The way of inner promise and lighted instruction is the path Christ followed in His exalted life of supreme service. He proclaimed that He spoke no word save His Father commanded it and performed no act except God revealed it. This was not only the point of His high attainment but the point He coveted for all. When He spoke of this degree of inner directing he was not boasting about something He alone could achieve or had achieved. He was revealing the way of possible attainment for every child of earth.
Christ, through perfecting the ability to "be taught of God," had advanced so far He would have automatically been transformed into the fullness of His divine stature and heritage and would have thus been exalted beyond the vision and physical reach of His followers without them in any way comprehending what had happened. For that very reason Christ chose and accepted the way of the cross. He desired that all should see and comprehend the higher laws and possibility of perfection and the power thereof -- even the power over death itself.
And for centuries the world has held its attention upon that shameful betrayal and the shocking horror of His death. Men have tried always to keep alive the anguish they would have suffered had they been in His place. Man has always sought to bring God down to his own level. In portraying only Christ's suffering they have held His supreme sacrifice upon a mortal level of humiliation and dishonor.
It is true that on the last night of His mortal life, as Christ kneeled alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, while His followers slept, He sweat blood. And the world, in its ignorance and blindness, has believed that Jesus so dreaded the ordeal of the crucifixion He sweat blood through His personal fears and anguish.
No mortal idea could be more false than this.
As Christ first kneeled, before His followers dropped off into an exhausted slumber, they heard His words, "Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not my will but thine be done."
As Christ completely relinquished His will to the Will of God, His Father, He was shown the history of the world -- all that had been -- all that existed in His own time -- and all that would be in these far off, distant years of ours. He beheld all the errors and mistakes, all the weaknesses and evils, all the sins that had been and would be committed under ignorance, blindness, determined wickedness or sanctimonious self-righteousness. He comprehended the darkness and the defiance, the bigotry and the secret sins of a lost world. And in that revelation His heart melted in a compassion so great His physical system could not endure the divine grandeur of His love. His very blood oozed through His pores as He yearned over the sinners of a world so engulfed in ignorance and self-imposed blindness and so cloaked in hypocrisy His suffering reached beyond mortal minds to comprehend.
Christ realized fully that all the pain and anguish and suffering and dismays that could or would exist were caused by the rebellion and ignorance and the consequent evils released through the lives of men.
In beholding the great drama of the world Christ saw every living soul. In that vision He beheld your mistakes and mine. He viewed the weaknesses we held secreted within our hearts, sins which we concealed behind our human, mortal personalities. He beheld the transgressions and the errors of every living soul and the tragic, hunger crying out of each individual's innermost being as he reached instinctively for a better way.
He comprehended fully that the distresses and afflictions of the world and its almost unbearable sufferings were caused through the mortal weaknesses and blind evils of humanity. He beheld that mankind had no idea as to the cause of its distresses and even a great ignorance of what to do about it.
In that all-encompassing revelation Christ's heart opened wide to enfold the world completely in His own divine, God-like love. His soul yearned with a yearning no mere mortal mind can possibly comprehend. With an almost consuming desire He pleaded with His Father to be permitted to help atone for the evils that had become the heritage of man. It was in the burning intensity of His desire to help atone for the gross wickedness of all the ages that His mortal blood was almost drained from His body before ever the ordeal of the cross arrived.
If only His disciples had remained "Awake for that one hour" they would have comprehended, in a measure, some of the divine, unspeakable wonder of His greatness and His love. But they did not stay awake. They slept as most of mankind is still sleeping today. They were only awakened in time to behold those drying drops of His life fluid still upon His face. And it was they, who later assumed, that His anguish had been caused by his own fearful, cringing dismay at the ordeal before Him.
Because they had not remained awake they failed, for the time being, to comprehend the great glory of His sacrifice and the divine power of His love. Because they had slept, as most of us have done -- and are doing, they were unable to understand that His yearning for them and for the entire world was so acute and so profound he would gladly have sacrificed His life a thousand times upon a cross. He, in that hour of divine anguish, could think of no price too great to pay for the redemption of a world.
It was not for Himself He sweat His precious blood. It was for us. And it was for us He died.
It is now "the fulness of time" and that which has never been told must be made known.
In Christ's ardent, concentrated desire to offer Himself for the sins of the world, His own ordeal became as nothing.
