(2) Men are oft overcome with fear as they face some great crisis in life. Again and again in life we are called to face emergencies, to take risks, to attempt the apparently impossible, to stand steadfast when confronted with opposition or trial or persecution. And the nobler the life is, the more numerous are the occasions on which this call comes to us. The true man, the man who feels the hand of the Almighty upon him, soon finds that life is full of episodes of this kind, often recurring with increasing frequency ; that so far from becoming easier as it goes on, life often becomes more strenuous and more difficult ; that the path which he is called to tread is no level highway, not even a graduated ascent to a predestined goal. It is an ascent indeed,
48 FEAR NOT
but not always gradual or continuous. At times he finds that it is broken by obstacles that have to be surmounted, by dangerous chasms that have to be bridged over, by slippery places in which it is difficult to find a foothold, by storm and by tempest and by darkness and by false guides and by open enemies.
Man trembles as he enters into the cloud of sorrow. He would rather be let alone. He would prefer that his money- making, or his pleasure, or his sin should not be interrupted by sickness or misfortune. In prosperity he feels strong; in adversity his heart fails him. It is just then, in his hour of need, that a strong right hand is laid upon him, and a Voice whispers in his ear : " I will in no wise fail thee." " Fear not." Sometimes, when an electric car is mounting a steep street, the power fails, and the car sticks fast with half the height still to be climbed. But on the Hill Difficulty, or on the mountain of trial, the power of Christ will never come short. The most trying seasons of life are the seasons when His grace is most magnified and His arm strongest to save.
(3) There are those who fear to live because they can look forward to nothing day by day and year by year but the small dull round of toil, and its endless reaches of flat, straight, unchanging road oppress their souls. Every cyclist knows that the dead level is far more wearying than a road where he must climb even steep hills now and then. The same muscles are unceasingly exercised; one misses the fresh breeze and the expansive outlook of the uplands ; one loses the rest that is born of change. So life on the dead level is in danger of exhaustion. Nowhere does one more plainly need to hear the Master's voice saying : " Fear not." In the dead monotonies Christ reveals His power. He brings blessedness into the dull round of toil — the bitter weariness of chronic pain, the wearing anxieties of unchang- ing years. The desert can be made to blossom like the rose. What we are in soul will determine what we are in work. St. Paul's tent-making was never to him a monotonous desert. Let us try to catch the light of heaven, as we pursue our daily callings, whatever they may be, and we shall not fear to live through unchanging years.
^ To every thoughtful man life has its responsibilities, its cares, and its possibilities. Shall I be able to live worthily, to make a fit
REVELATION i. 17, 18 49
use of my opportunities ? Shall I be able to live a rich, full, and gracious life, and be equal to the duties and the responsibilities which may devolve upon me ? As we reflect on this, as we think out the situations and possibilities that open out to us as life proceeds and new horizons are disclosed, we feel the gracious power of this word, " Fear not to live ; for I am the Living One." It is as if the Lord said, "Fear not to live; I share your life. Through Me you will be able to grasp the opportunities of life, you will rise to the height of your calling, and when duty calls you will be able to answer all its demands. You will be able to say, * I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.' " ^
2. Jesus, then, would have us meet every fear with the assur- ance that He is the Living One. "I am the first and the last, and the Living one " ; not merely " the first and the last," not merely God at the beginning and God at the end, a Creator who put the world-machine into working order and who will step forward again into view at the last day to judge and punish and reward ; but a God who is the Living One from first to last, the Giver and Sustainer of life, upholding — carrying along — all things by the word of His power. In this picture is portrayed with a lightning touch the eternal being and the eternal activity of God.
The close connexion of clauses suggests that the claim made in the expression " the Living one " means more than that He was alive. It means exactly what Jesus meant when, in the hearing of this same Apostle, He said upon earth, " As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given" — strange paradox — "so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself " — a life which, considered in contrast to all the life of creatures, is underived, independent, self-feeding, and, considered in contrast with the life of the Father with whom that Son stands in ineffable and unbroken union, is bestowed. It is a paradox, but until we assume that we have sounded all the depths and climbed all the heights, and gone round the boundless boundaries of the circumference of that Divine nature, we have no business to say that it is impossible. And this is what the great words that echoed from heaven in the Apostle's hearing upon Patmos meant — the claim by the glorified Christ to possess absolute fontal life, and to be the Source of all creation, " in whom was life." He was not only " the Living one," but, as He Himself has said, He was " the Life."