The herald., 1898-02-28
TRUE VISION OF CHRIST
Revealed in Lives of Love and
Sacrifice

Rev. Burt Estes Howard, at the First
Presbyterian church, yesterday morning
selected his text from John xii:2O-26: Now,
there were certain Greeks among those
that went up to worship at the feast; these
therefore came to Philip, which was of
Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, say
ing, Sir. we would see Jesus"
Who these Greeks were history does not
tell. A little band of dusty pilgrims crossed
a tiny segment of the field of vision and
then passed on forever nameless. But
when they had gone there shone out from
a bit of a place they had made for them
selves in the world the clearest, truest
vision of the Christ that we know anything
about, and there was added to the philos-
ophy of human life the one truth that was
needed to set all its confusion and discord
right. Wherever there was a soul that
needed lifting up, life that needed ex-
pansion in nobility and divineness, a heart
that needed healing or comfort or encour-
agement, there was set up by the very need
a claim to Jesus. And wherever In all the
earth or the heavens there was found a
soul that was busted about the will of God,
soul that was giving itself to living out
the measure of Righteousness that const.-
tuted its thought of God, there was kins-
man of Christ, no matter of what blood
that soul might be. There is much in our
churches of religious exclusivism. There
is many trace in our theology of religious
monopoly. The way in which we assume
to ourselves the title to mansions in the
skies because of our superior religious ad-
vantages and completely damn the heath
en-, is a case in point.
1 am not troubled about the ultimate
salvation of the heather in the life to
come. God will take care of that But ]
am troubled about the salvation of a
church that, be it ever so orthodox and
rigid in its persecution of the men who
serve Christ and do His works but do not
follow with 1t, has yet failed to grasp the
spirit of Jesus and has grown selfish and
exclusive. l fear that a good many of us
have gotten the idea that somehow the
church stands in the world as a sort of
judgment on 1t instead of it's servant.
fear that good many devout people have
thought that their business in the world
was to legislate on it's wickedness and pro-
nounce anathema on it's folies and weak
nesses. instead of being Christ to it, bear
Ing away Its sins and wrongs. We have
done what Jesus refused to do: we have
set ourselves to judge the world. We have
drawn our sword of sharp theological def
milton and have cut the world in two,
pronouncing our final judgment on men
and calling these saved in the world to
come and those damned, according to their
attitude toward purely human interpre-
tation OF dogma, rather than their attitude
toWdTu tAe hiHu Oh righteousness that
Jesus died trying to get into the world, and
by which alone He proposes to weigh them
If the world is to see Jesus we must cease
holding UP our bit of colored glass, insist
ing that they look at him through our
UNCONVENTIONAL and dogmatic medium
Over and over again does the world come
to the church and say, "Sirs, We would see
Jesus" And We turn to them and ask, do
you believe in original sin, total depravity,
election and the fall of Adam and imme-
date imputation and substitutionary theo-
ries of atonement and eternal damna-
tion?" We insist that men shall have the
same visual defects that we have the
same color-blindness and theological stra-
bismus and astigmatism. We dress Jesus
up in our sectarian masquerades, parade
him before the world, and wonder that
the world does not follow Him.
Oh, that we might all look away from
the Jesus of our own creation and make
the world glad with a vision of the Christ
of God revealed in lives of love and sac
rifice. For then is the Son of Man made
truly glorious, when we get men to see
Him as He is, in the spirit of unselfish
service-the laying down of life for the
sin Of the world.