Many of us, who were yet unborn, were there to behold, in sorrow, that ordeal and to rejoice in His dynamic victory. We understood its meaning and its glory as we worshiped and adored. And with all the strength of our souls we sought to return to Him, in a measure, His great love as it penetrated our beings and poured out through us. Our love fell short else we would have remembered the great wonder of His sacrifice when we first heard of it again in the story of Christianity and the betrayal of the Son of God and His death upon the cross. In reading this many of you will recall the great truth behind His sacrifice and remember that none of His suffering was for Himself -- but for us. And your love will be deepened by that knowledge.
To Christ the great ordeal became as nothing in the urgency of humanity's great need. And so can every mortal ordeal be overcome, transformed and exalted. It was by this singleness of "Praise be to God" that all martyrs were exalted above their momentary tortures and afflictions -- and above their cruelly inflicted deaths. They too became detached from all personal suffering through a devotion that completely suspended the self and superceded the physical claim.
To Christ, our Lord, the supreme sacrifice was a divine privilege. It was not an ordeal, as man would interpret it. He so exalted and transformed the shameful experience into an act of everlasting glory there was no other thought or feeling in His mind. His very singleness of purpose perfected His divine heritage and exalted His mortal body into divinity. He was so filled with love and light and the high purpose of His desire that when the multitude approached Him in the Garden they were momentarily overcome by the power of God he held out to them in His infinite love. He was so filled with the light and the glory of eternity they were almost paralyzed by it as he towered above them in His own divine majesty.
Throughout the mockery of His trial, the indignities of His persecutions, and the crowning dishonor of thorns and the discreditable, ignominious ordeal of the cross he never, for even one moment, flinched, nor faltered nor cringed. He never for a single instant acted less than He Himself WAS, the divine Saviour of the world. Majesty crowned His every thought and the vibrations he released were sent out only in love.
He never asked for pity nor sought for sympathy. As He dragged His cross along the streets of old Jerusalem, He was also dragging all the crosses of all mankind, as individuals would in time, yield them up to Him. It was the crosses of all the individuals of all the ages that made a weight so heavy He stumbled under the burden of it. In carrying that cross He was calling to all the over-burdened of the world, "Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy, and my burden is Light." His burden is truly the great Light of heaven, the Light of glory, the intelligence and truth and power offered to every, humble, searching soul. Yes, His yoke is easy. It was our yoke upon Him that was so heavy on that tragic day, so long ago.
Christ still holds out the wondrous burden of the great Light to every child of earth who will only desire it and accept His divine offering.
And, as Christ went along that dusty street "There followed Him a great company of people, and of women which also bewailed and lamented him."
But Jesus turning unto them said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children."
The self-pitying anguish portrayed by the mortal, morbid-minded imaginations of artists are but revealing their own level of reactions had they been called upon to endure such an ordeal in their sin-drenched, self-centered, human weaknesses. Had they been called to endure and experience as disgraceful, as humiliating and as anguish-filled as that crucifixion they would most assuredly have looked and felt as pitiful and undignified as they depict Christ being. And in their shameful portrayal they "crucify Him afresh” adding to the first shame their own evil interpretation of the event.
In the hours of His ordeal Christ was never for one moment anything less than the divine Son of God, as He had testified from the beginning.
His divinity was proclaimed anew in His compassionate words of tender love as He pleaded, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He was willingly offering up His life for the sins of the world, "No man could take his life from Him. Of himself he could lay it down, and of Himself He could take it up again." Which was incomprehensible to those who heard until He proved His words by His ascension from the tomb.
During that suffering on the cross Christ never forgot for a single instant the urgency of His sacrifice nor the purpose of it. Nor were any excluded from His love nor from the benefits He held out to the world. It was for those who had committed the most appalling crime of all existence that he pleaded, "Father, forgive them" and then gave an excuse for their crime. Tenderly, sincerely and with nothing but love and forgiveness in His heart he prayed for the blasphemous wickedness they had perpetrated to be blotted out.
Should any feel shut out from His mercy? They need only turn to Him in earnest entreaty and He will hear. Should any man think he has sinned too much to be forgiven? No one has sinned too much until he has lost the power and the desire to ask to be forgiven.
Such is the healing, enfolding mercy and the power of the divine love of Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God.
Even at the very beginning of Christ's betrayal He lifted His head in humble triumph, saying, "Now is the Father glorified in the Son."
The erroneous mis-translation of His words, spoken from the cross, still stand in jeering mockery, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" This has been the crowning insult and the second greatest falsehood.
