Article August 30, 1913 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from John Albert Eby, H. S. McClelland

[Rev. John Albert Eby as reported in Los Angeles (Cal.) Tribune.]

"I am the resurrection, and the life." These comforting words of Jesus to a sorrowing woman at the grave of a loved brother have been a source of more comfort to those sorrowing in like circumstances than all the words ever spoken by the lips of the world from that day to this. They have been a supreme consolation because they are the words of Jesus, and he spoke with authority. Not a single word he spoke ever failed for one moment. Then why should we not believe these? He here recognizes the power of what we call death; and yet he refuses to grant it final authority or power. To us death is a great mystery; but so is life a mystery. It was not a mystery to Jesus; he knew it from the beginning, and regarded it as an enemy. In order to calm our fears and excite our hope, he liked to speak of it as sleep; and that is true in a certain sense. But it is foolish for one to tremble and quake with fear as if death still had supreme power in the world and in eternity. Death has been conquered. It is time to quit our death fears and begin our life victories. If you want better health, think more of health and less of sickness; plan more for health and less for sickness. If you want life, put the emphasis on life. Jesus Christ said he was life; what matters it, then, who is death? Life is greater than death any time; how much more so when Jesus has taken our very life and enfolded it about himself! Death cannot approach.

Life is a relative term. There is life that is mere animal existence; then there is life that has a grade of higher intelligence, but cannot see the future life nor accept its possibilities; but the life that Jesus Christ is, is the essence of life. It is life without death, righteousness without sin, health without sickness, victory without defeat. After all, the tremendously big word in the Christian's vocabulary is "Life." The bread, the water, the shepherd, the way, the truth, the vine,—all speak words of life. This life stands over against hunger, thirst, darkness, sterility, faintness, and every other foe of life.

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