Page:Heralds of God.djvu/94

HERALDS OF GOD be not risen," he declared, "then is our preaching vain." He might have added that, without the Resurrection, the voice of the Christian preacher would never have been heard in the land. There was no Christian congregation in that early age which did not recognize itself to be a community of the Resurrection: and there is no hope of revival in the Church to-day until that basic, glorious truth is reasserted and comes back into its own. Far too often we have been inclined to regard the Resurrection as an epilogue to the Gospel, an addendum to the scheme of salvation, a codicil to the divine last will and testament: thereby betraying not only a deficient historic perspective and a singular disregard of the whole tenor of the New Testament, but also a failure in spiritual understanding and an insufficient hold upon the great verities of the faith. This is no appendix to the faith. This is the faith. He is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. To preach this is your life-work: and there is no Gospel without it.

Now here let me stress the urgency of showing forth the Resurrection in its dynamic relevance to world-history. The trouble is that many good, devout people have not yet begun to grasp the full range and sweep of the Easter Gospel. Their conception of it is much too narrow and individualistic, too remote from the struggles of humanity. To them the Resurrection means only the escape of Jesus from the grave, the return of the Master to His disciples, the lovely stories of His meetings with Mary, with Peter, with Thomas, 88