It is God's message of light and cheer to the captives of sin and death. By its inspiring, vitalizing, death-destroying truth souls are set free, blind eyes are opened, deaf ears are unstopped, the dead are raised. It is an absolutely vital essential of the Gospel. For "if Christ hath not been raised," declares His great apostle, "then is our preaching vain, your faith also is vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we witnessed of God that He raised up Christ." 1 Cor. 15:14, 15.
How the old story needs repeating! How the living truth needs ever to be renewed in life and character! For the resurrection of Christ Jesus is not a mere historical event. It is not a mere wonderful incident among many others, belief in which may be set aside as non-essential in character-making. It is not a mere dogma of a creed; for all the cold, dead declarations of the ages can not save a soul. The story of Christ's resurrection is a life-story. "Christ-is-risen" is a warm, living, vitalizing truth to him who receives it.
With sad and grief-filled hearts came the holy women to Joseph's lent sepulcher nearly nineteen centuries ago. They expected to find it closed. They did not know that the chief priests, under the evil principle that "the end justifies the means," had stretched their tradition-bound consciences enough to ask Pilate to seal the sepulcher and guard the place where reposed the Christ. They did not know that the strongest power on earth had stamped the closed tomb with the seal of authority. Neither did they know that the omnipotency of righteousness had prostrated Roman guards, broken Roman seal, opened the grave, and called to life Him who died for all. They did not appreciate the encouragement of the psalm predicting the triumph of God, which they had so often heard chanted by the great choir in the temple:
"He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh:
The Lord will have them in derision."
Eternal character could not long abide the darkness of death; "it was not possible that He should be holden of it."
As His devout disciples drew near to the rock-hewn tomb, closed with the ponderous stone, they asked themselves, "Who shall roll us away the stone?" They would perform the completing task of embalming Him before He was shut from their sight forever. Therefore they sought Him in the tomb. Other disciples also sought Him there. Hence the reproof of the angel: "Why seek ye Him that liveth among the dead? He is not here, but is risen."
“He is risen; He is not here.”
Let it be history no longer. Let it be a living message for the needful NOW, just as God designed it should be in every age. If "historical Christianity" had learned this truth, all the empty traditionalisms of the past would have perished forever. We should not have had the sevenfold surges of two centuries of crusades beating against the Moslem borders for the recovery of a traditional spot concerning which the heavenly messenger had forever said, "HE IS NOT HERE." The vast amounts of money lost in costly shrines, the vast cost of pilgrimages and the maintenance of armies of priests by the traditional churches, the yearly spectacles of fighting sects, held in check only by Mohammedan soldiers, would have been spared us. "The Holy Sepulcher," they call it, and "The Church of the Holy Sepulcher;" but above all their mad worship and fierce zeal, the child of faith hears the cry of Christ's messenger,
"HE IS NOT HERE."
But God pities these blind worshipers, as He pitied the disciples of old. A great void is in their hearts, which formalism can never satisfy. To many of these, as to them, He commissions His servants to say, "He is not here." He is not in the old, rock tomb, worn smooth, mayhap, with touches of devotion. He is not in the cast-off cerements of traditionalism. He is not in narrow, worn-out methods of work, tho once He blessed them; He is not in human creeds and human plans and human organizations, tho He may have blessed honest heart and honest work in them. He is not in the dead past ever. Matters it not that He was there or has been here; where is the Saviour, the Master, the Leader, now?
Thank God, He leaves us not with negations. The negative is to disabuse our minds; but the great positive, living truth is to fill them, fill them to the full, and flow out and on into other lives and hearts.
"He is risen from the dead; and lo, He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him: lo, I have told you."
There is life in the Word. The grave could not hold Him. He died for the sinner. He lives to justify, to save. Tell it, soul. Say to all that Christ is risen. Let your4new life in Christ Jesus tell it. Let your loyalty and faithfulness tell it. Tell it to the sinner. There is hope for him. Go out into "Galilee of the nations;" say to the blind, wandering seeker for light, for pleasure, for happiness, for gladness of heart, for rest of soul, for power over sin — say to them all, "Christ is risen;" "Christ is risen indeed," and there is hope and strength and life for all in Him.
