Sylvanus Stall

Suggestion:—Objects: An egg and a little chick in a cage, or a toy chick, such as are often available at Easter time may be used.

You remember how some weeks ago I showed you a watch-case.[A] You thought it was a watch, but when I opened it it had no works in it, consequently it was only a watch-case. When I placed the works in the case, then it made a complete watch.

So you have also seen the body of a dead person and you have possibly thought that that was the individual, the person whom you had known; but that which you saw was only the body. The soul, the immortal part, had taken its departure and gone back to God who first placed it in the body. Now, just the same as the works of a watch can keep good time without being in the case, so the soul can exist apart from the body. If you were to take the watch-case and bury it in the ground, that fact would not affect either the existence or the accuracy of the works of the watch in measuring time. So when God takes the soul out of the body we say that it is a dead body, and it becomes necessary for us to bury it out of our sight.

On Good Friday we commemorate the death of Christ upon the cross on Calvary. You remember how, after the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus came and took the body of Christ down from the cross and laid it in a new tomb which Joseph had hewn out of rock in his garden. When this had been done, Pilate remembered how Jesus had said that if He were put to death, after three days He would rise again. Now, Pilate did not believe that Jesus would rise again, but was afraid that His disciples or some friends might come by night and steal away His body and circulate the report that Jesus had risen from the dead; so he placed Roman soldiers around the sepulchre to prevent His disciples from coming near the tomb, or sepulchre where Joseph had laid away the body of Christ. Pilate purposed to prevent the possibility of Christ's resurrection, but in the fact that he placed the soldiers there he secured for all after ages the most positive proof that Jesus did actually rise from the dead. These soldiers were Roman soldiers, and if they had slept while they were upon guard duty, the penalty would have been death. But when the angel came down from heaven and rolled away the stone, then we are told that these Roman soldiers became as dead men.

It is on Easter Sunday that we commemorate this rising of Christ from the grave or sepulchre. Now, can you tell me why it is that on Easter we have these Easter eggs, such as I hold in my hand? I will tell you why it is. It is because while the outside of this egg is like the outside of a vault or grave, yet inside there is a germ of life. If you take a dozen perfect eggs and place them under a mother hen, and have her set on them for three weeks, at the end of that time out of these eggs which seem to have nothing of life in them, there will come forth little chickens, just such as I hold in my hand, only this one is not alive. But it is a very accurate representation of a little chicken a day or two old.

Now, just in this same way if you were to drive through a cemetery and look at a vault, which is the nearest that we have in this country in likeness to the sepulchre in which the body of Christ was laid, you would not suppose for a moment that there would be living people in that vault. While the bodies that are in the vault are dead bodies, yet they have the promise of life, God will some day raise them up, unite again the soul and the body and give them that everlasting life and resurrection glory which Jesus has promised. And as Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday morning, so we have the promise that in the final resurrection the bodies of all who have ever lived upon the earth shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth; those who have lived Christian lives to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of death and eternal punishment.

The egg then is the symbol of life, for out of this seemingly lifeless object there comes forth the living chick; so out of the graves and sepulchres there will eventually come forth the bodies of all who have ever died, and these bodies shall become resurrection bodies. These mortals shall put on immortality, and these corruptible bodies shall put on incorruption; and then the souls and the bodies of all shall be reunited, never again to be separated throughout all eternity.

Perhaps during the past few months or years you may have laid away in the grave the body of some dear little brother or sister, or perhaps of a kind father or mother, or some other friend; if so, the spring season of the year will suggest to you the resurrection. The grass and the flowers which appeared to be dead last fall, and which during the winter have been wrapped in a white shroud of snow, now feel the warm breath of spring, and life and beauty are coming forth out of the sepulchre of the winter.

Soon all the trees will put forth their leaves and then beauteous blossoms and sweet fragrance will tell of the spring time as the resurrection period of the year.

So at Easter time we properly turn to the cemeteries where rest the bodies of our loved ones and know that the long winter of death and decay shall eventually give place to the promised resurrection of life and beauty. On that Easter morn the bodies of our loved ones shall be raised up, the soul and the body shall be reunited, and we shall see them and know them as they are.

Now, just how God shall gather again all the scattered parts of these bodies that were buried in the sea, or have decayed back to earth in the ground, we do not know. But our ignorance does not change the fact. I do not understand how at first God created man out of dust of the earth, nor do I know how the bread and meat and food which I eat each day nourish my life and become part of my own body. I do not know how, out of the same handful of earth, either an apple or a flower might grow. I know that it is so, but the how I do not know; nor does my ignorance prevent or hinder God from accomplishing it. If each day I eat food which by some strange power which God has placed within me is changed into bones in my body, to hair on my head, to nails on the ends of my fingers, to teeth, and eyes and ears and thus becomes a part of myself, why should I question, or desire to know how God is able to quicken in the grave the power to make the body to live again. If in the beginning God only spoke and worlds came into being, I know that when He shall command these bodies to rise from death and the grave they also will hear His voice and obey.

I am sure that no boy nor girl here would want that, on the morning of the resurrection his or her body should refuse to obey God's voice when He shall command the dead to come forth from their graves in life and beauty. You will want to obey Him then, but should you not also desire to obey Him now? When God tells you in the Bible what He wants you to do, are you obedient? Do you do as He commands? If you are disobedient now, then in the morning of the resurrection you might even desire, rather to remain in your grave, so that you should not have to look into the face of Him whom you have disobeyed and offended. If you want to awake on that final Easter morning in the likeness of Jesus and be forever with Him in glory, remember that you must obey God now as Jesus did when He was upon the earth. If we would be like Jesus in glory, we must strive to be like Him in all that we do, and I trust that you may think of this daily. At all times when you are uncertain what it is your duty to do, ask yourself this question: "If He were in my place, what would Jesus do?" And then act and do as nearly as possible as you think Jesus would do under the same circumstances.