sERMON PREACHED APRIL 19, 1949,
The following sermon was
broadcast by the Reverend Robert Nott Merriman, on Tuesday afternoon,
April 19, 1949, (the day of Mr. Merriman's death) from station "WSAN",
in
"Our Scripture lesson this afternoon is found in the 61st chapter of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, 'The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God.'
As we are still in the Octave of Easter, it is but fitting that we should confine our attention to the spirit of the great Christian festival. The text, suggested by the passage of Isaiah to which we just now listened, is found in the 14th verse of the 4th chapter of the Book Ecclesiastes, 'Out of prison he cometh to reign.'
In order to understand the immediate application of these words, it will be necessary for us to turn further back in the Old Testament, where we find in the 41st chapter of the Book of Genesis the account given of Joseph while in the Egyptian prison, where, as you will recollect, he was confined because of the wounded pride of Potiphar's wife, - 'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.' But by and by Pharoah hears of Joseph as a clever interpreter of dreams, and sharing, as he does, in the superstition of his day, we are told that he 'sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon.' With such an auspicious beginning, he soon rises to a position of supreme importance in the realm, assuming many of the responsibilities of government that Pharoah held. And thus we see there is quite a literal embodiment of the words of the text, 'Out of prison he cometh to reign.'
In this early item out of Jewish history, we find an indication of a much more universal truth, witnessing to the continuity of the revealed Word of God running through both the Old and the New Testaments, where we find a series of prisons from our hero's dungeon in Egypt to St. Paul's imprisonment at Rome, this sequence almost without exception we find those incarcerated for the truth's sake have emerged from their captivity as great benefactors of the race.
In the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ we have the supreme exemplification of this fact. It is not necessary for our purposes today to review at any length the machinations of our Lord's enemies that sent Him to the Cross. Suffice it to say that at the end of the darkest day in human history, the disciples of Jesus took the lifeless form down from the Cross and reverently laid it in the new tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea. And later for fear that the disciples would steal the Body in order, as Pilate was led to think, to support a fictitious claim that He had risen from the dead, the Roman authorities sealed the entrance of the sepulchre and posted a guard in order to make assurance doubly sure.
And thus in a very literal manner the tomb became His prison. And in this connection it is worthy of note that the prisons of Bible times were generally windowless dungeons, below ground, and the prisoners were bound with chains, as our Saviour's Body was bound with the habiliments of the dead.
But, as we all know, the elaborate precautions of the Jews and Romans were of no avail. It was not possible that He should be holden of death. And on the morning of the third day at the earliest dawn, we see the three faithful women emerging from the city and coming to the sepulchre with spices in order to complete the somewhat hasty act of burial, which the lateness of the hour on the preceding Friday evening made necessary. As the holy women pursue their way, they say one to another, 'Who will roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? For it is very great.' But when they arrive at the tomb, they found the stone rolled away, and an angel sitting upon it, who said, 'Ye seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where Jesus lay.' And stooping and looking in they saw that the tomb was empty. The erstwhile Prisoner had gone forth. And well might we recall the words of the Easter hymn.
'Vain the stone, the watch, the seal;
Christ hath burst the gates of hell;
Death in vain forbids Him rise,
Christ hath opened
But quite unlike the ordinary escaped prisoner, Jesus did not hurry away from his place of imprisonment. He lingered in the environs of that sepulchre, and there in the adjacent garden He was seen by Mary Magdalene. There in the dim early light of the morning she saw His Figure, which at first she mistook for the gardener. There have been those who discredited her testimony and maintained that in her distraught frame of mind she might have been the object of an hallucination, or have imagined there was someone there in the dim twilight. And had we been there we might at first have been somewhat skeptical and asked as Browning was to ask in a later age,
'And did you see Jesus plain,
And did He stop and speak with you?
And did you speak to Him again?
How strange it seems and new!'
But the testimony of Mary Magdalene was unimpeachable, and she was
but one of many who saw Jesus plainly after His Resurrection, as
And there is something singularly appropriate in regard to Easter falling in the springtime when Nature steps forth from her winter prison and carpets the fields and meadows with green verdure and decks the trees and shrubs with blossoms and fills our gardens with rare flowers, as if to honor the Saviour in His Resurrection. And, moreover, many of these flowers have been long imprisoned in the bulbs and tiny seeds and roots, from which they have now sprung forth. How fittingly do we sing in one of the most beautiful Easter hymns:
'Tis the Spring of souls today
Christ hath burst His prison,
And from three days' sleep in death
As a sun hath risen;
All the winter of our sins,
Long and dark, is flying,
From His light, to whom we give
Laud and praise undying.'
'For out of prison He cometh to reign.' The last words are important, for they represent the ultimate result of Christ's Resurrection, for Jesus is henceforth not alone to be known as the Crucified Christ, but as the regnant Saviour, 'He cometh to reign.'
In visiting the Tower of London some years ago, I thought of the many famous prisoners, who in the centuries past had been confined there, the majority of whom, after passing the 'Traitors' Gate' were never to emerge. I thought of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Lady Jane Gray, Ann Boylyn, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the rest. Then there came to mind the young Princess Elizabeth who had been imprisoned there by 'Bloody Mary,' where she had remained in close confinement until the death of her unnatural sister, when amid great national rejoicing the gates of the Tower were thrown open and Elizabeth came forth to reign, the greatest queen that ever sat on the throne of England.
So in a much greater and incomparable sense, out of His prison Christ
came to reign, and is now both King and Saviour, not of a kingdom
bounded by the sea, but of a kingdom including every mortal man enrolled
under His banner. And further,
'Jesus shall reign wher'er the sun
Doth His successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.'
O God, who for our redemption didst give thine only begotten Son to the death of the Cross, and by His glorious Resurrection hast delivered us from the power of the enemy; Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with Him in the joy of His Resurrection, through the same thy Son Christ our Lord. Amen."