^ Many of us must recall the parable of an Alpine sunset. We gaze on the vast bare rocks and snow-slopes transfigured in a flood of burning light. In a moment there falls over them an ashy paleness as of death, cold and chilling. While we strive to measure our loss a deepening flush spreads slowly over the mountain sides, pure and calm and tender, and we know that the glory which has passed away is not lost even when it fades again from our sight. So it is with the noblest revelations which God makes to us. They fill us at first with their splendid beauty. Then for a time we find ourselves, as it were, left desolate while we face the sadnesses of an unintelligible world. But as we gaze ST. JOHN (2) — 14
2IO AN EXPEDIENT DEPARTURE
the truth comes back with a softer and more spiritual grace to be the spring of perpetual benediction.^
(6) He went away that lienceforth we may walk ty faith, not hy sight. — In that one word " faith " we get at the root of the whole matter. If His Presence were not unseen, if we had certainty as to action and a fixed rule with no possibility of deviation, faith would not, it could not, even exist on its higher side, for faith is realization of things hoped for and insight into things invisible it sees what is out of sight as though it were here — it sees Him in His invisible Presence, and it brings a far greater blessing than sight : " Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
^ Faith is the one characteristic which raises man above the animal, above the natural — without which he cannot " please God " or be of any use to men. It sees in darkness, it believes without evidence, it is certain of the impossible, it is the highest reflection of Divine power within men. Faith as a moral faculty puts you face to face with the treasures of the universe ; and where others see nothing, you see everything ; where others see only bands of Syrians, you see the angels of God; where others see a blind force, you see the workings of a right loving Will, overruling all things. And you are rich for the sight ; you grow, you increase, you become more and more conscious of the possibilities of your own life and of the universe, and you grow into the possibilities which you see. But without faith, you grovel through a purblind, naked, starved, diseased existence, seeing emptiness everywhere, because you are so empty ; seeing darkness in every noble deed, because you are so dark ; seeing all things dead or dying, because you have no life in you, with no soul for greatness in man or in the history of your race, with no enthusiasm, no stirring within you at great and enthralling sights, but dull, barren, poor, weak, and that because you have no faith, no insight, and therefore no goodness.2
(7) Last of all, He must go that the Spirit may com^. — And the Spirit could not come until Christ was glorified. In a comment upon our Lord's words about the fountains of "living water," which were to spring up in those who believed on Him, St. John says : " This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive : for the Spirit was not yet given ; because
* B. F. Westcott, Lessons from Work, 110. » E. Eyton, The True Life, 67.
ST. JOHN XVI. 7 211
Jesus was not yet glorified " ; and this comment is but a brief and explicit statement of a truth which is wrought into the very substance of the New Testament. That a new and higher form of spiritual life has appeared in Christian times than appeared in the times before our Lord, is certain. This life is attributed to the "coming" of the Holy Spirit. Can we discover why it is that the Spirit did not — could not — come, till Christ was " glorified " ?
What is meant by our Lord being " glorified " ? It means infinitely more than we can know; but at least it means this, that when our Lord returned to the Father, His human nature, in all its capacities and powers, was wonderfully expanded and exalted. Even while He was on earth His human life, as it was gradually developed and as it rose, through righteousness and patient suffering, to a higher and still higher perfection, was more and more completely penetrated with the Divine life of the Eternal Word. It still remained human ; but, in it and through it, that " eternal life, which was with the Father, was manifested " to men. When He returned to the Father He did not cease to be man, but it would appear that His human life was wholly trans- figured by the life of the Eternal Son, who was in the beginning with God and who was God.
^ " It is expedient for you that I go away." Yes ! we under- stand Him now. It is expedient that perfect humanity should thus be associated on the Throne of Heaven with the Infinite and the Eternal. If we are to give our hearts and wills to the Author and End of our existence, if Christian worship is to be not a coldly calculated compliment, but the outcome of a pure and soul-consuming passion, it is well that on the heights of heaven there should throb to all eternity a human heart — the Sacred Heart of Jesus ; and that in the adoration which we pay Him we should know that we are expending the inmost resources of our natures at the feet of the One Being who has upon them the claim, if I may dare speak thus, of relationship as well as the claim of Deity. And thus in the worship of the Church, inspired on the one hand by an awful sense of the inaccessible majesty of God, and on the other by a trustful, tender passion which has its roots in the consciousness of a human fellowship with its awful Object, we find that which we find nowhere else on earth, and understand the words, " It is expedient for you that I go away." ^ * H. P. Liddon, Sermons on Some Words of Christ, 336.