SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 April 1921, Page 9

SUNDAY READING.

AN EASTER DAY SURPRISE. “Jesus said to her touch me not.”— Saint John xx I'7. (By Rev. A. H. Collins, New Plymouth.) The first Easter Day was full of surprises. Events the most unexpected happened, and happened in most unexpected ways. The risen Lord’s words to Alary are one of the surprises. We cannot read them without a sense of wonder. The words and the tone of them, are startling, on the lips of one who ever made Himself accessible to needy and troubled souls, and never refused to share the. joys of loving hearts. Why then this unaccustomed tone? Why in the gratification of an impulse so natural was Alary met with a rebuff so stern ami so chilling? Here is one of Christ's faithful friends making speed to embalm the bouy of her Heavenly Friend. Suddenly she is confronted by the Master, risen and glorious. What more natural than this that she should fall adoring at His feet and pay the him homage of her surprised and rapturous- joy? Yet she is arrested in the act, and chilled by words which must have fallen on her heart, cold and stinging, as a lash of ice. Her wondering "Ra-bboni” is met by the check, “touch me not,” and the reason given would only serve to deepen her amazement. For wks not His speedy departure to the Father the justification of Alary’s desire to clasp Him without delay? If she held back now it might be too late, for He would have passed beyond reach and sight. Why then this stern restraint? Several answers have beenattempted and of these I mention three, which have, only to 'be named to be dismissed as First, it simply could not be that the check was prompted by fear lest contact with this frail woman would defile him. “The Friend of publicans and sinners” would have changed indeed if His love and pity had contracted into such self regarding pharaseeism. The Saviour who suffered this woman to bathe His feet with her tears and wipe them with the hairs of her head was not likely to hold her at arm’s length for fear of a stain. A

second suggestion is equal!} 7 incredible. Jesus Christ did not issue the command from fear of investigation. He welcomed examination. He wished the belief of His followers to rest on sifted facts. To Saint Thomas He said “Handle Me and see.” To the twelve He showed them His hands and His feet. A third suggestion has only to be stated to be scouted. The Risen Lord could not

have wished to disown His former friend. The baker in Pharoah’s house forgot Joseph in the hour of exaltation; but in Heaven, and on .the Throne of Glory, Jesus is “Not ashamed to call us brethren.”

WHAT WAS the motive?

But if tjiese attempted explanations are not admissible, and they are not, the question still remains, “What have we to put in their place? If these motives cannot bo allowed, what was the motive? There are two possible answers. There was the change which had passed over Christ’s body. He was the same Lord; His thoughts and feelings towards His friends and followers were the same, but the spiritualised form which came out of Joseph’s rocky tomb imposed some restraints. Alary needed to learn that henceforth her relationship with the Master must be spiritual, and not material. Henceforth she was not to know Christ “after the flesh.” Spiritual communion and not physical contact must be her aim. But the true reason for the check lay in the temperament of this woman. .Jesus Christ never treated aH His disciples alike. He used discrimination, as we do with our children when we take account of mental and physical differences. One child needs enouragement, and another needs restraint; one needs calling out and another repression; one is- coldly correct, and another is just a wild bundle of uncontrolled impulses. You see this in the Apostles. Thomas had a mind

“sicklied over with the pale cast of thought,” and for him the word is “Reach hither thine hand and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and blood.” Simon Peter was rash, impulsive, self-confident, and for him the word was “Watch and pray.” Alary was romantic,' sentimental, hysterical—a woman all nerves and

sensations—and for her the word is “Holjl me not.” It is not such contact as would assure Alary of the reality of Christ, and express reverence and affection that was forbidden; but such soft clinging as would keep the bodily form and miss the spiritual fellowship. In other words, Christ dealt with Alary temperamentally. Remember who this woman was. It is no injustice to say she was emotional. She was a good woman, and a loyal disciple, but her place in the gospels suggests that her particular peril lay in allowing religion to become a thing of passionate and extravagant feeling rather than a life of fixed purpose and a daily obedience. Mary would find it easier to embalm the body of Christ, or minister in any way where fine ripples of feeling take the place of simple commonplace duty. You must not miss my point. No iyise man decrys religious emotion. It has its place and use in the Christian life. The warm heart no less than the clear brain, and the firm will, are needed. A deep, flood of passionate feeling is often neces-

sary to carry the soul Qodward, just as ships are dependent on high tides to carry them oyer the bar and out to sea. It was so with Mary the Magdalene. THE STORY OF THE MAGDALENE. There is a fine passage in George Afacdonald’s “Robert Falconer,” winch illustrates this. Falconer was reading the story of the Magdalene i o a company of fallen women. As he read someone sobbed. It was a young and slender girl, with a face disfigured by smallpox; a face with no expression save the tearful look it wore. Falconer spoke to her gently; “Will He never come again,” she said. “Who?” answered Falconer. “Him—Jesus Christ. I’ve heard tell, I think, that He was coming again some day,” sobbed the girl. “Why do you ask?” replied Falconer. “Because,” said the girl, with a fresh flood of feeling, which rendered her words unintelligible, Then, recovering herself, she finished the sentence; and putting her hand to her thin wisp of colorless hair she said: “Because my hair ain’t long enough to wipe His feet.” Now that was legitimate feeling. It was thus the Master allowed Alary to bathe His feet with the tears of her warm - ide, and the action helped her to a new life. This passage does not condemn suia. fine feeling. Some of us would be i.d the better for a little more emotion of that noble sort. It would make us liker to our Lord

A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE.

But there is a world of difference between emotion and emotionalism; between religion and religionism; between unction and unctiousness. Pure, deep sentiment is the need of the church; but sentimentalism is its bane and blight. Oh! let us have passion in praise and prayer. Let us fling heart into our Christian service. We cannot have too much feeling, so long as it is yoked to reason and expressed in practical deeds. But beware of mistaking the thrill of nerves for a change of heart. The shallow river that sprawls over a wide bed has no force, and does nothing, as it babbles over the loose shingle, whereas the same volume of water, banked in and guided, will run deeper and silently drive _tl;e mill that grinds the corn of half the countryside. It is /so with emotions. Let them, run wild, and they will accomplish nothing yoke them to service and they will carry the soul forward to divine perfection. But to “talk cream and live skim milk,” to sing of love to Christ and live a self-centred life, to speak of the cross and refuse to share it, is fatal. Oh! better than rapture and endearing words- and better than lying "riw to kiss His blessed feet, is a life of quet, faithful, following, and a will set to do God’s will as a man sets his watch by the sun. The reason for the Saviour’s check to Alary lay in her mood. He would call her away from purely personal feeling, and give her life a new direction, a larger vision, a robuster faith. Instead of dwelling in the realm of sentiment, Christ gave her a message and a mission. He gave her work to do—work which trained her spirit, enlarged and refined her feeling: “Go tell Peter.” The lesson is never needless; but it is specially seasonable at the close of passion week when thought and emotion have gathered about the Cross. Easter calls to a life of self-renouncing love. We rise with Christ to service worthy of redeemed men and women.