All Saints' Day and Other SermonsKingsley, Charles
Religion
All Saints' Day and Other Sermons
Kingsley, Charles
Church of England -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 19th century
of Him which raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in us, He that raised up
Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by His Spirit
that dwelleth in us. How He will do it I know not; neither do I care to
know. When He will do it I know not; but it will be when it ought to be;
and that is enough for me. That He can do it I know, for He is the Maker
of the universe, and to Him all power is given in heaven and earth; and
as for its being strange, wonderful, past understanding, that matters
little to me. That will be but one wonder more in a world where all is
wonderful--one more mystery in an utterly mysterious universe.
And so, as Easter day has given us strength to live, let Easter day, too,
give us strength to die.
SERMON XI. EASTER DAY
Chester Cathedral. 1870.
St John xii. 24, 25. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he
that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."
This is our Lord's own parable. In it He tells us that His death, His
resurrection, His ascension, is a mystery which we may believe, not only
because the Bible tells us of it, but because it is reasonable, and
according to the laws of His universe; a fulfilment, rather say the
highest fulfilment, of one of those laws which runs through the world of
nature, and through the spiritual and heavenly world likewise. "Except a
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone;"--barren,
useless, and truly dead to the rest of the world around it, because it is
shut up in itself, and its hidden life, with all its wondrous powers of
growth and fertility, remains undeveloped, and will remain so, till it
decays away, a worthless thing, into worthless dust. But if it be buried
in the earth a while, then the rich life which lay hid in it is called
out by that seeming death, and it sprouts, tillers, and flowers, and
ripens its grain--forty-fold, sixty-fold, an hundred-fold; and so it
shows God's mind and will concerning it. It shows what is really in it,
and develops the full capabilities of its being. Even so, says our Lord,
would His death, His resurrection, His ascension be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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