Chapter 11

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.

He speaks of His own resurrection and ascension; yes, but He speaks first of His own death. Before the corn can bring forth fruit, and show what is in it, fulfilling the law of its being, it must fall into the ground and die. Before our Lord could fulfil the prophecy, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption," He must fulfil the darker prophecy of that awful 88th Psalm, the only one of all the psalms which ends in sorrow, in all but despair, "My soul is full of trouble, and my life draweth nigh unto hell. I am counted as one of them that go down into the pit: and I have been even as a man that hath no strength. Free among the dead, like unto them that are wounded and lie in the grave, who are out of remembrance, and are cut away from thy hand." So it was to be. So, we may believe, it needed to be. Christ must suffer before He entered into His glory. He must die, before He could rise. He must descend into hell, before He ascended into heaven. For this is the law of God's kingdom. Without a Good Friday, there can be no Easter Day. Without self-sacrifice, there can be no blessedness, neither in earth nor in heaven. He that loveth his life will lose it. He that hateth his life in this paltry, selfish, luxurious, hypocritical world, shall keep it to life eternal. Our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled that law; because it is