A DEAD CHRIST by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 19, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 40.

"A DEAD CHRIST."

By Editor

SUCH is the title of an article in the Lutheran Observer, by Prof. W. H. Wynn, Ph. D., in which, after describing the sad experience of the disciples during the time that Christ lay in the tomb, he says:—

"But now—I dread to say it—there are signs in many quarters that the same awful burden lies close to our own doors, that all about us there drop the chill shadows of the eclipse, and the putrescence of sepulchral damps. Is Christ dead? Of course, my brethren, he is not dead. . . ."

"But somehow we seem like mourners and orphans now, hovering around the mouth of an empty grave, with forlorn hope that somewhere its vanished occupant may be found; or we have thrown open our churches to the in-rushing world that cares little whether he be dead or alive."

"In some cases the creed has sent him into far-off princely isolation—enveloping him in the retreating splendors of an unapproachable throne, having vicegerents on earth, other and less sympathetic than himself; and in this case he is as good as dead. More frequently our church sins crucify him afresh, and put him to an open shame, and cast him forth with a flourish of worldly trumpets into the reeking charnel-pits of the place of skulls."

"You know how it is, my brethren. You see it every day. When you rise up to preach and pray in the temple whither your flock has congregated, it comes into your mind that, neither for yourself nor for your people, is there an overpowering sense of a living, communing Master—rather that he is dead, or is in exile, or is as a stranger that has entered your circle and cannot find a seat. The sins of the week, and the worldliness afloat, choke your devotions, and your very audience-chamber echoes like a vault. Almost you are beginning to say: Brethren, the Master lies here dead—in state, it is true, with all the splendors and hatchments of his departed royalty lying about him, but—he is dead. Our sins have slain him, and you may come and identify the cruel gashes that your own murderous hands have made; but if you speak to him, he cannot answer. Your regrets and prayers he cannot hear, and all his ancient ardors, his pity, his miracles, his love which we thought almighty, has expired in death. You do not say this, for it would be the language of despair. You beat away the

blasphemous suggestion, but none the less the pall of bereavement throws its sable folds around you, and you sit down to the eucharist as to a funeral feast."

These are sad words, but, alas! they are too true. Coldness, formality, and sin have grieved the Spirit of the Master away from very many congregations, and to them Christ is dead, for he has forsaken their assemblies.