what the modern conception of the world really is. It is a wonderfully good illustration of the fallacy which underlies the whole naturalistic or monistic view of things. Philosophy told us long since that nature makes no leaps. Yet somehow there seems always to be a little something or other more in the effect then there was in the cause.” p. 193

“How different the attitude of Lord Kelvin, who said, ‘Every action of human free will is a miracle to physical and chemical and mathematical science, A miracle it certainly is in the sense that thereby there is introduced into the situation a new factor altogether inexplicable in terms of the categories with which these sciences operate.” p. l94

“As a matter of fact, in the strict and proper use of the word, miracle is like sin, a distinctively religious conception, and so no miracle can be proved miraculous to the irreligious man, any more then sin can be proved sinful. Even if we convince a person destitute of religious faith that something extraordinary has occurred, we cannot convince him that we have in it a special act of God’s Providence, a clear and unmistakable proof of His love and care for His children. It belongs to the nature of religious faith not to be susceptible of rigid, logical or assent -compelling demonstration. At the same time faith has its own sufficient grounds of certainty. It depends for its life on the conviction that God does impart Himself to, and enter into personal relations with, the individual believer. It knows Him in Whom it trusts, with the immediacy of direct, personal knowledge; and it feels that there is nothing in human life at once so real and so valuable as the believer’s experience of God’s active personal interest in the well-being of His children, individually as well as collectively. Thus the proof which the believer has of the miraculous is in line with his proof of the existence of God Himself. It does not, and never can compel faith in the non-believer It does abundantly sustain faith in those who are convinced of the reality of the Divine interposition in human affairs upon the basis of their own personal experience of redemptive grace. Our Lord Himself gives expression to this truth regarding miracle when He says, ‘If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead’ (Luke 16:31. In other words, no miracle, however extraordinary, can convince of religious truth, except upon the basis of moral and religious preparedness.” p. 196 - 7

“Occurrences are not miraculous in the full sense which the word has always borne, unless God designs them to produce such definite effect upon the religious believers concerned. Here again by another road we reach the position that faith in miracle is conditioned by faith in a Living, Personal God, and also that miracles are not in a logical point of view provable.” p. 198

THE RESURRECTION

“The Church was founded upon faith in the Risen Lord; and by this faith it has always lived, To deny the Resurrection is to deny historical Christianity itself, For the Christian believer the Resurrection has always been God’s own attestation of His Only Begotten Son; the crown and summit of our Lord’s whole redemptive activity; the ground of our religious confidence that the divine purpose for the salvation of the world, however much it may be hindered by man’s sin, must ultimately achieve its glorious fulfilment, We are in no way concerned to deny that some elements in our Lord’s message may retain their validity, or even that they have retained it in individual instances, for those who regard His personal life as having finally closed on Calvary. But the result in life and religion is altogether different from the faith which says with St. Paul and all who throughout the Christian centuries have known and acknowledged Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord… p. 325 - 6.

“It would be utterly impossible as regards any acknowledged Christian believer of the earliest days to maintain with the slightest show of plausibility either that he had not heard of the Resurrection, or that he refused to accept it as a fact, or that he regarded it as a thing indifferent to the faith. At the same time it is true of the Resurrection … that it becomes credible only in the context of our Lord’s work and significance as apprehended by Christian faith, or believing experience. The “Evidence - writers” of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries used to assert that the Resurrection is “the best attested fact,” or more guardedly that it is “one of the best attested facts” in history. But no person of discrimination would take up that ground nowadays - at all events on the basis solely of the New Testament and other early Christian documents. If such a contention were to be advanced at all, it would be grounded not simply on the historical testimonies, however excellent, but on their corroboration by the sum total of the effects which belief in the Resurrection has produced in history, and the improbability that the world should owe so much to a mere illusion. Precisely similar historical testimonies would not convince normal Christian believers of to-day that any one else had risen from the dead,” p. 326

“As regards the mode of the Resurrection I consider that the simplest and most natural view is that of the general Christian tradition as found, e.g., in our Confession of Faith (Chap. VIII, Sec. iv), viz, that “On the third day He arose from the dead with the same, body in which He suffered,” and I accept that view unhesitatingly as my own personal conviction. But at the same time I would maintain that what is essential to Christian faith in the Resurrection is not the empty tomb, but the Lord and saviour who once was dead but rose triumphant over death and, the grave and is now alive for evermore as the living, Personal Head of His Church.” P. 326 - 7.

