| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 5 |
Page 4 |
It is better that we should not sing of sadness if our song ends there. There are sad notes enough already floating in the world’s air, making moan in peoples’ ears. We should sing always of hope, joy, and cheer. Jeremiah had a right to weep; for he sat amid the crumbling ruins of his country’s prosperity, looking upon the swift and restless approach of woes that might have been averted.
Jesus had a right to weep on the Mount of Olives; for his eye saw the terrible doom coming upon the people he loved, after he had done all in his power to avert the doom which sin and unbelief were drawing down upon them. But not many of us are called to live amid grief’s like those, which broke the heart of Jeremiah. And as for Jesus, we know what a preacher of hope he was wherever he went. Our mission must be to carry to people, not grief and tidings of ill, but joy and good news.
The preachers alone who truly bless the world are preachers of hope. One who has only questions and doubts to give has no right in a Christian pulpit. We ought not to add to the perplexity of people by holding up shreds of torn pages as if our Christianity were something uncertain, a mere “if” or “perhaps.” “Give me your beliefs,” said Goethe; “I have doubts enough of my own.” So people are saying to us, “Give us your hopes, your joys, your sunshine, your life, your uplifting truths; we have sorrows, fears, clouds, ills, chains, doubts enough of our own.”
This is the mission of Christianity in the world – to help people to be victorious, to whisper hope wherever there is despair, to give cheer wherever there is discouragement. It goes forth to open prisons, to unbind chains, and to bring out captives. Its symbol is not a cross-only, – that is one of its symbols, telling of the price of our redemption, telling of love that died, – but its final symbol is an open grave, – open and empty. We know what that means. It tells of life, not of death; of life victorious over death. And we must not suppose that its promise is only for the final resurrection; it is for resurrection every day, and every hour, over all death. It means unconquerable, unquenchable, indestructible, immortal life at every point where death seems to have won a victory. Defeat anywhere is simply impossible, if we are in Christ and Christ in us. It is just as true of the Christ in us as it was of the Christ, who went down into Joseph’s tomb, that he cannot be holden of death.
It follows that there never can be a loss in a Christian’s life out of which a gain may not come, as a plant from a buried seed. There never can be a sorrow out of which a blessing may not be born. There never can be made to yield some fruit of strength.
If, therefore, we are true and loyal messengers of Christ, we can never be prophets of gloom, disheartenment, and despair. We must ever be heralds of hope. We must always have good news to tell. There is a gospel, which we have a right to proclaim to ever one, whatever be their sorrow. In Christ there is always hope, a secret of victory, a power to transmute loss into gain, to change defeat to victory, to bring life from death. We are living worthily only when we are living victoriously ourselves at every point, when we are inspiring and helping others to live victoriously, and when our life is a song of hope and gladness, even though we sing out of tears and pain.
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