resurrection and ascension, remember always that the background to His
triumph is--a tomb. Remember that it is the triumph over suffering; a
triumph of One who still bears the prints of the nails in His hands and
in His feet, and the wound of the spear in His side; like many a poor
soul who has followed Him triumphant at last, and yet scarred, and only
not maimed in the hard battle of life. Remember for ever the adorable
wounds of Christ. Remember for ever that St John saw in the midst of the
throne of God the likeness of a lamb, as it had been slain. For so alone
you will learn what our Lord's resurrection and ascension are to all who
have to suffer and to toil on earth. For if our Lord's triumph had had
no suffering before it,--if He had conquered as the Hindoos represent
their gods as conquering their enemies, without effort, without pain,
destroying them, with careless ease, by lightnings, hurled by a hundred
hands and aided by innumerable armies of spirits,--what would such a
triumph have been to us? What comfort, what example to us here
struggling, often sinning, in this piecemeal world? We want--and blessed
be God, we have--a Captain of our salvation, who has been made perfect by
sufferings. We want--and blessed be God, we have--an High Priest who can
be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because He has been
tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin. We want--and
blessed be God, we have--a King who was glorified by suffering, that, if
we are ever called on to sacrifice ourselves, we may hope, by suffering,
to share His glory. And when we have remembered this, and fixed it in
our minds, we may go on safely to think of His glory, and see that (as I
said at first) His resurrection and ascension satisfy our consciences,--
satisfy that highest reason and moral sense within us, which is none
other than the voice of the Holy Spirit of God.

For see. Our Lord proved Himself to be the perfectly righteous Being, by
His very passion. He proved it by being righteous utterly against His