The Yale expositor., 1908-04-10
THE RAISING
OF LAZARUS

Specially Prepared for This Paper


GOLDEN TEXT am the resurrec-
| ton and the life."-John 1l:25.
TIME-January or February, A. ID. 80.
One or three months after the last les
son. And two or three months before
Jesus crucihxon.
PLACE.-Bethabara OR. ". Bethany
| In Perea. Bethany. a small village on the
Mount OF Olives, about two miles from
| Jerusalem.
comment and Suggestive Thought.
At the feast of the dedication, in De-
cember, Christ had so plainly assert
ed his deity that the Jews had sought
to stone him for blasphemy; but he
had escaped to Bethabara bethany
in Perea, the country east of the Jor-
dana town In the north over against
Galilee.
Christ's promise OF resurrection
did not satisfy Martha. 1t was too
general, too vague, too far ahead. She
wanted her brother back-that min
ute. Christ met that longing by one
of the most magnificent of his utter
ances - that wondrous sentence
which has carried hope and triumph
to millions of the dying and bereaved,
and will do so while time and NOR
tally re."-Geikie.
| 1.-THE living, breathing friend,
whom you love.
AM-Am now; no vague sometime;
no postponement.
THE RESURRECTION power
of the resurrection, the resurrection
embodied.
AND THE LIFE-to conquer that
grim DEATH which has come SO ter
ribly to your home.
HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME-
believing what Martha fastened to
confess, that Christ was Gods Son,
| THOUGH HE WERE DEAD-as to
his mere body.
YET SHALL HE LIVE-in every
point that constitutes life, having even
a body, and far better one.
AND WHOSOEVER-yes though he
were the chief OF sinners
LIVETH-with this higher life in
him.
AND BELIEvETH IN Me ION
me-" says the Revised Version.
SHALL NEVER DIE-No, NEVER;
for. though his body may perish, that
will be but an incident in
his continuing and triumphant LIFE.
Jesus, Our Resurrection and Our
Life.-1. BY preserving our lives daily,
through countless unseen perils that
surround us-perils of the disease
germs floating everywhere; perils
OF earthquake on this thin
perils of accident in our complicated
life. "A thousand times, yea, every
perilous moment, God saves us from
dying."-Phillips Brooks.
2. BY turning our minds away from
the physical death we must all die at
length, to him and his life. I'VE are
all passing into the likeness of that in
ships money comes to wear the like
ness of money-worshiper down to
the tips of his fingers. The Hindu who
worships Brahma sleeping on the
stars in immovable calm, gets to wear
La fixed expression. Theodore T.
Munger, d. ID. So the continual
thought of Christ, who overfiowed
with invincible life, implants that life
within us.
8. BY upholding us in the very
hour Of physical death. When COM
munity Of religious women In Paris,
during the fury of the French Revolu
ton, we're condemned to the guillo-
tine, the youngest victims passed to
their execution raising In serene
voices the sublime hymn. "Veni Gre
ator." The celestial song did not cease
when they assembled the stairs of the
scaffold, and the work OF butchery
went on. Voice after voice had to
drop from the chorus, as face after
face bent under the ak; and at length
one voice was heard alone sustaining
the holy strain, even while the bloody
blade fell and sealed the last mar
Ityr's testimony Bishop Huntington.
T. BY awaking us, wheD we die. into
Iendless life. The time will seem no
longer than the four days which
lpassed before he awakened Lazarus
We shall have no consciousness of his
tarrying. He comes as in a moment
to awake us out of sleep."-Thomas
Arnold, the head of Rugby school.
5. BY freeing us from the spiritual
death, from sin. Massillon, the great
French preacher, justly sees in the
dead Lazarus an image of the sim
ner: Become a mass of worms and
and corruption, he spreads infection
and stencil; and behold the profound
corruption of a soul in habitual sin.
A gloomy napkin covers his eyes and
his face: and behold the fatal blind
ness of a soul in habitual sin. He
appears In the tomb bound hand and
foot: and behold the melancholy sub
lection of soul In habitual sin" Free
dom from this dead body" of sin,
as Paul called IL. is the most difficult
resurrection: but Christ accomplishes
even this He comes into our soul, and
sin must fee. "'Christ In you is the
hope Of glory
'1sidore of Potassium thinks that our
| Saviour did not mourn for hia friond