His words were: "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani," which being interpreted by the mortal minded, who stood by, were assumed to be a plea such as the following: "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" "For some of those who stood by, when they heard it said, Behold, he calleth Elias." If those who stood by did not understand His words and were unable to give them the correct translation, but only guessed at their meaning, then those who recorded them later had no means of knowing their true significance. Again they interpreted what He said according to their own ideas, or according to what they would have spoken had they been in His place, without His great love and divine majesty.
The true interpretation of the words, "Eloi, Eloi, lama, sabachthani," is; "My God, My God, this is my destiny! For this was I sent!"
At the finish of His ordeal He cried with a loud voice -- and that voice was the triumphant cry of glory! "The Hosannas shout" of the soul! It was the exulting, triumphant shout of victory! And that cry was, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!"
Only the divine Son of the Living God, our beloved, glorious Savior could have so completely glorified such a shameful experience and exalted so ignoble a death. The very world He came to save rejected Him. And only the Redeemer of the world could have transformed such a crowning indignity with honor and exalted it into eternal triumph and power and everlasting blessings for all who will only accept of His divine and holy offering -- HIMSELF!
He shed His precious blood both in the garden and upon the cross to atone for our sins. He offered His sacred, pure, divine life of holy obedience and love for our sin-stained ones of darkness and rebellion and selfishness and pride. He willingly sacrificed His supreme, beautiful, perfect life that we could live. It was not only that we could have life, but have it "more abundantly -- even life eternal!"
The gift Christ gave is redemption and the stupendous gift of vibrant, eternal life, here and now, if we will only accept of it. Through accepting of His offering we can be forgiven for our sins and transgressions and be given power to overcome our weaknesses and evils. By the power of His sacrifice and through the shedding of His precious blood we can follow the path He trod -- and do the works which He did, namely "OVERCOME" -- even "As he overcame." And as we overcome our weaknesses, which is the cause of our errors and evils and mistakes, we can become "purified, even as he is pure!" For such is the promise.
In such compassionate, divine assistance we need only have the courage to face our faults and then have the humility and the honesty to admit them, as we offer them to Him. Our very weaknesses are "The burden with which we are heavy laden." It is the burden of morality and its inherent, physical traits that is the almost unbearable load of each and every one. As we offer our weaknesses to Him, in a complete yielding, He is there to release us from them and to give us rest -- along with the divine, stupendous power to overcome them forever. This is the divine "overcoming" that brings a complete fulfillment of every law and every divine accomplishment.
Praise be to God forever for an offering so gloriously powerful.
Christ freely gave the offering of Himself but each individual must willingly accept that sacrifice. It will never be forced upon a single soul. Freely was the gift given and freely must it be received. Not even the most fanatical, determined preachers have the power to force salvation or the glory of His divine redemption upon a single soul, though it has been tried.
And since Christ's offering was given freely it cannot be sold for money, though some have tried to collect for it also. His offering is held out to every humble, reaching, desiring individual of this polluted, tear-stained earth.
Such is the power and the love behind Christ's priceless gift of redemption, offered to a sinful, lost world -- a world submerged in darkness. No individual has a monopoly upon His precious gift. And only those can be excluded who exclude themselves.
Yet there are those who still sell Him for a few pieces of silver as they preach about Him upon the Sabbath day then pass the contribution box to collect their reward -- their pieces of silver -- or their heaped up plates of greenbacks, claiming they are "worthy of their hire." These are they to whom He will say, "Depart from me ye accursed, I know ye not," for they have bypassed the "higher" way of attainment for a monetary price.
For those who do not accept of Christ’s great offering of redemption and exaltation there still remains the salvaging experience known as "salvation." This is held out to those who through indifference, self-righteousness, unbelief, injustice, bigotry, or ignorance refuse His greater gift of perfect love, that they might "Overcome" -- while in this life.
It is only in defiant wickedness and continued evil and the path of chosen rebellion and wanton sinning that one can lose permanently the gift Christ gave to the world. And even these must have so far advanced in understanding they knowingly reject His sacrifice and deliberately choose the darkness rather than the light.
Those, who, in humility and love seek to overcome, the ways of overcoming open wide. These noble ones do not need to be salvaged. They become exalted. And it is for each man to choose his own degree and his own eternal status of existence.
Christ's desire to redeem a world is just as intense now as it was that night in Gethsemane. His love is even more far reaching as He offers strength, wisdom, understanding and love to all who desire them. His infinite gifts of forgiveness, redemption and eternal life are still held out in divine, holy, wondrous loving power to all who desire to receive.
