1 Corinthians 5:8

THE FEAST OF JOY

‘Therefore let us keep the feast.’

1 Corinthians 5:8

Why ought we to be happy in the resurrection of Christ? What are some of the true fountains of His resurrection?

I. We rejoice simply in the thought that our Lord is happy.—Forty days after this day He had yet to serve on this earth before He ascended to His glory; but from the moment of His rising on this the Easter morning, neither His body, nor His mind, appear to have been subject to, or even capable of pain, so true were the words He said before He died—even of His suffering—‘It is finished!’ Now in proportion as our sympathy is with Him, our heart will always make the tone of our mind.

II. Truth has been vindicated; and, to a well-ordered mind, it is a great satisfaction to see any truth thoroughly established. The resurrection of Christ must stand or fall, in point of accuracy, on revelation. In the Old Testament it is involved in the types, and declared in the writings of the prophets. Our Lord’s own teaching sometimes clearly, sometimes dimly, showed it; but always it was the real mainspring of our Lord’s whole life. Besides, there is a most carefully compiled testimony and a perfect demonstration that ‘now is Christ risen from the dead.’ The Bible is verified, and the whole truth of Christianity is placed beyond the reach of a doubt or a contradiction.

III. The Resurrection was the acknowledgment on the part of the Father that He accepted the material sacrifice of His dear Son.—Jesus could not have risen without the Father, and equally the Father could not have raised Him unless He had been satisfied with the accomplishment of the great undertaking He came to this earth to perform.

IV. By this stupendous miracle God showed how great honour He puts upon the body.—Some Christians, wishing to avoid the opposite extreme into which they once ran, now disparage the body too much. But what is this body? The mirror, the broken mirror indeed, but still the mirror of God, to be recast presently into a perfect being, the counterpart of the form of Jesus, not only as He walked this earth, but as He is now, this moment, in glory.

V. Once more, the resurrection of Christ is an allegory.—It is an allegory of that spiritual change which now takes place in the soul to prepare and make it capable of the better resurrection presently.

Illustration

‘ “Therefore let us keep the feast”; let us “keep the feast” in the deep humility of a pardoned sinner’s happy love. A “feast” of high thoughts and fond affections; a “feast” of joys richer than wine; a “feast” of all God’s good things; a “feast” of forgiveness of all enemies and fellowship with all God’s children; a “feast” of alms-giving to the poor; a “feast” of holy sacramental elements.’