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Page 55
Now, if all this is true, what is the religious preaching of Jesus,
what aspect of His person meets the spiritual need? Clearly, it is His
transcendence. It is not worthy of us to evade it because we cannot
explain it. Surely what has hastened our present paganism has been the
removal from the forefront of our consciousness of Jesus the Saviour,
the divine Redeemer, the absolute Meeter of an absolute need. Of such
preaching of Jesus we have today very little. The pendulum has swung
far to the left, to the other exclusive emphasis, too obviously
influenced by the currents of the day. It was perhaps inevitable
that He should for a time drop out of His former place in Christian
preaching under this combined humanistic and naturalistic movement.
But it means that again we have relinquished those values which have
made Jesus the heart of humanity.
Of course, He was a perfected human character inspired above all
men by the spirit of God, showing the capacity of humanity to hold
Divinity. This is what Mary celebrates in her paean, "He that is
mighty has magnified me and holy is his name." But is this what men
have passionately adored in Jesus? Has love of Him been self-love? Is
this why He has become the sanctuary of humanity? I think not. We have
for the moment no good language for the other conception of Him. He
is indeed the pledge of what we may be, but how many of us would ever
believe that pledge unless there was something else in Him, more than
we, that guaranteed it? What, as President Tucker asks, is this power
which shall make "maybe" into "is" for us? "Without doubt the trend of
modern thought and faith is toward the more perfect identification
of Christ with humanity. We cannot overestimate the advantage to
Christianity of this tendency. The world must know and feel the
humanity of Jesus. But it makes the greatest difference in result
whether the ground of the common humanity is in Him or in us. To
borrow the expressive language of Paul, was He 'created' in us? Or are
we 'created' in Him? Grant the right of the affirmation that 'there
is no difference in kind between the divine and the human'; allow the
interchange of terms so that one may speak of the humanity of God
and the divinity of man; appropriate the motive which lies in these
attempts to bring God and man together and thus to explain the
personality of Jesus Christ, it is still a matter of infinite concern
whether His home is in the higher or the lower regions of divinity.
After all, very little is gained by the transfer of terms. Humanity
is in no way satisfied with its degree of divinity. We are still as
anxious as ever to rise above ourselves and in this anxiety we want to
know concerning our great helper, whether He has in Himself anything
more than the possible increase of a common humanity. What is His
power to lift and how long may it last? Shall we ever reach His level,
become as divine as He, or does He have part in the absolute and
infinite? This question may seem remote in result but it is everything
in principle. The immanence of Christ has its present meaning and
value because of His transcendence."[40]
[Footnote 40: "The Satisfaction of Humanity in Jesus Christ," _Andover
Review_, January, 1893.]
Preaching today is not moving on the level of this discussion, is
neither asking nor attempting to answer its questions. Great preaching
in some way makes men see the end of the road, not merely the
direction in which it travels. The power to do that we have lost if we
have lost the more-than-us in Jesus. Humanity, unaided, cannot look
to that end which shall explain the beginning. And does Jesus mean
very much to us if He is only "Jesus"? Why do we answer the great
invitation, "Come unto me"? Because He is something other than us?
Because He calls us away from ourselves? back to home? Most of us
no longer know how to preach on that plane of experience or from the
point of view where such questions are serious and real. Our fathers
had a world view and a philosophy which made such preaching easy. But
their power did not lie in that world view; it lay in this vision of
Jesus which produced the view. Is not this the vision which we need?
CHAPTER SEVEN
WORSHIP AS THE CHIEF APPROACH TO TRANSCENDENCE
Whatever becomes the inward and the invisible grace of the Christian
community such will be its outward and visible form. Those regulative
ideas and characteristic emotions which determine in any age the
quality of its religious experience will be certain to shape the
nature and conduct of its ecclesiastical assemblies. Their influence
will show, both in the liturgical and homiletical portions of public
worship. If anything further were needed, therefore, to indicate
the secularity of this age, its substitutes for worship and its
characteristic type of preaching would, in themselves, reveal the
situation. So we venture to devote these closing discussions to some
observations on the present state of Protestant public worship and the
prevailing type of Protestant preaching. For we may thus ascertain
how far those ideas and perceptions which an age like ours needs
are beginning to find an expression and what means may be taken to
increase their influence through church services in the community.
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