The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1895-04-18
ON CHRIST Is RISEN.
THE EASTER MORNING SERMON OF
THE BISHOP OF HONOLULU.
A Text and Expedition of 1.-THE Sacri-
fee and Its Representations
at Worship.


Sermon delivered at 81, Andrews Cath
edrdl Easter morning by Right Req
Alfred Wills, Bishop Of HonolulGl
Colossians, 81. If We then be risen
with Christ, seek those things which
ere above, where Christ sitteth on the
right hand of God.
You heard these words this morning
in the Epistle. How did you receive
them? Did you acknowledge that you
had already participated in Christ's
resurrection, and so must live as those
who are alive from the dead, or did
they fall on your ears as a figure of
literal meaning? Do you ask how we
can be risen now, seeing we have yet
to die? We hope to rise hereafter, but
what is it to be risen now?
1t is because we have been raised to.
gether with Christ and therefore ought
to be leading risen lives that from every
altar on Easter morning the exhorta-
ton comes-If ye then were raised to-
gether with Christ, seek these things
that are above.
in the mystical body of Christ. we
have personal share in the events that
are the foundation of our creed, that we
observe the anniversaries not as historical
of dead past, but as
of historical events
carried on into the living present. and
bearing fruit in every succeeding gener-
alton.
And therefore today whilst we offer
worship in which the resurrection is the
theme of prayer and praise. we shall fall
very far snort of the real keeping of
Easter if wee do not seek to foster in our
selves some experience of the resurrec-
ton now springing from the event that
we are ommemorating.
To arrive at the apostles meaning
when he speaks of our being risen with
Christ, recall for moment the death of
Christ upon the cross. The Son of God
took our nature in order that He might
die. On the cross He as our representa-
tive, as the second Adam, bore all the
sins of the human race, and by His
offered an abundant ex-
piation for the whole world. Without
the shedding of His life blood in death
there could be no remission. But He
endured that death, willingly, freely,
laying down His life by His own power
that He might take 1t again.
But when he gave up the
ghost and his pierced body hung
lifeless on the cross, it seemed
as if all the hopes he had in
spired were lost. To the outward view +
he had died as all other men had died,
and who could say that his departing
soul was not claimed by him vino had
the power of death, that is, the devil.
There were lamentations and despair
and beating of their breasts on the part
of those who witnessed the death
of the Son of God. The disciples, in
fear and trembling of what might fol-
low, shut themselves up in the upper
room, and the sacred body lay in the
stiffness of death, in the sepulchre of
Joseph, the silence of the hallowed
garden being broken only by the tramp
Of the guard set there by Pilates order
in compliance with the request of the
stricken priests, lest the
disciples should steal the body under
cover of darkness.
Meanwhile, where was his soul? The
Holy Scripture enables us to answer
this question. Going through the val
ley of the shadow of death 1t entered
the unseen world, where, as in a fort
ress, Satan held captive the souls of
all who had died from the beginning.
For death being the wages of sin, he
as his lawful captive every soul
that was separated from the body by
death. But now. when the soul of Jesus
descended into hell, there entered into
the regions of death sinless soul, over
which Satan could have no power. He
had died for sin, but the sin was not his
own, but ours; and SO it was not possible
that he should be holden by the pains of
death. In the language of Psalm So, he
was free among the dead" and the
nature of his mission to the souls of the
departed we may infer from those
passages which speak of His saying to
he prisoners of hope, go Forth" For
who were these prisoners of hope but
those who with Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob had died in faith, not having re-
ceived the promises, but having seen
them afar off and who now heard from
the conqueror of Satan that the sacrifice
for sin was offered and that the iniquity
was pardoned. And when He had full
filled his mission, HIS soul was not left
III hell, but re-entered the body. which
was not suffered to see corruption, and
in which, now glOrified and incorrupti-
BILE, He rose again, not for Himself
only, but like Samson when he carried
away the gates of GAIA. having the keys
Of hell and of death, that all the captives
of the mighty may be delivered.
And when in the early morning of
the first day of the week an earth
quake rolled back the stone from the
door of the sepulchre and the
affrighted guard swooned with fear,
those who were the first to look into
the tomb saw nothing but the
grave clothes in which the body had
been wrapped. While Peter wondered
and the Magdalene wept, there was one
who rose to belief that he was risen
before he had been seen, the Apostle of
Love, of whom it is written-"He saw
and believed"
Such was the resurrection. On tie
cross human nature assumed by the
Son of God had expirated its offense,
and in the resurrection of Jesus, human
nature rose again from the dead.
The redemption was universal. Christ
died for all. The atonement reaches
from Adam to the last man that will
tread upon the earth. But each in
dividual who wishes to be saved
must claim in penitence and
faith a place in this all embracing re-
demption. 1t is not therefore to all
men observation-disclosures Jew, Turk,
intidel and hereto, whilst they iemain
in their unbelief, that the words of the
text are addressed-but to those who in
holy baptism have shared in the
death unto sin, ard the new birth and
~, .l,tA 3 L. 10 Ln