The roundup record., 1912-03-29
The Meaning
OF EASTER
By REV. LA ROY A. LIPPITT
Pastor First Congregational Church


u ~\l.NA\ cue. SHdll he i've again. For
centuries that was the supreme query Of
manklnd the Qury that none could ans
Wer though the wisest sought to, and the
most ignorant wondered. For within man
was something that told him that when he
laid his dead away, that was not the last
There was something within him. he knew
not what, that he felt could not die Yet he
had no tangible proof to offer in support Of
this instinct, either to another, who came to
ask comfort III distress, Or yet to himself as
ne saw himself steadily and surely approach
Ing the black abyss. Or when, with weeping
eyes and broken spirit, he saw the body of
the one, long dear to him, laid away and rea-
llzed that never again on earth could he hope
to see that face or hear that voice
Alas forhim srho nes'rr sees
The stars shine through the cypress trees;
UAo hopeless lays his dead asray,
Nor looks 10 Sc tic breaking day
across tic moWnfM marbles plav
But those days are past Few, indeed,
today in civilized lands, whether they ac-
knowledge the Mighty Nazerene as their
Master and Savior or not; whether they
take His name upon their lips in most solemn
PRAYER and devotion, or whether they take it
only on their lips in profane blasphemv;
whether they live in devotion to the cause of
uplifting mankind in the Spirit of the Christ
and by the ways which He taught and used
or spend their life in a greedy orgy, debasine
their fellow men and themselves; vet TODAY
they accept the truth first proved BY Him:
the truth, one OF the most precious of all to
mankind, II a man die, he shall live again.
But when Christ rose from the dead
and thereby proved the truth Of His teach
ing, that death was but sleep from which
men will awaken at the call Of God. He did
It not primarily to prove the fact Of immor-
tallty, but to prove a far greater truth No
doubt Il was a unique service which He rem
dered to mankind in proving to them that
there was a life after death. but that was SO
insignificant that He Himself scarcely men
tons It for itself, and men catching the en-
phasis have fallen into the same attitude.
The churches today do no, celebrate Easter
because on that day Christ manifested His
power over physical death and proved that
there was a future life much as that act alone
IS worthy Of the celebration. The great
hosts of the followers Of the Christ celebrate
that day because in that resurrection was
proven to humanity that there was a resur-
recton from the death in sin as we'll as the
death in the flesh. The Christ had in His
life proclaimed a God of love and forgive
ness. He had claimed that He himself was
the Son OF God sent forth to teach men that
truth and many other great truths OF lie.
But those truths required the veritication of
God Himself. The resurrection came as
their verihcaton and the veritlcation of the
life of Christ. 1t was the verihcaton Of the
fact that God SO loved mankind that He gave
His only begotten Son that Whosoever be-
lieveth on Him should not perish but have
everlasting life Christ saw realities where
we see but the shadow. Physical death he
called sleep, but to arouse men from spr-
itual death He came to earth and gave His
lle. His idea of the comparative Importance
OF the two is shown in His statement. 1t were
better for a man that milestone be hung
about his neck and he be drowned in the
midst of the sea than that he should cause
one child that believed on Him to stumble.
When from that rock-hewn sepuleher
He came forth on the first Easter morning
there arose not only Jesus, the Nazerene, not
only the Christ of the living God, but with
Him rose Humanity. The tomb was there
opened that every soul buried by sin might
~ Efa 1,.f fol1o l.