The Farmville herald. (Farmville, Va.) 1957-current, 1963-04-12

times this Easter day. If the hui
man race has not wiped Itself
/ out by this day, there will be
millions of Christians through
out the world who say this
amazing sentence with thankful
joy. The words should never be-
come commonplace. Consider
what the early Christians meant
by this. ALI the first Christie
levers were Jews; and at that
time they all believed that some
how, somewhere. many if n O
all human beings who had died
since the human race began,
would come to life again. Many
OF those who sleep in the dust
shall awake was the way they
put it, they believed in a kind
of delayed immortality. If you
had asked the ordinary pious
Jew of Jesus day. Where are
the dead, now" he might have
said, Asleep in the dust" or
"A m on g the others in the
shadow-world of the grave"
He Lives!
But after the first Easter Sun
day, the Christians did not go
around saying. Christ is asleep
in the dust! Christ is a ghost
among ghosts' Those are far
from comforting thoughts. What
the Christians said was. He is
risen!" which means, if it means
anything. He lives!" And they
didn't mean lin heaven" They
meant right here, where they
had seen Him and spoken with
Him. It is true. after a time He
disappeared and was seen on
earth in the old way no more.
But that did not depress those
Christians. They never knew
how to explain it, and they did
not try. But what they had seen,
they had seen. and nothing ever
shook them out of the convic-
ton: Jesus lives! To put this in
another way; The characteristic
cally Christian way to think
about Jesus Christ is as a now
living person. He lives in memo
~. He lives on the pages of his
tory. Books have been written
to show that Jesus was a real
historical character: but that is
not the point. Past lenses have
never been enough for a Chris
tan speaking Of Christ. True,
He was and He did thus and so.
But it is more important to re-
member that He is and He does
so and so. Read through the New
Testament and you will find that
Christ is in the past tense in the
gospels, because they are deal
ing with history. The rest of the
New Testament speaks of Jesus
mainly in the present.
He Lives!
Another way to look at this
Easter-faith Of the church is to
emphasize that little pronoun
HE. He lives. The early Chris
tianS could see a difference be-
tween the Jesus they knew be-
fore Calvary and the Jesus they
knew after the resurrection. The
difference was great enough SO
that they sometimes did not
recognize Him at first. Never
thelesS when they did break
through their hesitations and be-
lived what they saw, ii wa S
never as stranger that they
saw Him. If the man next door
to you is a man you know little
Of except that he is a friendly
grey-haired man who always has
a pleasant word for his neigh
bors and works on his yard on
Saturday you discover he is a su-
day you discover he is a SUI
pelior court judge, you may be
taken aback: you may not
recognize him with his robes on
up there on the bench. But It'll
the same man. So the Jesus,
whose lving-forever the church
celebrates at Eastertide, is the
same Jesus we read about in
the pages of Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John. Not somebody
better or different. but Himself
HE lives!
Risen in You"
IT Christ be risen in you"
so begins a famous chapter in
COlOssianS. This seems at first
like strange way to think about
the Resurrection. Not as a his
toric event outside us. like most
events, but an event that hap
pens inside us. Is this a
miracle? Perhaps it is. Blu
perhaps it is what God intended
for US all along. that We should
not be b,D-ial-gromds in which
the thoughts and the love Of
Christ are laid away, but resur-
recton places. from which
Christ rises every day. not once
in a life6me-liseS to think in
our thoughts. hope in our hopes,
work in our work; or rather
rises III us so that we have to
say at last, All the good in me is
not mine but His!
BASED on outlines copyright
ed by the Division Of Christian
II u