Hints concerning the coming Resurrection.
"The third day he shall be raised again." Our Lord tried to prepare his disciples for his resurrection by frequent allusions to it, and yet they never seemed to be able to take it into their souls. Perhaps they thought he was only speaking in his usual figurative and paradoxical way, though what he really meant they were unable to guess. The disciples would not allow themselves to contemplate their Lord's violent death; and they could not else to conceive, of his abiding spiritual presence as altogether more important than his temporary bodily presence. Our Lord made much of his coming resurrection. Can we understand what it was to him?
I. THE RESURRECTION INTIMATES THE CLOSE OF A HARD LIFE. Our Lord's human life was a hard life. That is the best word for it, because human life is hard that involves constant humiliation and self-restraint. We should avoid exaggeration in speaking of Jesus as "a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." Life is hard for the man who is "cribb'd, cabined, and confined," and has always to be forcing his will into subjection to a superior will. Our Lord's trouble was the power of the body to affect the will; but that would be done away with in the Resurrection.
II. THE RESURRECTION LIFTS HIS THOUGHT OVER THE LAST STRUGGLE. Illustrate by the patient anticipating a serious operation. The best thing you can do to cheer him is to lift his thoughts over that time, away beyond that time, to the time of convalescence, and what is to be done then. So Jesus had Gethsemane, judgment halls, and Calvary to go through, and his best cheer was to slip over them, and think of the glorious resurrection life beyond.
III. THE RESURRECTION WAS THE SIGN OF THE ACCEPTANCE OF HIS WORK. His release from the grave was the intimation of Divine approval, and the occasion for giving him his trust of the work of saving humanity. To think of that acceptance assured Christ that the Father's smile was on him while he was working and suffering.
IV. THE RESURRECTION WAS THE TIME WHEN HE COULD BECOME THE SPIRITUAL POWER HE WANTED TO BE. This point will open out with some freshness. Jesus always wanted to be a spiritual power in the souls of men. While he was in the body, the body seemed both to help and to hinder both him and them. It was a necessary help for a time, but Jesus longed for the risen and ascended life, in which he could be unhindered spiritual power to redeem and save.—R.T.