Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 68, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1917 — EASTER MESSAGE [ARTICLE]

EASTER MESSAGE

Ml Cravings and Needs of the Soul Satisfied by Death and Resurrection of Christ. However far-reaching and deep the needs and cravings of the soy* may be, they are all met and satisfied in the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. But before ,we look at this ‘"great reality in a two-fold aspect, let us first contemplate the great fact of his resurrection. This is demonstrated, beyond all question of doubt, by evidence inore substantial and reliable than any accepted historical event can boast of. The fact of his resurrection is proved by various witnesses' who saw him on earth after he rose, and by one who saw him in glory after he ascended up on high. Then we have the value of this great fact; everything is declared to depend on it—the interests of those who are dead, of those who are still alive, and, indeed, of all mankind. But let every eye be fixed on the Risen One himself, on his resurrection platform, in the magnificence of an unsurpassed triumph. I often wonder how little we are detained by such a sight. He has left everything behind—death, the grave, Satan’s power. He went down beneath everything; he has risen up above everything. How blessed to see him on that morning, the brightest that ever dawned on earth! Here is the history of the second garden. The first garden opened with a man and a woman in innocence, and Hosed with them fallen and driven out from the preesnce of God. How striking, too, that the locality of Eden cannot be discovered; God has hidden the site where innocence was. In the second garden the Second Man meets us, the Risen Man, more than man, God over all, blessed for evermore. Yet as man here we-eee him, risen out of all the wreck and ruin brought on by the falldh creature, What a change comes over the heart in relation to all on earth when we see him risen, and when all our relations are with him risen! Christ’s death closed the first volume,of man’s history, all that we were. The second volume, which opened with his resurrection, is filled up with all that he is, the glory of his person, his finished work and the perfection of his victories. The first aspect of his glorious resurrection is in relation to the need, of the soul in respect of sin—the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the blessed proof of the completeputting away of sin for the believer in the atoning sacrifice of his cross. "He was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification.” He stood as his people’s representative, and bore their sins in his own body on the tree; but God raised him from the dead, thus expressing his full and perfect satisfaction in, and approbation of, the great work of redemption. Peace with God in all that he is, in righteousness, truth, mercy and love, follows as 8 divine consequence. The second aspect of Christ’s resurrection is in relation to the burdens and cares and sorrows of life; the risen Christ binds up the broken in heart, and fills the blanks caused by the ravages of death. How blessed to be connected by the risen Savior with the scene where he is; nothing will Hhwterdrim in his love coming to where~ we are in sorrow’s night, and the heart’s desolation and grief; but he comes to take us to his own side, as the Risen One, and to fill our hearts with all th'e comfort, and rest, and satisfaction found in and with him where he is ! This, then, is the Easter message—" Jesus lives!” —Rev. W. T. Turping, M. A. ' —