PROPER LESSONS: Morning, 1st. Zech. ix. ; 2nd. St. Luke xxiii. ver. 50 ; EPISTLE, 1 St. Pet. iii. 17. GOSPEL, St. Matt. xxvii. 57. THERE is something awful in the stillness of this day. It is different in this respect from any other day in the year. This may be in some degree owing to our own feelings; for the season of Lent is now over; and the week of our Lord's Passion also is now at its close. There is always something of a dread solemn quiet which succeeds after any peculiar scene of probation or occasion when God visits. It is like that still small voice of God speaking to Elijah in the cave, after the tempest and the whirlwind and the fire had ceased. The mere circumstance of any great trial being over is apt to leave this impression. Any one who is acquainted with the chamber of death will know what this is; in that great change which takes place when the breath of life ceases, there is nothing so awful as the dread and profound calm which ensues. None can witness it without partaking in some degree of the solemn peace of the dead, that unearthly stillness which then succeeds in awful contrast to the feverish hurry and excitement of this life. We feel that the trial is over; that time is past; that eternity has begun; that it is no other than the stillness of God; from the dread silence of the mortal remains we are impressed with an awful impression that the spirit of the dead is also in the same deep calm in the presence of God. And if we are at all given to serious reflection we also are in thought together with the departed, and are filled with contemplations of what this state must be: where all the noise of this world has ceased and is set far away; where all its concerns are unheard and forgotten; where every friend that can cheer, or amuse, or flatter us, shall be separated from us; where the wicked cease from troubling, and every earthly thing appears as nothing in that awful world where God is; where there shall be no wars nor rumours of wars, nor buying and selling; no planting and building; no marrying or giving in marriage; in that place where there will be no change of seasons, no noise of days and months and years, but the calm stillness of the world beyond. Now we are all aware that there is some feeling of this kind which comes over us whenever any great circumstances of trial are at an end; when we cannot but be conscious that we have been put into the scales and have been weighed in the balances by the Spirit of God. Such is the season which has now come to a close. It has been too, it may be hoped, to some of us a dying to the world, and an awakening to the peace of God. Such then may account in some degree for the impression of this solemn day with respect to ourselves; but we have also been going out of ourselves, and have been, we may trust, together with Christ; have been with Him in His humiliation and dreadful agonies in the garden of Gethsemane; have been with Him in the palace of the chief-priest, at the shameful revilings of His enemies, and the denial of His friends; have been with Him as He was dragged along and delivered up to the heathen governor, and sent by him to the scornful Herod; been with Him as He was mocked and spit upon, as He was scourged and crowned with thorns; as He was rejected by the people and clamorously demanded for death; have been with Him along the way of sorrows when He fainted beneath His cross, and the weight of our sins, that sore burden too heavy for Him to bear; have been with Him as He was being nailed to the cross, and as He hung the weary sad hours thereon, being mocked and reviled of men and forsaken of God; have been with Him as He was being taken down from the dreadful wood of suffering and laid in the grave. We have been with Him together with the sorrowing women who beheld Him there laid in the tomb, until the great stone was rolled to the entrance and shut Him out from their eyes. If therefore we have hung in devout meditation on these things; if we have been admitted to be witnesses and spectators and, in some sense, most interested partakers of them, being joined on to Christ in communion with His sufferings, then too we may now enter into that hallowed rest with Him, and feel that on that account there is something of unusual awe and peace on this day which makes it unlike any other day in the year. This then is the holy Sabbath. It was so ordained of God that it should be; nor was it merely a Sabbath, but the Sabbath during the Passover week; it was the great Sabbath; as St. John says, "that Sabbath day was an high day." It was indeed the Sabbath of Sabbaths. The rest of God. It was that rest too which being the rest of God, is the rest that remaineth for the people of God. That rest which follows after the six days of labour and sorrow, the six days of this world; that rest which remaineth for each one of the children of God when this his period of earthly trial shall be at an end; and before that great resurrection of soul and body when the Sun of Righteousness shall arise. It is that rest into which Christ has now entered; and in which He seems to say to us, "Come, My people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. The world as a greedy and devouring lion seems to wander around that holy chamber of death; and vents its rage in vain ; he who is there is in the keeping of God together with Christ, and that wicked one toucheth him not. There martyrs, and confessors, and saints are gathered together in the bosom of Christ, safe for ever from the reach of all harm the world may flout their blest names in hatred and scorn, and trample on their earthly vesture in its wrath; but a hair of their head shall not perish and a bone of them shall not be broken, for they are hidden in the hollow of God's hand, withdrawn into His presence from the provoking of all men until the resurrection of the just. There also, as we hope, may each of us have ; |