The Light of Life

Let us consider the beginning of this sermon from Bishop Hedley: "THESE were the miracles by which Our Lord proved His Mission. They were necessary in order that the Jewish people might believe in Him. They were not to cease with His ascension. Signs, and even (as He had foretold) signs that seemed greater than any He Himself had wrought, were to be shown to the world, for the world's conversion, by His Apostles and the first preachers of the Gospel. But, in truth, it was not the bodies of men that Our Lord came to heal, but their souls. H is tender mercy was always ready to alleviate sorrow and suffering, and He has taught His followers to be of His spirit. But the prophecies, and His own words, point to a far wider field of wonder-working compassion than was offered by the blind and the lame who gathered round His progress through Judaea and Galilee. Let me recall the thirty-fifth chapter of Isaias. It speaks of the day of the Lord's coming. It foretells how the wilderness should rejoice and flourish as the lily; it speaks of blossom and beauty and glory; of strength for the feeble and courage fer the faint-hearted; the eyes of the blind were to be opened and the ears of the deaf to be unstopped; the lame man should leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb should be free; there should be fertilising streams, and "holy ways," and safety from every mischievous beast, in all the land of the redeemed. This is a prophecy which was to be realised, and which has been realised. Our Saviour Himself proclaimed its fulfilment when He said, "Come to Me all ye who labour and are heavy burdened, and I will refresh you."! He came to lighten, to lift from the backs of men, the burdens of humanity. He came to open our eyes and to heal our infirmities. Do not imagine that because we are here dealing with the spiritual order that we are not dealing with realities. The spiritual is as real as the material. Mind and will are as real as your hand, your eyes, your nerve, or your muscle. Nay, were it not for mind and spirit, what human reality would there be? The wondrous organs of a man's body would be only lifeless tissue, common matter. There would be no pain or pleasure-because there would be no vitality. There would be no human burdens-because there would be no human sensitiveness to feel them. The infirmities of the flesh are the infirmities of the spiritual soul. And if the spirit have burdens and weaknesses of its own-just as its spiritual endowments are its own-these must be even more real, more momentous, touching more deeply the essence and substance of things, than anything it can bear or suffer through the flesh; just as some monarch, who feels for the troubles of the poorest of his subjects, has to carry, in addition to all else, the solicitudes, the fears, the weakness, and the anguish of his own heart. To heal the spirit of man, to redeem him, to restore him, to set him once more in his place in this creation, with the beauty and the dignity that are his by God's wish-this is the office, the perpetual office, of Him Who, as He once passed through Palestine, so now passes to and fro throughout the ages till the consummation come. Is, then, the world smitten with disease? Is human nature sick and languishing? ...