Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1907-09-26
THE PULPIT.
AN ELOQUENT SUNDAY SERMON BY,
THE REV. A. 3. SIMPSON.
Subject: The Gospel Of Tears.

Ao NoSpSA VI Ao"io' AAo "Snse
were:
Jesus wept.-John 1855.
And when He was come near He
beheld the city, and wept over it
Luke 1874.
Who in the days of His flesh, when
He had offered up prayers and sup
plications with strong crying and
tears unto Him that was able to save
Him from death, and was heard In
that He feared.-Heb. 81.
Who has not wept? Weeping we
begin life as helpless babes and. amid
the tears of mourning friends. we
pass out to the grave. Tears are the
badges of sorrow. How can they be
the expression of the Gospel, the glad
tidings Of great JOY and divine love?
And yet redemption has trans
formed the curse into blessing and
made rainbow of our tears.
Jesus wept" This little phrase,
the shortest in the Bible. has more in
1t than all the books that man has
written. A single drop Of ink could
write it, but all the world could not
contain its depths of love.
1t tells me that my Redeemer Is
ears dlc AuludA uho IhO
tears of Jesus proclaim Him my
Brother and my Friend. He Is the
great heroic Head Of our fallen race.
One has come to us who is bone of
our hone" and "flesh of our flesh" and
has the right to represent us; who Is
able to right our wrongs and recover
our lost heritage of happiness and
blessing.
When God determined to save this
fallen world, He did not send some
mighty angel. He did not come in
His own awful deity; but He stopped
to become man that He might meet
us in a gentle human form of which
we should not be afraid. How the
Roman Catholic clings to the tender
sympathy of the virgin mother, but
we do not need even woman's tender
ness to introduce us to the Fathers
heart; for Jesus Christ. our Saviour,
has a heart both Of woman and of
man. He has been an infant child
like us. He has traversed every stage
of the pilgrimage of man from the
cradle to the grave. He has been
everywhere that we have been. He
has felt everything that we can feel.
He knows our nature. He bears our
name. He wears our humanity. And
for evermore the Head of this uni.
verse. the King of Kings, the Lord
of angels shall be Man like us. our
Friend that sticketh closer than o
brother"
Oh, what a gospel Of comfort we
find in the humanity Of Christ. You
can come to Him tonight as you
would to the gentlest friend, the most
intelligent father, the noblest man
you ever knew; and though we have
sinned and gone far astray, HE is
not ashamed to call us brethren
They tell us that He is able to sym.
pathize with our sorrows. He wept
those tears for others. He saw
two breaking hearts before Him. He
felt their agony! He groaned in spirit
and was troubled and at last He
broke down altogether and burst into
flood of tears. How we thank Him
for those tears. :
This salvation is not all for the
pearly gates, the streets of gold and
the glorious Heaven that is coming
bye and bye. We need lot of 1t
down here in this broken-hearted
world amid our poverty and pain. our
sickness and death, our broken friend
ships, our wrecked homes, our wrongs
and sorrows and, thank God, He has
1t for us. He has experienced 1t and
He has not forgotten 1t and still In
His heavenly home we are told "He
IS able to be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities."
He was a child and has felt every
childish sorrow. He had the hard
struggle to support His mother at
Nazareth and He knows all about
hard work and hard times. He was
despised and scorned and He under
stands the sense of wrong and sting
of insult. He was deceived, betrayed
and murdered and there is no wrong
or insult can come to us that He has
not borne and is still ready to bear
for us. Yes, He has felt the awful
weight of sin, for there was an hour
when He sank under His Fathers
wrath in punishment for the sins Of
men. He knows the cloud of spir-
itual darkness. He knows the weak
ness and agony of death and He is
with us in it all. Blessed Friend,
how we thank God for Christ and
what a gospel of love and sympathy
and help speaks to us through the
tears of Bethany.
The tears of Jesus tell us that He
understands our danger, our destiny
and our estate. He shed those tears
over the grave of Lazarus. They
meant much more than sense of be.
reavement. He was not weeping be.
cause He had lost Lazarus. He was
not weeping because the sisters al
Bethany had lost their brother. He
knew that Lazarus was coming forth
again in little while and that the
sorrow would be forgotten In the glad
reunion. Oh, no, He saw deeper than
that. He saw in the grave Of Lazarus
every grave that had been opened
and filled through earth's forty GEN.
turtles and that would be filled in the
twenty centuries that have passed
since then. He saw all the horro~s
and agonies of the battlefield, the
ocean wreck, the lingering deathbed,
the scourge Of famine and pestilence
and the ravages of the king of terrors
with tho millions and billions of VIC
Tins that he has smitten in the past
six thousand years; and as He saw 1t
all, realized 1t all, and the vision
doomed in lurid horror before His
Omniscient eye, He realized the fear
full curse of sin and His heart broke
down in agony and sorrow.
Nay more, He saw a sadder sight.
He saw deeper lave. He saw the
stsrnal grave beyond all, that we be-
hold in death. lie saw the death that
never dies; the fire that never is
quenched; the yawning gulf of end
less woe into which the sinful soul
must sink forever. 1t was the sight
of that horror that had brought Him
from Heaven to earth. 1t was the
thought of man perishing in ever
lasting darkness that had made Him
glad to live and suffer and die, and
as 1t all rose before Him as through
a glass in the tomb of Lazarus Jesus
-