cannot do as they did, for they thought that all was over, and brought
sweet spices to embalm His body, which they thought was in the tomb; and
we know that all was not over, that His body is not in the tomb, that the
grave could not hold Him, that His body is ascended into heaven; that
instead of His body needing spices to embalm it, it is His body which
embalms all heaven and earth, and is the very life of the world, and food
which preserves our souls and bodies to everlasting life. We are not in
the place of those blessed women; God has not put us in their place, and
we cannot put ourselves into their place; and if we could and did, by any
imaginations of our own, we should only tell ourselves a lie. Good
Friday was to them indeed a day of darkness, horror, disappointment, all
but despair; because Easter Day had not yet come, and Christ had not yet
risen. But Good Friday cannot be a day of darkness to us, because Christ
has risen, and we know it, and cannot forget it; we cannot forget that
Easter dawn, when the Sun of Righteousness arose, never to set again.
Has not the light of that Resurrection morning filled with glory the
cross and the grave, yea the very agony in the Garden, and hell itself,
which Christ harrowed for us? Has it not risen a light to lighten the
Gentiles, a joy to angels and archangels, and saints, and all the elect
of God; ay, to the whole universe of God, so that the very stars in their
courses, the trees as they bud each spring, yea, the very birds upon the
bough, are singing for ever, in the ears of those who have ears to hear,
"Christ is risen?" And shall we, under pretence of honouring Christ and
of bestowing on Him a pity which He needs least of all, try to spend Good
Friday and Passion Week in forgetting Easter Day; try to think of
Christ's death as we should if He had not risen, and try to make out
ourselves and the world infinitely worse off than we really know that we
are? Christ has died, but He has risen again; and we must not think of
one without the other. Heavenly things are too important, too true, too
real--Christ is too near us, and too loving to us, too earnest about our