Life and light are twins. They are like double stars, separate, yet
knowing well where the herbs grow for medicine, or for binding up of sores and wounds.
Looking, then, up to Jesus of Nazareth, as He asks us, Whom say ye that I am? we answer: Thou art Israel's Shepherd, the Church's Shepherd, and our Shepherd, so that we shall not want. Thou leadest us by the green pastures and the still waters; Thou dost not overdrive one sheep or lamb in all Thy scattered flock; Thou seekest and searchest them out in all places where they are scattered in the cloudy and dark day; Thou seekest that which is lost; Thou bringest again that which is driven away, and bindest up that which is broken, and strengthenest that which is sick; Thou feedest Thy flock like a shepherd; Thou gatherest the lambs with Thy arm, and carriest them in Thy bosom, and gently leadest those that are with young. Thy sheep hear Thy voice; Thou callest them by name, and leadest them out; Thou goest before them, and they follow Thee, for they know Thy voice. Thou art the 'chief Shepherd' (1 Pet. 5:4), the 'great Shepherd' (Heb. 13:20), the 'good Shepherd,' who gavest Thy life for the sheep (John 10:11); and to Thee we say, Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel! Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, Thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth. Thou art gentle, and tender, and gracious; Thou art strong, and brave, and patient; Thou art watchful and skilful, alike for guidance and for health,—Lord Jesus Christ, we look up to Thee! Save, and guide, and protect, and bless, that no evil and no enemy may prevail, but only good come nigh to us.
10. Thou art the Life of the World
Life and light are twins. They are like double stars, separate, yet linked together. He who has the life has the light, and he who has the light has the life. The living One is the light-giving One. But the life of the Christ is a life which, alike in nature, and in power, and in immensity, is like no other life. Let us look at it.
Death has spread itself over the earth since the time that man sinned and brought upon himself the doom declared at first by God, 'In the
day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die' (Gen. 2:17). Nor is it one kind of death that has come upon our race, but death in every form and of every kind has come. That which God calls death has become the heritage of the sons of Adam; and a sore heritage it has been, including in it condemnation, darkness, alienation from God, pain, sorrow, terror, with the separation of the body from the soul, the corruption of the grave, and the second death beyond. Who shall undo all this evil-doing? what second man shall destroy the first death, and cancel the second, with all their temporal and eternal accompaniments? Only He who is preeminently the Man, made of a woman, yet one with the living God. For in order to have death removed, not only in man, or beast, or herb, we must go back to the original fountainhead of being, to Him who not only has life, but who is life, and from whom the exuberant overflow of life is sufficient to undo all death, and to impart a life that shall never succumb to the power of death, or of him who has the power of death, again.
Messiah comes! He comes as life; at once the possessor and bestower of life to all who need it. Life to the dead, and life from the dead, is that which the Christ of God proclaims! This is His errand and His work. 'I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly' (John 10:10).
Yet He does not give life by a mere command, as at the first creation. There is a hindrance; something has come in along with man's sin, which says that the old way of imparting life is at an end, and that a mere command would be unavailing: for that which has now come in, and exercises sway, is too powerful to be thus dealt with, for it wields the power of law and righteousness. These must be dealt with and pacified ere life can find its way to the dead; for the death was a righteous death, and only by righteousness can it be cancelled.
The Life, then, has come; but it has come to die! Without this death of 'the Life,' the quickening voice cannot reach the tomb. 'That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die' (1 Cor. 15:36); 'Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it abideth alone: