Heavenly things are too important, too true, too
real--Christ is too near us, and too loving to us, too earnest about our
salvation, for us to spend our thoughts on any such attempts (however
reverently meant) at imaginative play-acting in our own minds about His
hanging on His cross, while we know that He is not on His cross; and
about watching by His tomb, when we know that He is not in His tomb. Let
us thank Him, bless Him, serve Him, die for Him, if need be, in return
for all He endured for us: but let us keep our sorrow and our pity, and
our tears, for our own daily sins--we have enough of them to employ all
our sorrow, and more;--and not in voluntary humility and will-worship,
against which St Paul warns us, lose sight of our real Christ, of Him who
was dead and is alive for evermore, and dwells in us by faith; now and
for ever, amen; and hath the keys of death and hell, and has opened them
for us, and for our fathers before us, and for our children after us, and
for nations yet unborn.
True, this is a solemn day, for on it the Son of God fought such a fight,
that He could only win it at the price of His own life's blood; and a
humiliating day, for our sins helped to nail Him on the cross--and
therefore a day of humiliation and of humility.
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