Christ gave Himself! All that is required of man is that he relinquish his weaknesses and his lusts and his selfishness and pride, which are the cause of his sins. And even in this ability to face himself and in the acknowledgement of his own imperfections man does not stand alone. Christ is always awaiting the invitation or the request to assist any and all who will only ask, for the promise is: "Ask and you shall receive!" And "Lo! I am with you always, even unto the end of the earth!"
In 1962 a new version of "The King of Kings" was portrayed upon the screen. And it was a dismal failure. Mary was given more power in that portrayal than her Son, the Redeemer of the world! He was pictured as a mere mortal while it was implied that she was divine. Let it be here known, Christ was not great because Mary was His mother. Rather was she great because He was her son.
The last scene of this powerless, uninspired movie showed Christ, the resurrected, risen Son of God, plodding up the hill from His tomb, clad in a dismal old gray shroud, without either power or light or glory! For shame! For shame to those who would belittle the magnitude of His glory and the deathless, triumphant power of His resurrection as He exalted His mortal body into eternal life, with the power to take it with Him.
None have lifted their eyes to behold His glory. Man has never comprehended the meaning of those wonderful words, "Eyes single to the glory of God!" How could man have possibly comprehended so great and powerful an invitation to behold and witness God's Almighty Glory, when Christ has been kept nailed to the cross down the centuries!
From the beginning the infant, "wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger," has been held out to the contemplation of man. Or the crucified Lord, nailed upon the cross, has been worshiped.
The cross has been the symbol of Christianity. And thus the two most impotent, helpless stages of Christ's mortal existence have been hallowed and acclaimed and placed eternally before the contemplative vision of man. Consequently none have lifted their eyes to behold the dynamic light and power of His glory and therefore none have been able to hold their eyes single to that glory. They have held their eyes single to the helpless, infant state of the new-born child and to the Savior nailed to the cross. And so it is that none look upward to behold His glory and none therefore have been able to begin to take upon themselves the reflection of that glory, that "They might become like Him!"
None have looked beyond the helpless, infant state to walk beside Him in His power as He trod upon the tumultuous Sea of Galilee. None have breathed in the wonder and the glory of His loving compassion as he healed the halt, the leperous, the afflicted and the blind. And so few have exulted in His dynamic words, "Lazarus, Come forth!"
Man in his blindness has insisted upon worshipping the cross. And at one time almost depleted Europe with its crusades, carried under the banner of that cross.
Few have, even for a moment, lifted their eyes to behold Christ in His resurrected glory. If any individual had lifted his spiritual vision to behold the almost incomprehensible glory his eyes would have forever after been "single to that glory!" Any and all who will only lift their eyes to behold His divine, breathtaking glory will begin to take on that same glory.
When one is finally so "purified in his heart" and "cleansed from all sin" he can behold the face of Christ, he will see none of the tragic things which have been kept alive by those who have never understood the great wonder of His victorious, triumphant glory!
Only those two, impotent fractions of His life, portraying His most powerless states, are held out to the world as His life is remembered and contemplated. Never His glory!
Such promises as the following have been lost in the centuries of darkness: "And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body that is filled with light comprehendeth all things. Therefore, sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God, and the days will come that you shall see him; for he will unveil his face unto you, and it shall be in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will!"
As one lifts the spiritual eyes of his understanding to behold the glory of Christ, and to contemplate His love and His victory, his eyes will become single to that glory. In lifting his vision above all mortal, earthbound ideas, he will be prepared to behold the face of Christ. And in the eyes of Jesus of Nazareth, exalted Son of the Living God, he will behold all the concentrated love of eternity and the understanding and compassion of the ages held in the complete forgiveness of God.
Such is the power and the glory and the tender love of the resurrected Messiah, the Savior of the world, the Son of the Living God! The great and mighty "King of Kings," the glory of the world! And those who behold Him will behold His glory, and forever after will their eyes be single to that glory and they too will begin to reflect it and to be filled with light.
And every soul who seeks diligently to KNOW HIM, not just to know about him, will eventually "behold His face, for He will unveil His face to them." Such is the eternal promise of heaven and such is your privilege to receive.
The sign of Christ's birth is the star. The sign of His crucifixion is the cross. But neither of these signs were meant to be worshiped. Only Christ Himself is worthy of our adoration and our love and praise!
Love Him! Adore Him! Worship Him! And let your eyes become single to His glory that you might be filled with the Light of It and with His love and with His power -- forever and ever --