Happy Easter:
(Parts of a Sunday talk I once gave, quotes of scriptures or others are not given)
We do not know, we cannot tell, our mortal minds cannot conceive, the full import of what Christ did in Gethsemane. The Holy word teaches us that He sweat great drops of blood from every pore as He drained the bitter cup that His Father had given Him.
We know He suffered, in body, but even more so in spirit, more than it is possible for a man to suffer, except it be unto death. We know that in some way, without understanding to us, His suffering satisfied the demands of justice, ransomed repentant souls from the pains and penalties of sin, and made mercy available to those who believe in His holy name.
We know that He lay prostrate upon the ground as the pains and agonies of an infinite burden caused him to tremble and would that He might not drink the bitter cup. We know that an angel came from the courts of glory to strengthen Him in his ordeal, and we suppose it was mighty Michael (Adam), who foremost fell that mortal man might be.
As near as we can judge, these infinite agonies--this suffering beyond compare--continued for some three or four hours. After this--his body then wrenched and drained of strength--He confronted Judas and the other incarnate devils, some from the very Sanhedrin itself; and He was led away with a rope around his neck, as a common criminal, to be judged by the arch-criminals, who as Jews sat in Aaron's seat and who as Romans wielded Caesar's power.
They took him to Annas, to Caiaphas, to Pilate, to Herod, and back to Pilate. He was accused, cursed, and smitten. Their foul saliva ran down his face as vicious blows further weakened his pain-engulfed body. With reeds of wrath they rained blows upon his back. Blood ran down his face as a crown of thorns pierced his trembling brow.
But above it all He was scourged, scourged with forty stripes save one, scourged with a multi-thonged whip into whose leather strands sharp bones and cutting metals were woven.
At that period of time, many died from scourging alone, but He rose from the sufferings of the scourge that He might die an inglorious death upon the cruel cross of Calvary.
Then He carried his own cross until He collapsed from the weight and pain and mounting agony of it all. Finally, on a hill called Calvary, while helpless disciples looked on and felt the agonies of near death in their own bodies, the Roman soldiers laid him upon the cross.
With great mallets they drove spikes of iron through His feet and hands and wrists. Truly He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. Then the cross was raised that all might see and gape and curse and deride. This they did, with evil venom, for three hours from 9 A.M. to noon.
Then the heavens grew black and darkness covered the land for the space of three hours. There was a mighty storm, as though the very God of Nature was in agony. And truly He was, for while He was hanging on the cross for another three hours, from noon to 3 P.M., all the infinite agonies and merciless pains of Gethsemane recurred!
And, finally, when the atoning agonies had taken their toll--when the victory had been won, when the Son of God had fulfilled the will of his Father in all things--then He said, "It is finished" and He voluntarily gave up the ghost.
As the peace and comfort of a merciful death freed Him from the pains and sorrows of mortality, His spirit entered into the paradise of God. After some thirty-eight or forty hours--three days as the Jews measured time--our Blessed Lord came to the Arimathaean's tomb, where his partially-embalmed body had been placed by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea.
Then, in a way incomprehensible to us, He took up that body which had not yet seen corruption and arose in that glorious immortality which made Him like his resurrected Father.
Christ won the victory over death! We will no longer be bound! Because of our Saviour Jesus Christ we will all live again! After Christs resurrection, the graves were opened, and all of the faithful saints who had passed to the other side from Adam's time to Christ, took up their bodies and lived again!
And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all which we give of him: That He lives! That He dwells on the right hand of God; and we hear the voice of the Holy Spirit bearing record that He is the Only Begotten of the Father--That by Him, and through Him, and of Him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God!
We believe in God the Eternal Father and in His Son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost!
Most of us have experienced the death of a loved one. We know the pain of separation. Death can be bitter or sweet for either ourselves or our loved ones depending upon the way in which we have followed and actually come to know our Saviour Jesus Christ. Of course we mourn when a loved one passes on, but I believe that mourning is the highest compliment we can pay to someone we have loved.
We all will die, but through Christ we will all live again! The last ordinance of the gospel in which we will participate will be that of the resurrection.
Gods gift to the world was JESUS CHRIST. It was He who suffered pain beyond description at Gesthemane, who sweat great drops of blood at every pore because of our sins. It was Our Saviour Jesus Christ who was spit upon, betrayed and reviled: upon whose Head was placed a crown of sharp thorns. It was Our Saviour who stumbling under its weight, carried His cross up Golgotha, there to be nailed to a tree. Large nails pierced His hands and feet and wrists.
There, a sword pierced his quivering side. On Calvary He finished his mortal work and now continues with His Eternal work on the other side of the veil. It was He who took up his body once again from the Aramatheans tomb. The stone was rolled away by angels and He rose from the dead on the third day, that first Holy Sabbath we now call the Lords Day.
During this Easter Season might all of us, as His disciples, always remember with reverence and gratitude Gods greatest gift, Him whose name we honor, cherish and bear. JESUS CHRIST!
AMEN!