Mackinnon “The Historic Jesus”

Extracts from pages 295, 296: 297, 298, 299, 300.

“It is, I think, reasonably certain, on this testimony, that the disciples had such experiences and they all are the more credible inasmuch as Paul does not ground them on legendary phenomena, but simply contents himself with attesting their reality. Equally certain that they gave rise to the unshakable conviction that their faith in the Jesus they had known on earth and in his God-sent mission was not a vain faith, however difficult it may be for us to decide what these experiences actually connote. Were they purely mental, or were they visual? The references to these manifestations, for which St. Paul vouches at a comparatively early period, and one of which he himself experienced, tend to the latter alternative. Thereby, at all events, the early disciples attained to a consciousness of his spiritual existence as real as had been that of his presence among them in the flesh. Such a consciousness is not an isolated thing; it is within, the compass of every human being in the more profound experiences of the inner life, even withont the aid of any appearance of a visual kind. Moments may come when we are in real, conscious contact with the unseen spiritual realm and know for a certainty that we are so. It is a fact of this kind - the certainty that Jesus has not been held captive by the death on the Cross - on which the Christian community was founded, in which the expanding Church had its beginning. Whether spiritually or visually grasped, is really secondary, though in the case in question, it seems to have been the latter. That such a fact is possible, that it actually took place, no one has a right to deny offhand. The fact has, indeed, been questioned, and we know only too sadly from history that in religious phenomena, self-deception, hasty conclusions based on ill-regulated fancy and emotion, are common enough. There is also the phenomenon of spiritualism, old and new, necromancy, to be reckoned with, which seeks to establish by mechanical or magical means contact with the dead, and of which we are justly auspicious and distrustful in the present state of the evidence at least… But we have a right to question facts of the kind referred to above on what I may term dogmatic grounds– on the ground of the belief that such things are pure hallucinations, and that death is the end of both body and spirit? Thi5 is an assumption which amounts to begging the question, and results from the unwarrantable dogmatism that pronounces spiritual phenomena to be absolutely illusory. Such an altitude is very superficial, and scientists are happily to-day emphasizing the spiritual reality underlying the material manifestation, of it. It ignores the spiritual realm and the spiritual side of human nature. We can from experience point to the certainty of spiritual communion. We know as a fact that through our moral and mental nature we are in contact with what is beyond the senses, and that a life beyond that of sense is a reality for those who exercise all the faculties of their being in the striving to realize it. “In Him we live and move and have our being” is as much a reality for those who give scope to the spiritual side of their being as seeing, hearing, sleeping. That the material is the only real and the spiritual necessarily illusory is a purely dogmatic conclusion, a one-sided and unreasonable interpretation of that double life of sense and spirit of which we are, or may be, conscious if we give a reasonable scope to the conditions of it.”

“Moreover, to descend to a lower level, there are facts vouched by experience which tend to establish the reality of communion of spirit with spirit. Telepathy is an established experience, and of itself proves the direct intercourse of mind with mind without a sensible medium. Nor is this experience confined to the contact of spirit with spirit in the case of those living in the body. One has heard of experiences of this contact of the living with the departed, apart altogether from the intervention of professed mediums, which can only be explained by the capacity of the departing or departed spirit to make known through telepathy, say, the fact of the departure from this life, it may be thousands of miles at a distance from the object of this communication.”

