PREPARING FOR EASTER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 929, 24 March 1930, Page 16

PREPARING FOR EASTER

SERIES OF SERMONS

NORTHCOTE PRESBYTERIANS The first of a series of Easter sermons was delivered by the Rev. F. A. Thompson at the Northcote Presbyterian Church yesterday morning. The minister based his sermon on the last utterances of Christ at the Feast of the Tabernacles, which was generally associated by the Jews with ihe salvation of the Gentiles. At this feast there were sacrificed 70 bullocks for the 70 nations of the world. It. was something more than a coincidence that the previous six months of Christ's life had been associated more closely with the Gentile world than any other period. Between the feasts of the Passover and of the Tabernacles of 29 A.D., He had visited Tyre and Sidon, made a circuit through Decapolis, and another to Cesarea and Philippi. It was on a journey to this feast, too, that the 70 disciples were sent out. For seven days the people had daily been taking part in the ceremony of drawing water from Biloam, and when this was omitted on the eighth day Christ stepped in o the breach with the invitation: “If any. man thirst let him come unto me and d-ink.’’ “Water Is the symbol of Christ, the ideal man, and the incarnate God. When we enter into the knowledge, friendship and society of Jesus we are drinking at the sources of new humanity,'' said the preacher.