\ A gentleman stepping into a poor woman's house saw framed and glazed upon the wall a French note for a thousand francs. He said to the old folks, "How came you by this?" They informed him that a poor French soldier had been taken in by them and nursed until he died, and when he was dying he had given them that little picture as a memorial of him. They thought it such a pretty souvenir that they had framed it, and there it * D. Fairweather, Bound in the Spirit^ 304,
ST. JOHN XI. 25, 26 469
was adorning the cottage wall. They were greatly surprised when they were told that it was worth a sum which would be quite a little fortune for them if they would but turn it into money. They had done as Martha did when she took the words, "Thy brother shall rise again," and put round about them this handsome frame, " in the resurrection at the last day." ^
(3) "I am the resurrection^ and the life" In some of the Old Testament psalms this idea is brought out with wonderful clear- ness, and through what we must call sheer faith. The Old Testament saints knew nothing of Him who is the resurrection and the life, and the grave was to most of them only a place of gloom; but occasionally we come across a Psalm like the sixteenth, where the writer protests against the idea of death separating him from God. " Thou wilt not leave thy pious one to see the pit," he says ; " thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol." He feels in his veins the new life God has given him, feels that he is in union with God, and that such a union must for ever abide uninterrupted even by death. So also taught Jesus. "I am the resurrection," He said, " and the life." He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live, because he who is united to Me, he in whom I live, can never in any sense die, for I am the life. That which we call death will be his lot ; but life, true life, life which is union with God, life in which Christ lives, is independent of death.
Death had not sundered Lazarus from Jesus; through resurrection it had brought him nearer in reverential love. It had not divided him from his sisters; it had made the ties of affection more strong and holy than they had ever been before. It had not quenched one faculty of his being ; for to him every power of sight, and speech, and hearing would be more sacred and noble than they were in his former life. In one word Christ showed this — that there was in him a life that rendered death only the gateway through which it rose into life more perfect, and holy, and free.
^ At an open-air service in Delhi, held in a Chamar's (boot- maker's) courtyard, another missionary and I had both spoken on faith as a condition of eternal life. When I had finished, a Chamar, who had been working away at his trade all the time,
* 0. H. Spurgeon.
470 THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE
though evidently listening and thinking as well, remarked, " How do you make out that Christians do not die ? Those about here do ; and as far as I see, peoples of all religions die. Why, even Brahmans die."
A student-evangelist was with us, and he gave this reply : — " Brother ! (let Westerns note how friendly and familiar Eastern preachers are !) you know the Delhi Fort ? "
Of course he did ! Every Delhi man is proud of that most striking feature of his city, with its high walls of red sandstone glistening in the sun, and its magnificent towering gateways which lead into the city.
Said the preacher, " I want you to imagine for the moment that it has but one exit, the famous Lahore Gate.
In the old days, the great Emperor of India lived inside the Fort, in the Marble Palace, still to be seen, a palace of exquisite beauty and glittering splendour. When the Emperor came forth into the city, as for example he did every Friday to visit the Great Mosque for prayer, he came out at that Lahore Gate in all his glory, and crowds witnessed the Koyal spectacle.
In the same Fort was the State Prison with its dungeons of horror, and in them lay the prisoners condemned to death, till the day of execution, when they too passed forth through that same Gate, and crowds witnessed their shame and despair.
This world in which we live is like that Fort, and for all of us there is the one exit, the Gate of Death.
They who accept Christ as their Saviour pass out as * Kings and Priests ' to glory and honour, and they who accept Him not, go forth to dishonour and death."
" Bravo ! " exclaimed the heathen listeners. " Well answered." ^
2. The fulfilment of the promise. — Nowhere do we so come to the limit and end of our power as at the door of a vault ; nowhere is the weakness of man so keenly felt. There is the clay, but who shall find the spirit that dwelt in it? Jesus has no such sense of weakness. Believing in the fatherly and undying love of the Eternal God, He knows that death cannot harm, still less destroy, the children of God.