The Quiet Hour

Mt Benger Mail, 30 November 1938, Page 2

The Quiet Hour

IF A MAN DIE (Contributed). “To die, to sleep; To sleep; perchance to dream; ay there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life: For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressors wrong, the proud man’s contumely The pangs of despised love, the laws delay The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make. With a bare bodkin, Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat after a weary life But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourne. No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others we know not of.” So Shakespeare frames in immortal words the fear that comes at least once to every man, the fear of death and the unknown. This fear is age-old, it has existed since man first occupied the earth and it still tortures with its doubts and unsatisfied speculations today. Job was consumed with a desire to know if death was to be feared, he cried, “Oh, that thous wouldst hide me in Sheol, that thou wouldst keep me in secret until Thy wrath be past, that thou wouldst appoint me a set time and remember me

“If a man die, shall he live again,” The fact of death is a pressing one for it is inevitable. It comes to each of us sooner or later. Death reaches out and plucks from our very midst our loved ones, our friends, our acquanitances. “Just when we’re safest there’s a sunset touch, A fancy from a flower-bell, someone’s death, A chorus ending from Euripides And that’s enough for fifty hopes and fears.”

“If a man die, shall he live again?” We may answer this in three ways; firstly that man being a moral being and of a higher order than the animals, his nature demands that his life after death continue. Secondly, that the nature of God being what it is, He cannot allow the children of His creation to end in nothing. These two answers are sound and helpful, but the most important and surest of answers is to be found—in the fact of Christ. Christ Himself is the greatest miracle of all time; born of woman yet pertaining to the nature of God. From the beginning of time we can sense a great gulf between God and man due to man’s infirmity. The lamentations of the writers of the Old Testament sound to us like voices crying in the wilderness; longing for light but surrounded by an impenetrable darkness. Have you felt a longing for a light to lead you home? Have you experienced the encroaching, paralysing fear that you would never see home again? Such was the gulf existing between God and man, when 10, the Christ appeared. Truly He said of Himself, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” lam the light of the world.” Two other great facts in His life draw our attention; His death on Calvary and His Resurrection. When He died He destroyed the power of sin and evil and darkness and fear. When He rose from the dead He conquered death and assured us of immortality. It has lately struck me that in our Easter services we emphasize His resurrection from the dead in a sense of relief that He has vindicated Himself. But is there not more than that? Does not His resurrection mean that He has conquered the power of death over us, that we though dying shall yet live again? as that we may say with conviction “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thbu art with me.’

And having this assurance for ourselves, have we not got it also for our loved ones. They enter into paradise; out of the world of darkness into the portals of light where there shall he no more sorrow and He shall wipe all tears from their eyes. Then lastly, there is the comfort and assurance of that great and glorious 4th chapter of St. John. “Let not your hearts be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s House are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you. Igo to prepare a place for you.’” Someone has said that a cemetery is the emptiest place in the world and so it is, for the beloved and dear

are safe in the Father’s mansions whence Christ has lead them. Holman Hurst has a famous picture of Christ knocking at an ivy-covered door with rusty hinges and it is called “the Light of the World.” If I were a great painter, I would paint a picture of Christ with a smile on His face ■and hands outstretched standing at the portals of death and I would write underneath it, “Yea, I know My Redeemer Christ.” “0 death where is thy sting? 0 grave, where is they victory,” Let us too rejoice in glorious hope. For the grave is not an impossible barrier; it is the ‘open door’ to blessed peace to realise desire, to fulness of opportunity and to endless day.