Jesus lived within the inexorable circle of the ideas of His time;
He staked much on the coming of the new kingdom which did not appear
either when or as He had first expected it. He had to adjust, as do we
all, His life to His experience, His destiny to His fate. But when He
was hanging on His cross, forgotten of men and apparently deserted by
His God, something in Him that had nothing to do with nature or the
brute rose to a final expression and by its more-than-natural reality,
sealed and authenticated His life. Looking down upon His torturers,
understanding them far better than they understood themselves, He
cried, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That
cry has no place in nature; it has no application and no meaning
outside the human heart and that which is above, not beneath, the
human heart, from which it is derived. There, then, again was the
supernatural law; there was the more-than-nature in man which makes
nature into human nature; and there is the thing to whose discovery,
cultivation, expression, real preaching is addressed. Every time a man
truly preaches he so portrays what men ought to be, must be, and can
be if they will, that they know there is something here
"that leaps life's narrow bars
To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven!
A seed of sunshine that doth leaven
Our earthly dullness with the beams of stars,
And glorify our clay
With light from fountains elder than the Day.
Pages:
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167