“It may be objected that these manifestations occur only to disciples, if we except the case of Paul, who, however, was evidently already less an enemy than an incipient friend. The question, as old as Celsus in the second century, is asked, Why not to enemies, and thus decisively settle the question? A weighty answer is that in the case of enemies the conditions are not there to make such conviction possible. Sympathy with, aspiration after, the object are indispensable, as our own experience teaches us. We cannot come by these experiences without the receptive mind, the spiritual atmosphere to which they belong. For there is really nothing supernatural in them. They are facts of the spiritual life, and without the conditions of them they cannot be, as it were, extemporized. When the Jews rejected Jesus and his spiritual teaching, they made it impossible for themselves to attain such apprehensions as can only come by spiritual means. Let them change their attitude and the experience, directly or indirectly, becomes possible, as we learn from the Acts of the Apostles.” p. 295-8.

“Psychologically these appearances presuppose at least a subconscious condition favorable to their recurrence in the impression which the wonderful life of the Master had left in their minds. The appearances only quickened into activity the latent thought that such a life could not be destroyed by death. Given the life, the conclusion had real, concrete grounds to rest on in the person and mission of Jesus as the highest embodiment of the divine in the human,” p. 299.

“Jesus was great enough to induce the restitution and the transformation of their faith in spite of the Cross, to replace the living converse by a spiritual communion. Assuredly no illusory, incredible transition, in view of the historic reality underlying it. The resurrection faith is, in fact, the only rational faith for those who are conscious and capable of the divine life. “God isn’t the God of the dead, but of the living,” Jesus had told the Sadducees in defense of the belief in a future life. In this capacity for the higher divine life, exemplified at its highest by him, lies the strength of the belief in a blessed immortality, …” ‘ p. 299.

Baillie “And the Life Everlasting”

Extracts from pages l614, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169; 170, 171; 181, l82, 183, 184, l85.

“What is quite certain is that all the disciples believed their Lord to have risen and that their belief was built into the very foundations of the Christian Church. Among the Jews the doctrine of resurrection had never, up to this date, met with universal acceptance. It was a moot question; and the Sadducees who denied it continued to flourish in Jerusalem until the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. But there was never any Sadduceeism within Christianity. In the hope of a blessed immortality Christianity had been born and in that hope it continued to live.” p. 164 - 165.

“We must, however, enter the warning that this is not to be understood as if the faith that Jesus was alive was the sole original root of the Christians’ hope that they too would live eternally. Most of them as followers of the Pharisaic tradition, and some of then, as followers of the Platonic tradition, had entertained that hope before they ever knew Jesus.” p. 166.

“Moreover, Jesus had Himself, during His own lifetime, taught His disciples that they could assure themselves of immortality by looking — He could not then say to Himself, but — to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. The faith that these are alive, He had argued, is ground for hope that we too may live. But the simple fact is that the argument never seemed to carry full conviction until for these names men could substitute the name of Jesus. The hope had long been entertained, but only now had it become a sure and firm persuasion, putting an end to all doubts” p. l66 - 7.

“The New Testament does not really teach that there is available for the truth of Christianity such empiric evidence as must confound all unbelief. Rather is faith “the evidence of things not seen.” . . . “To say that the disciples’ faith rested solely on the appearances is therefore to deny to them all faith properly so called and to charge them with the refusal to believe except on the evidence of the senses. If this be true of them, then they were not only less noble-minded than the disciples of Socrates whose faith in immortality rose triumphant from their master’s death, but were less noble-minded also than their own Jewish fathers and mothers whose belief in resurrection had survived the disappearance of many a loved one beneath the sod. And that we cannot think to have been the case. That, then, is one reason why we must not say that the Church’s faith in its ever-living Lord rests upon the fact that He was seen by His disciples after His death.”

“But there is another reason. For the faith which manifested itself in the disciples’ hearts was not really of such a kind as to be capable of any mere ocular demonstration. No conclusion of religious significance could be held to follow logically, and no spiritual conviction would be likely to follow psychologically, from the mere fact that a man who had died and been buried was seen walking the earth once again. If we are to believe St. Luke, this very point was made by Jesus Himself. In the story of Dives and Lazarus He makes Dives plead with Abraham that he should send Lazarus back to earth to inform his five brothers of the reality of eternal life and the solemnity of the final judgment. “But Abraham saith, They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one go to them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise from the dead,” p. 16S - 9.

