Let us remember Him (1) for what He has been, (2) for what He has done, and (3) for what He is.
I.
For what He has Been.
1. First of all, and in its simplest aspect. His memory is the memory of One who lived, among men, a human life like their own, and yet a life such as none else had ever lived before, or has ever lived since. Of that life the Sacrament is a memorial. It ia a memorial of One who, at a time when the world was full of darkness and unrest, came into it saying that He came from God, and had a message from God for all whose hearts were weary, whose minds were dark, whose souls were full of doubts and fears ; One who seemed to prove, by the very nature of His life, that what He said of Himself was true, for it was a life which shed a brightness and gladness around it, as from a light shining in a dark place. The little children came gladly to His side. The humble household brightened as He came, and bestirred itself to give Him heartiest welcome. Sickness and disease disappeared at His gracious presence; the blind eyes were opened to behold Him ; the deaf ears were unstopped, so that their first sound of human speech should be His kindly words. Even the dead arose at His command, and re-entered the homes that they had left lonely, and went out and in among those whom their loss had made desolate and afflicted. His life was one that gladdened other lives, and bore about with it one living message of peace on earth and goodwill towards men.
When you recall the memory of the dead, it is their life you
^ Oarlyle, French BevohcHon, ii. bk. i. ch. ix.
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chiefly recall — all they were, how they looked and worked, what they said, and what they did, and what they were, all the incidents connected with them during the years you were together, the happy times you had in each other's company, the sweet inter- course you enjoyed, the bright scenes and seasons of communion and pleasure, or the sad sorrowful times of suffering in your histories, all your hours of joy, or your hours of sadness and sorrow, all they did for you, all their ministries of though tfulness and kindness for your comfort and happiness, all that made them helpful to you, all that made them dear to you, all their gentle- ness and sweetness and tenderness, all their love, all their affection, all about them that made them lovable and beloved, and endeared and bound them to your heart.
Thus marvellous has been the power and influence of the memory of His life over men and the world. Down through eighteen hundred years, it has been the loftiest inspiration, and the greatest hope and comfort for human souls. The world has been made wiser and better and richer and nobler by it, for it has enlightened it, and reformed its laws and its institutions and its manners. Men and women have been made holier and purer by it, for it has exerted a transforming power over their whole natures. The inner life it has cleansed, and the outward it has adorned. It has entered into and purified men's hearts and feelings and desires and thoughts and tempers and dispositions. It has put down pride and vanity, and envy and jealousy, expelled impurity, and made untruth ashamed. It has cast out evil, and enthroned beauty and goodness in the soul, and made harsh and rugged and unseemly natures sweet and lovely with gentleness and meekness and patience and kindness and charity. It has sweetened enjoyments and brightened and given a new zest to pleasures. It has sanctified and glorified common work and duties. It has given patience and fortitude to endure persecutions and sufferings and martyrdom and death in all its awful forms. It has cheered men amidst struggles, and upheld them in difficulties and depressions. It has soothed in pain and sickness and weakness, and in agony of body and mind. It has sustained and calmed human nature in the bitterest and most heartrending sorrows. It has consoled amid disappointments and failures and baffled hopes, and given relief amid racking cares and anxieties.
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It has brightened the terrible separations of death with the hope and promise of immortality. In all the worst anguish of life it has been the power, and the only one, to save from despair ; and in the last struggles of death it has taken out death's sting, given solace and calmness and hope and peace, and made the night of mortality radiant with the splendours of redeeming love.
2. It is not simply that Christ is about to die and desires to be remembered. He has a great Messianic purpose in saying " This do in remembrance of me." The law of the Passover had run, " This day shall be unto you for a memorial " ; and our Lord simply puts Himself or His death in the place of the Passover and bids His followers remember Him. The confidence with which He does so is nothing short of majestic. Divine. In the popular mind He is a failure. His enemies consider that they have defeated Him and extinguished His pretensions and His hopes. His best friends are nervous and trembling with fore- bodings. In His own mind alone is there a clear perception of the actual state of matters ; in Him alone is there neither mis- giving nor hesitation. Far from hiding from His followers the ignominious end that awaits Him, He speaks of it freely. He knows they will in a few hours be scattered. He tells them so ; and yet, so far from apologizing for leading them into difficult and discreditable circumstances, so far from bidding them forgive and forget Him, He actually bids them set aside the event which was most memorable to them as Jews, and remember Him instead. His death is to be more to them than their emancipation from slavery in Egypt. By their connexion with Him they were to have so complete and all-sufficing a life that they, prouder of their nationality than any other people, might forget they were Jews. The Passover had done its work and served its purpose, and now it was to give place and make way for the celebration of the real deliverance of the race. Picture Him standing there on the eve of His death, knowing that His influence on the world in all time to come depended on His being remembered by these half- enlightened, incompetent, timorous men, and you see that nothing short of a Divine confidence could have enabled Him to put aside the very core and symbol of the Jewish religion and present Himself as the hope of the world.