Christ is inevitable, unavoidable; you cannot stop or stay Him. That is the first great lesson of the Eesurrection. No one can follow the story of His life, without feeling that Christ is inevitable. It is the key to the whole record. We are swept into a movement which we realize is irresistible, and the secret of
^ G. H. Morrison, The Unlighted Lustre, 115. 2 M. M'Neal-Sweeney, Men of No Land, 107.
334 THE SAVIOUR'S EASTER GREETING
its power is the irresistible Christ. We feel this not merely because Christ exercised an extraordinary influence and became the centre of a unique attraction, but because of what He was. His words and His works alike are significant first and chiefly of what He is in Himself ; they are the revelation of a Person who more and more completely wins our absolute trust. When the Cross comes into view, crowning the path up which He is moving, we follow Him, knowing that, though it seems to be inexplicable, it comes within His purpose of redemption, and He fully under- stands it, however blind we may be to what it means. " I lay down my life for the sheep. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." It is all a complete unity, the one perfect whole in a world of fragments. And when w^ hear the " It is finished " ring out through the gloom of His death-hour, we are ready for the glory which will soon be breaking from the opened grave. And as at last we see Him coming to the disciples on Easter evening, though the doors are shut against Him, we know that always and everywhere He is and must be resistless. Always and everywhere He is the inevitable Christ.
^ For weal or woe, whatever walls you raise, Christ passes through them all and gets to you. There are deeds that we did long since, perhaps twenty years ago, but to this hour unex- pectedly they rise and meet us. There were moments of exquisite happiness in our past, and even to-day their memory is like music. You cannot shut out the thought of intense hours : no change of years will prevent them winning through. And like the inefface- able memory of such scenes is the presence and the beauty of the Lord. Christ is inevitable. Christ is unavoidable. Sometimes He comes through the closed door, just because all life is pene- trated with Him. We talk of the Christian atmosphere we breathe, but the atmosphere is more than Christian, it is Christ. This is the Lord's day — who then is this Lord ? We may have closed the door on Him, but He is here. We cannot date one letter in the morning, but we mean that more than one thousand nine hundred years ago Christ was born. He meets us at every turn of the road, in every newspaper and in every problem. Our life is so interpene- trated with Christ Jesus that to avoid Him is an impossibility.^
^ Men who lived and fought for Napoleon have told the world how they gradually came to believe him to be resistless. He had
» G. H. Morrison, Tlie VnligJUed Lustre, 119.
ST. JOHN XX. 19, 20 335
only to appear before His troops on his white charger, and down the lines of French bayonets flashed an electric confidence which made them mighty, as soldiers had seldom been mighty before, and enabled them to carry all before them. So with "the Captain of our salvation," In the New Testament Christ goes forth " conquering and to conquer," and He intends His Church to live in the power of that inspiration. It is nothing to Him that doors are shut, and men are weak and helpless. You may as well try to stifle the springtide or struggle to fetter the feet of the summer morning as strive to bar out the coming of Jesus risen. You will draw a curtain over the dawn and shut down the sunrise behind the darkness before you will banish the inevitable Christ.^ ^ Francis Thompson has told with marvellous beauty of imagery and breadth of expression the story of the pursuit of the soul through all its manifold experience by "the Hound of Heaven," which will not let it escape Him.
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years ; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase
And unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat and a Voice beat
More instant than the feet . . . "Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me."
So the foolish soul perseveres in flight from its Saviour, and on and on after it come those persistent feet which will not be denied. It tries to hide in strange and distant places ; it rings itself in with forbidden pleasures ; it lavishes its love upon tender and beautiful human affections, and still
Fear wist not to evade as love wist to pursue —
till at last the chase is ended, and the Voice is " round him like a bursting sea."