FOR THE SABBATH.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 550, 15 March 1913, Page 3

FOR THE SABBATH.

THE PICTURE OF THE EMPTY CROSS. The shepherd, in the picture, looks on the Cross with a mixture of awe and curiosity. There is the dark and dreadful side of this strange object; that cruel implements should be devised by men to do men to death under God's sunshine. But that is familiar enough; all down human history the dark stain lies upon life. But the Cross stands here in peace. The horror is past. Doves come to settle on it; sheep are feeding round it. The grim work is done, and nature is smoothing away the marks of it. It is the title that absorbs the shepherd: "It is a King who has been crucified here." He knows not of Pilate's irony in writing as he wrote; ' k/iows still less of the immortal truth behind the irony; for the crucified one has proved Himself the King of all kings, mure real a monarch than Pilate ever BWore allegiance to. That is the mystery of the Cross, which haunts the world for ever, this combination of shame and horror with glory and triumph, in one single picture. It corresponds to experience and reality. When we say that the world —the respectable world —actually crucified Jesus, we are only summing up in a sentence what we are always doing. Sinful careless man is always mistaking his Saviour; despising the holy; victimising the good; denying tfuth. By error or wilful sin or selfish folly we continually are selling Christ, denying God. Every unkindness, impurity, selfishness, cruelty, is an illustration of it. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Tc realise this is penitence. "Ye denied the Holy One and the Just and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of life." That is the great indictment uttered by the disciplp, and it is true against the race, and in measure against every member of it. It is true of ds to-day when we are in the mood to forget Jesus and amuse ourselves on Good Friday. Once feel it, and the grandeur of Chrisc springs into life before our soul. He submits; He is willing to be despised; willing to sacrifice self; God puts up with it all, for our sake ; and out of the great renunciation arises the glory of self-sacrifice; the glory of the Name that is above every name —the Name of Jesus unto Whom every knee shall bow, who has born our sins, accepted the humiliation at our hands, that He may bring us in penitence to His feet. This is the victory of Love; to win men's hearts by self-sacrifice instead of bruising them by force. So we come once more to the Cross in Holy Week. It stands empty now. The peace of God rests upon it But it stands as an awful memorial of what sin has done and is doing; of what God has borne and is willing to bear; and in the same breath it is the sign of everlasting pardon; of the power of love to rise above all evil; of a Saviour who calls us to the restoration of new life in Him, in the joy of Easter Day.

Ogo not from me, for trouble is hard at hand, and there is none to help me. —Ps. xxii., 11.

Why fearest thou to take up thy Cross which leadeth thee to a kingdom. In the Cross is salvation, in the Cross is life, in tb«3 Cross is protection against our enemies, in the Cross is all heavenly sweetness, in the Cross is strength of mind and joy of spirit, in the Cross the height of virtue, the perfection of sanctity. Ther9 is no salvation of the soul, nor hope of everlasting life, but in the Gross. Take up, therefore, thy cross and follow Jesus, and thou shalt go into life everlasting. He went before, bearing His Cross, and died for thee on the Cross, that thou mayest also bear thy Cross, and desire to die on the Cross with Him.—Thomas A. Kempis.

Take up thy Cross and follow Christ, Nor think til! death to lay it down; For only he who bears the Cross May hope to wear the glorious Crown.