Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1917-04-05
Sacrifice Must Precede Souls Easter
Triumph.

A divine Father near to each human
soul, acting in and through the events oil
daily life, and a risen Christ revealing
Gods nature 10 us through our personal
communion with him This is the Easter
triumph.
Modern Christian criticism may discuss,
as il is now doing, the historical and
quasi -physiologicalp problems astowheth-
er the risen Christ had "material body
spiritualized" or Spiritual body ma
terialized," whether his actual flesh and
blood came forth from the grave, as the
Gospel narrative most distinctly gives us
to understand, or whether he bore that
celestial and incorruptible body which ST.
Paul declares is the body OF the reSur-
rection. Yet we need have no fear that
the concluSon-it one be ever reached
in the future-will affect that vital truth
on which our Christian faith has been
grounded for nineteen centuries.
The lesson OF the Resurrection is purely
personal and individual one. We do
we'll to ask ourselves SoberlY and serious
ly what that lesson is. Like all divine
truths, il is wondrously simple, yet deep
ly significant and full of transcendent
responsibility. II means nothing less
than such life union with Christ as to ef-
feet in us participation in his immortal
and divine character-asSuredly no easy
process, but the struggle and achievement,
OF life in constant touch and fellowship
with him.
The lesson of Easter plainly tells us
that we must die TO our selfish selves, 10
our littleness, narrowness, pride and hate,
and rise TO the eternal life OF service.
No Easter triumph can come TO any
soul without first Golgotha OF individual
sacrifice and seli-renunciaton. Heaven
is no fit place or condition for man who
knows not what service is.
The risen Christ reveals The Immortality
OF love realized in the soul OF man,
conception briefly summarized by our
Lord in the seeming paradox, "He that
saveth his life shall lose it, and he that
loseth his life, the same shall lose it"
The risen Christ reveals the Immortality
OF truth. The self-opinionated whose
preju6ices and preconceptions shut out
honest inquiry cannot commune with a
God OF truth. The revelation OF Christ
was therevelation OF truth, and intellect
ual integrity is the liberty OF every son
OF God: "Ye.shall know the truth and the
truth shall make you free"
The risen Christ reveals the Immortality
OF service. The divine activity is contin-
ually self-forgiving. God is forever show
ing the divineness OF service. This is
the life OF God and it is uniform, inflex-
ibe and eternal law that we must enter
into such life before we can approach
the infinite ideal OF humanity which re-
veals God. The flowers and starry heav-
ems sing together because there is be-
tween them the affinity of showing Gods
beauty. But between selfish soul and
God there can be no communion.
The risen Christ reveals what was CEN
tral in the mind OF God from eternity.
This darling thought in divine evolution
was the perfect humanity revealed in the
Son OF Man. We call Christ our Lord,
our King, our Master and Our God, and
Justly so, but the dearest title to him and
the one oiteneSt upon his lips is that OF
the Son OF Man, because il shows what
man can be in him and through him. To
that humanity we link our hopes OF i'm
mortality, and we are confident they will
not disappoint us.
The lesson OF Easter is simply this,
that we live the immortal life here, The
life OF love, sacrifice, truth, beauty and
hope as revealed in Christ; that we enter
into such individual fellowship with our
Lord as 10 enable us TO realize in him the
life of God, for he has said: "He that
hath seen me hath seen the Father" thai
we appropriate his divine life expressed
in the Joy OF seIf-denial, though it leads
us 10 Calvary.