But how can Earth with Spirit agree? Or Death with Immortality ?
There moved a Form in the shadows dim, And a tender radiance flowed from Him; But the light disclosed in the prison cell Ignorance, Pride, and Hate as well.
His voice was sweet, and soft, and low, And the poor dumb Spirit loved it so; But Ignorance, Pride, and Hate unite, To drown the voice, and hide the light.
O who will set the Spirit free.
And save her from the hideous three ?
ISAIAH 453
The Light has pierced the gloom of sin, The Word has silenced the strife and din, The Saviour has broken the house of clay, And borne the ransomed Spirit away.
0 hidden Life ! 0 Christ within ! Break Thou the fetters of my sin ! My soul from mortal limits free And bear me up to Heaven with Thee.^
II. The Message.
The message is determined by the audience. It is fitted to be good tidings to each class, each person.
1. To the poor and needy it is simply a Gospel. What they need most is hope. It is the hopelessness of the poor that is the most striking, the most characteristic thing about them. Watch the faces of the tramps — they are all hopeless. This is a message of hope. And it is a hope that does not die out, " that maketh not ashamed." To poor shepherds, working lads, came the first Gospel sermon : " To you is born this day a Saviour." Jesus is a Saviour from hopelessness.
(1) First of all, this Gospel goes to the very root of the matter, in its cause and in its history. " Know you certainly that it is God's visitation." It is the will of God that you should be poor. Suppose that your poverty be even the result of folly, misconduct, or sin, still it is now, for you, the will of God. There is repose, there is satisfaction, at once. Whatever second causes have been at work — sickness or misfortune, wrong- doing of another, wrong-doing of your own — this, to-day, in fact, is the will of God concerning you; poverty — poverty as a providence, or else poverty as a chastisement. It is the will of God.
(2) Again, the Gospel of Jesus Christ says this to me. The life that is, is the mere porch and vestibule of the life that shall be. I must walk by faith. I must claim and I must practise already that equality of being which is mine, in God's
^ H. Marwick.
454 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
sight, not only with the greatest of earth's heroes, but even with just men already made perfect. These distinctions of birth and rank, of fortune and station, are absolutely unrecognised in heaven. It is difficult, I know, to see it so : it is of the very nature of these inequalities to strut and parade themselves ; it is natural to us, it is even our duty, to feel and to own these varieties below ; it is a part of Christian virtue to order myself lowly and reverently towards those who are here above me. But let mine be a willing subordination — willing, because it is also erect, independent, dignified. Let me live already as one whose citizenship is in heaven — whose fellow-citizens are saints ■ and angels, the souls of the faithful here, the spirits of the righteous in glory. There is no degradation in that poverty which, within a few years, will be transfigured and recreated into glory.i
2. It heals the broken-hearted. Macbeth said to the physician, " Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased ? " and the physician answered, No. This Physician can bind up a broken heart, can heal a wounded spirit. He came as a Physician to the sick. " They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick ; I came to call sinners." He healed the " woman that was a sinner," broken-hearted perhaps through men's sins. He healed Zacchaeus, whose extortions had broken others' hearts, and sent him to restore what yet was in his power.
IT A great thinker has said that Christianity first taught man the reverence for things beneath him. It is profoundly true. The Spirit of Christ can say distinctively, " He hath sent me to bind the broken heart." It has come through other channels for other purposes, but through this channel it has had but one purpose. Sometimes its mission has been to teach me God's majesty, sometimes to reveal His beauty, sometimes to proclaim His law. But here in the heart of Jesus the mission of the Spirit is to show me a new exhibition of God's power — His power of infinite stooping.^
3. It is a message of liberty to the captives, Jesus did not loose any one's chain, so far as we know, when He was on earth.
^ C. J. Vaughan. ^ G. Matheson.
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He sent John's messengers back to John in prison, not with a message to open the prison door, but with " Blessed is he whoso- ever shall not be offended in me." But He gave liberty to the captive in sin. He said to the paralytic, " Son, thy sins are forgiven thee." He did more than break the chains of sin for the moment. He set in a large place, gave liberty to go in and out, victory over the very temptation that it became no tempta- tion longer. He brought His banished home again, with the Father's welcome and the Son's place.