The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1921-03-27

But there was day when the Master
who had walked and talked with his
disciples for three years. could no longer
be seen nor heard
They had seen him arrested they had
seen him tried, and spit upon in Gaia
phas palace: they had seen Him in
Pilates judgment hall with scrouged
and bleeding back. Knocked with a thorny
crown and purple robe; they had seen
Him nailed to the cross and crucified;
they had heard His cry of anguisAed,
desolation and had seen Him die; they
had taken His lfeless body down from
the cross and had buried it in Joseph's
tomb; they had spent Friday night, and
all day Saturday, and Saturday highs.
knowing that His body was in the
grave they were puzzled they were
downeast, they were DISCOURAGED. thew
were sad at heart and the hope of see
ing Him again and Of hearing His loved
voice had died. They could never forget
His wondrous teaching, His amazing mi
raeles, and above all, the beauty, the
majesty the glory of His personality.
Trailing clouds of glory. He had come
from God into their meager, narrow,
selfish lives, and had transformed them
more and more into real disciples
But now to what purpose had it all
been? Death had entered into the
arena, and in short, sharp, bitter bat
tie had brought to the dust the glorious
being whom they had known, had loved.
had worshiped, and their bright hopes
had been eclipsed in the blackness of
the tomb. Certainly so it seemed to
before the dawn. Few of us can enter
into the hopeless grief, the grievous
hopelessness which enveloped the fol-
lowers of Jesus like a black and angry
cloud on that awful Saturday night be-
fore the first Easter morning. Yes, the
first Easter morningl They had no
background of 800 Easter mornings.
They had only the image of the Lord
whom they had loved, and had lost, and
their hearts were filled with a solemn
awful agony as they faced a future
without Him.
And then the first Easter morning
broke over the hills round about Jeru-
salem. and in the garden at Joseph
tomb there was indeed a light such as
had never been seen before on sea or
land. 1t was the light. of the Eternal
City, the Holy Jerusalem, the City of
God, which illuminated the face of the
angel who proclaimed to the women
that Christ had risen and had brought
life and Immortality to all those who
came to God by faith in Jesus Christ
How central must Easter be in all
the thought and teaching, and life of the
apostles. Without Easter, they were dis
couraged, distressed indeed helpless men,
sayings of dead, aye despised, cruel
fed Jew. With the rising of the first
Easter sun they are transformed into
men with message of faith of hope,
of loye--a message of the teaching and
life of their risen victorious Lord. The
Master himself set forth and emphasized
the central relation of His Resurrection
to the life and growth OF His church, TO
He declared that His disciples were wit
nesses of these things. AZ,
In his last talk with his disciples,
just before His ascension, He said unto
them; Thus it is written and thus it
behooved Christ to suffe- and to rise
from the dead the third day, and ye
are witnesses of these things The in
disputable, the convincing. the browning
proof of the Divine nature of our Lord
is His life after death. In that final