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would be great among you,— let him pile up millions and be a king in the financial world? If any man would be great among you, let him write a book that would rival Shakespeare? If any man would be great among you,— let him be a master of men, and when he speaks they obey, and when he points the finger they go? Oh,, that is the world’s ideal. If any man would be great among you, let him be not a mas ter of men but a slave. If any man would be great among you let him be come the slave of all. The idea of great ness is service. Not climbing above the multitude and mastering the world, but getting underneath and lifting it towards God. Now we come just for a moment into the whole focus. Altogether lovely in His death— the ugliest and most beau tiful event in all history. The most beautiful picture in the ugliest frame is the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus And the things that make the poets write and sing; that move the painter’s brush and bring out the finest genius, are sometimes the most repulsive, in their outward appearance. And Cal vary with its clotted blood, and its vio lence and groans and darkness, is re pulsive. I confess I would go across the city, across the continent, across the world, to keep from looking at an execution, and yet back of the repul siveness of Calvary there is a beauty that excels all painting and all music and all poetry. It is the beauty of sac rificial love. One of our dear lads from America in the midst of a group of his fellows whom he loved, was in one of the trenches in Prance, when a live bomb thrown by the enemy fell right down at his feet. He knew it would soon explode, so to save his fellows he took the bomb up in his arms and ran away with it. As he ran it exploded, and he was blown to pieces. Oh, the repulsive sight of the blowing to pieces, and yet the attraction of the action, the
nobility of spirit that made him willing to sacrifice himself to save his brother soldiers. He is but one among many that have shown that sort of spirit in the midst of danger, willing to expose themselves that others may be saved. And the Lord Jesus in His death, is self-forgetful, and dying, not for those that love Him, but for those that hate Him. Then altogether lovely in His resur rection. There was a glory that flashed out and a glory from within. There was a Bright Angel sitting upon the stone that was rolled away, and yet when Mary met Him she thought He was the gardener. He was not parad ing the glory. The picture that shows Him with the halo round His head, was not the picture that Mary saw. She only saw a gardener, just a common sort of man, and I love to think that even in His resurrection glory He gets on our level. Oh, He does not shine upon us with a flashing halo, He does not come with all the beauties of heaven radiating from Him, to make you ad mire and worship and fear. He gets into touch with us, the common people. And altogether lovely in His ascen sion. Luke says that He lifted His hands and blessed them, and while He blessed them He was taken up out of their sight, and the last view they got of Him, you remember, was with the uplifted hands blessing them. He came down from heaven to bless, and as He went away, it was in the attitude of blessing,— blessing His broken-hearted disciples, blessing His church, blessing the world, and the church has been un der those uplifted hands ever since. The Spirit defines prayer as “ the lifting up of Holy Hands,” and the Lord Jesus on His mediatorial throne has His hands up towards God in intercession for us. Altogether lovely in His coming again. For just as you have seen Him go up, He will come back, the same body, and I think the same attitude.
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