“Supposing a man devoid of religious faith were to read in his morning’s paper that a remarkable thing had happened in a neighboring city - a citizen who had died and been buried had, after the lapse of same days, and in agreement with his alleged predictions, appeared to a number of his friends and been engaged by them in conversation: what would be his natural feeling about the report? To begin with, he would rightly be exceedingly skeptical about its accuracy and would feel that a phenomenon so contrary to all human experience should not be received as authentic without the most scrupulous enquiry and the most complete, indeed “watertight,” attestation. But if he satisfied himself that such an enquiry had been made and that the evidence was indeed quite unimpeachable, then he would be forced to allow that a phenomenon of extraordinary scientific interest had occurred: a man who had been certified as dead by the doctors and had spent three days in a vault had (as foretold by himself) returned to earth alive and had again companied with his friends for a brief period before disappearing once again from their midst. But would he conclude, further, that the risen man must have been remarkable in any other respect, or that his ideas on things in general must have been profoundly wise and right, or that all men would rise as he did, or that even he would live on forever? Or again, would his mind be turned in any way towards belief in the reality of God or in the possibility of fellowship with Him whether in this life or in glory everlasting? Surely the answer to all these questions must be No.” P. l7O - l.

“It should be noted carefully that to make the vision of the risen Christ conditional upon faith in Him is by no means the same thing as making it the fruit of faith. To say that I cannot see a certain star without lenses does not mean that the lenses create the star. To say that only a trained eye can find beauty in a certain picture does not mean that the trained eye puts into the picture a beauty that is not really there. What faith did for the disciples was not to make them subject to delusions but - as we are fain to think - to open their eyes to a Reality that was actively seeking to invade their consciousness. Indeed it is as wrong to speak of the vision out of the faith as of the faith growing out of the vision.” p.181 - 2.

…”Perhaps the visions are the form which faith assumes for exceptional natures or in exceptional circumstances.” p. 182.

“The question le often raised whether the visions of the risen Christ were ’subjective’. The answer, for all who believe in the reality of the Unseen World at al1, must surely be an emphatic negative. The visions granted to the disciples were revelations of a genuinely extant reality. Neither their faith itself, nor the visions that accompanied and defined it, are capable of a purely ‘subjective’ explanation. They were what they were only under the pressure of the reality, now believed in, now seen. Behind the fact of their upreaching faith lay the prior fact of God’s downreaching grace. Behind the fact of their strained seeing lay the prior fact of the invading presence of Him whom they saw.” p. l82 - 3.

“To make faith depend on the proved historicity of the appearanoes is to place a weight on the historical evidence which it cannot possibly bear and never was meant to bear; and it can lead only to perplexity. And this perplexity is increased when the Resurrection - appearances are separated from their natural context in the whole history of Biblical visionary disclosure. A story like that of Jacob wrestling with God at Peniel and seeing Him “face to face” is probably purely legendary. But what are we to say of Isaiah’s vision in the temple: or of the visions of Ezekial “in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month” as he was “among the captives by the river of Chebar”? And again, what are we to say of the Transfiguration, of the Ascension, of St. Stephen’s vision before he was stoned, of St. Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus and of many others recorded in the New Testament? These are clearly held by the Biblical writers to be ‘objsctive’ in just the same sense as were the Resurrection appearances. St. Paul regards his own vision of the risen Christ as being on the same plane as those vouchsafed to the original disciples: “and last of all, as unto one born out of due time, he appeared to me also.” Yet are we to understand that what was seen in those cases was something that entered into the public and common order of events?” p. 183 - 4.

“Was the light from heaven” that shone round about St. Paul at his conversion, a light that mingled with the lights of earth, being of one substance with them? Surely we must answer No to all these questions. In that use none of the Biblical visions seem to have been ‘objective’. But is that a proper use of the word ‘objective’? I cannot believe that it is. I sometimes wonder, indeed, whether the word has any proper sense or use. The fashionable modern distinction, introduced by Kant, between the objective and the subjective is a highly confused one and needs to be broken up into at least two separate distinctions, that between significant and merely illusory experience, and that between public and private experience. There is no reason to suppose that all private experience must be illusory.” P. 185