"If A Man Die...."
There is no sorrow in our hearts, no sadness in our lives, more common to us than that brought by death. All of us have been, or shall be, brought into the deepest agony of the human spirit by this experience. Like the heavy black pall of an impending disaster, the threat of death is with us from the first breath of air we draw at birth. Unconscious of its burden in early years, we feel the increasing weight of its ominous portent as the seasons roll by in swift succession. One by one we see our friends go down into the dark valley; their wisdom, their strength, and their beauty lost to us within the narrow confines of the tomb. All our tears and all our prayers can bring not one word from their silent lips.
Every sorrow and every tragedy of earth has its compensations. Every waste may be repaired. Each spring the earth rises in fresh loveliness from the frozen clutch of winter, coming through the dark valley of the shadow into the green pastures and beside the still waters of spring and summer. We have seen with wondering eyes how April and May make miracles of trees and flowers; the leaves appear again in all their old familiar tenderness; out of the dry bulbs and withered branches come the fresh young flowers, wearing the immortal bloom of Eden; the mound in the church-yard turns green and comes to life as though touched by a magician's wand.
But there is no answering movement from the more precious dust beneath that mound. Our loved ones sleep on. For this tragedy earth has no balm; for this sorrow earth has no cure; for this anguish there is no relief. With tear-dimmed eyes and heavy hearts we turn back to a life that has lost its sparkle, back to an existence that has grown dull and meaningless, back to long, weary years of loneliness and heartache. We have all known the heaviness of that desolate return from the cemetery after having left the body of a loved one there. We have known it, or we shall know it.
So stark has been this tragedy, so unbearable this shock to our existence that man has almost instinctively rebelled against it. As far back as the race can be traced, and as wide-spread over the globe as our knowledge extends, there has been a universal denial that death is the end. Every tribe and tongue in every age and under every condition has held to some sort of life beyond the grave. All the longing, yearning, hoping of uncounted billions of hearts has concentrated itself into a mighty belief that death cannot be the end; that life is too infinitely precious to be thus swiftly obliterated. The American Indian with his "happy hunting ground," the ancient Egyptian with his mummified carcass clutching the book of the dead, the Greek who was buried with a coin in his mouth to pay his fare across the river of death, were all brothers under the skin, united in a common hope of immortality. And, spiritually, they are blood-brothers to the Christian, who sings with Paul, "For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens." (II Cor. 5:1)
The Christian's hope for immortality is very closely bound up with, and dependent on, his faith in Jesus Christ. With never even the faintest hint of a doubt, Jesus Christ affirmed that he came from God, and was going to return to God. His confidence in that fact was so complete and so unquestioning that he boldly challenged his enemies to destroy him. He said, "destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another temple made without hands." (Mark 14:58)
With never a flicker of doubt of qualification, he told the disciples, "In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also. And whither I go, ye know the way." (Jno. 14:2-4) Here was no hesitation; here was no question mark after his assertion; here was only boldness and absolute confidence. Here was knowledge.
In every realm that he reached the knowledge of Jesus Christ was infallible. His eyes were not clouded as are ours; his thoughts were not confused; his understanding was not obscured. With insight and understanding, he could read the very thoughts of those around him. On more than one occasion he is said to have "perceived the thoughts of their hearts," or "knowing that they reasoned within themselves." He could speak peace to the spirit troubled with demons, foretell the events yet to come, or answer the most intricate and involved questions of the doctors and lawyers with never a second's hesitation and with no need at all to qualify his answers. To him the issues that puzzle us were as an open book. It is the consensus of the ages that "never man so spake." Even in the darkest hours of his life, betrayed by one of his disciples, deserted by all the others, he showed a calm assurance and a confident faith that astounded his enemies.
Not for one moment can we credit the monstrous notion that this person was nothing more than another human being—having no knowledge we do not have, no wisdom or understanding or power which is not in reality possessed by all of us! Are you willing to say that Jesus' confidence and faith were all a delusion and a dream? Was he mistaken? Can any rational man hold to the belief that Jesus Christ ceased to exist forever when his broken body was taken down from the cross—that all of his promises of a future life for his followers were but vain and empty boastings of something that never can be?
On the contrary, the Christian believes with all his heart that Jesus was not mistaken, that he was not some poor, deluded, fanatic, mouthing words that had no meaning. It is because of this belief that he can lay his dead away and "sorrow not, even as the rest, who have no hope." But because of that eternal hope, founded upon Christ, he lives with a calm assurance. Death has been robbed of its terrors and its sting. He has been released from the bondage through Christ. Believing in Christ, the Christian "is persuaded that he is able to keep that which has been committed unto him against that day." — F. Y. T.