Luminescence, Volume 3. C. K. Barrett
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and marvelous loving kindness we have to acknowledge. If we attend the church’s most sacred service of remembrance, the broken bread and the wine speak to us of the body that was broken and the blood shed for us and for our salvation. So, in the sanctuary, with all its memories and suggestions of redeeming love we realize that it is no unreasonable demand that we should obey God’s commands and make His will the law of our life. The “mercies of God” make the sacrifice of obedience a “reasonable service.”
CONSCIENCE AT WORK
It is not difficult to imagine what would happen when an Israelite stood before those symbols. There was the Law he ought to have kept—there the reminder of his obligation. By the Law was the knowledge of sin and in the light of God’s goodness was the revelation of his ingratitude. While he worshipped, conscience would get to work, and what outside had seemed trivial would stand condemned as the shame of his life.
That is not the least service the sanctuary renders still. We live at such a place and are immersed in so many things that conscience gets little chance. Many outside are careless and heedless. We can go on hugging ourselves in our pride and saying to our souls the flattering unction that we are as good as most and better than many. That way lies ruin. Our salvation does not begin until we are conscious of our need for it.
When we came into the sanctuary it becomes not a question of how we compare with others, but how we stand when judged by the Law and Lord of Life. We are faced with the responsibility of our privileges and obligation imposed by mercies, conscience is quickened, shame is awakened, penitence is born. In the eternal Light, we know ourselves to be “sons of ignorance and night.” Like Israel and Peter, we know ourselves unworthy and undone. There has been no substitute for the sanctuary ever suggested in this matter. Without the Sanctuary Light and revealing love, righteousness will not seem reasonable and sin will not seem worthwhile bothering about. Now let us turn to the last and golden value of what is signified in the sanctuary furniture.
THE MERCY SEAT
“And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark . . . and there will I meet with thee.” The conscience-stricken, humbled, penitent Israelite turned to meet the God whose Law he had broken and whose love he had so ill requited. Then would he fear in his heart lest God should visit his disobedience with distinction and his ingratitude with vengeance. Yet as in fear he looked he found God sending forgiveness from a seat of mercy. There above the ark of the testimony was the symbol and revelation, not only of the Law which demands and deserves obedience, but of the love which forgives and saves.
Here is the central and unique message of God’s House. Here is the gospel of grace which the church holds in trust. Nowhere else is it proclaimed. And what stands for such a gospel can never be dispensed with. Though men have forgotten their covenant, failed to keep the Law, and sinned against love, God meets them in mercy and brings them peace and joy. “There is a place where Jesus sheds the oil of gladness on our heads, a place than all beside more sweet—it is the bloodstained mercy seat.”10 I am not now attempting to state why or how. Those golden cherubs, in the attitude of devotion, with outstretched wings covering the mercy-seat, their faces turned towards it, may well remind us of that there are things the angels desire to look into and even “they cannot search the mystery, the length, breadth, and height.” For as Charles Wesley goes on, “God only knows the love of God.” Enough that God has found the way and offers peace and pardon as the free gift of His love.
It is a wonderful message and I do not fear for the church while it has such a gospel to proclaim. When I first sat down to write the message my heart failed and my pen halted. Who am I and what are my gifts that I should speak of things so sacred and proclaim such wonderful tidings? Yet my heart was singing for gladness, though the words that came were the words of a simple, old, and almost forgotten hymns. “I have long withstood His grace, long provoked Him to His face, would not hearken to His calls, and grieved Him by a thousand falls.” And yet, “There for me the Saviour stands, shews His wounds and spreads His hands.” And I wanted to shout in ecstasy, “God is love, I know I feel Jesus weeps and loves me still.”11
So, the first sanctuary and its furniture reminds us of what all sanctuaries must stand for, the revealing of Law and love, the call to obedience and the call on gratitude. And when conscience reproves us and in penitence we know ourselves lost and undone, then must ever be the glorious proclamation that we may, “Come boldly to the Throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in every time of need.”
10. This is a line from stanza 2 of the hymn “From Every Stormy Wind That Blows,” written by Hugh Stowell in the nineteenth century.
11. These are lines from Charles Wesley’s hymn “Depths of Mercy.”
“THE DAY OF DAYS”—Deuteronomy 16.3
(Preached once at Spring Head Mission 11/10/40)
Deuteronomy 16.3 “Remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt.”
You would have thought they never could forget that day. What a day it was! It marked the end of their bondage, the beginning of individual freedom, and the inauguration of their national life. It was clearly a day which the Lord made. Their deliverance was the Lord’s doing and it was, at the time, marvelous in their eyes. But the reiterated “remember” of the book of Deuteronomy reveals the fact that their memories were no better than ours.
The text calls the Israelites to concentrate their minds upon a definite point of time and definite experience of God’s goodness to them. They are not simply asked to amble through their past history selecting this incident or that according to their fancy, but to remember, in all its intensity and detail, the great day when, with high hand and outstretched arm, God brought them out of the land of bondage and into the experience of freedmen. They were to remember that particular day, and not casually or hurriedly, but patiently and deliberately. They were to surround themselves with things that would arrest their memory. The food they ate was to be of the plainest, to remind them of the food their fathers were glad to eat in the great day of escape.
We can all realize the good that would come to the people through the deliberate attempt to recall that day. It would be a reminder of the goodness and power of God and of the journey they had made. It would help to keep faith and love alive within them. It would cure them of those tendencies they sometimes had to return to Egypt. And therein lies the value of making certain anniversaries, days of specific remembrance. We all need them, for our memories are short and great experiences are in danger of fading into the commonplace. So, let us give heed to the call of the text and set ourselves to the definite observing of certain days.
A DAY TO REMEMBER
You will all realize that tomorrow is the anniversary of November 11, 1918. Some of you are old enough to recall it. Those of you who are not ought to be told of it. What a day it was! Through four long years we alternated between hope and despair. We had not the alarms that now startle us but we had casualty lists as the result of trench warfare that filled us with dismay and sorrow. Hardly a home but was darkened by loss. How we prayed! Then suddenly the end, a victorious end for us loomed in sight. Through the weekend we wondered and waited, there was no wireless then to give us news. Even the Monday morning found us uncertain. Then the sirens sounded and we knew that the end of the agony had come. We all laughed and wept at the same time.
I was in Manchester at the time and shall never forget the scenes. Train-drivers and conductors left their trains in the lines and joined in the celebrations. It was the anniversary at my church. Someone passed a note with the words, “What about we sing outside?” We went and the crowd stopped all the traffic. Thanksgiving services were held and the people joined in singing, “Now thank we all our God.”