Reading:
John 20; Acts 1:1-3.
In
this meditation we want to gather up all that we have already said. The
dispensation rests upon the forty days. The whole of God's meaning for the
church is expressed in the nature of the forty days; not the church as we know
it, but as God meant it to be and means it to be. Its character is taken from
what happened then.
The Lord still
desires that full thought, however much failure there may have been; however
things in general amongst His people may be other than that today; however
little there may seem to be of the divine thought expressed in what is called
the church. The Lord does not abandon His full desire, but would work where He
can amongst His own to have as large a measure of that full, original thought as
possible, and thus, individually and corporately, we are called to take our
character from the great forty days after His resurrection, in which He was
laying the foundation and providing the constituents for His own unto the end of
the age and beyond. Thus it is that the details of that period are of such great
significance and value.
As far as we
are able to see, the first movement, the first feature of that forty days - the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus - was the meeting of Mary in the garden. It seems
that she was the first one on the move before the daybreak. Others came along as
the day was breaking, but she was there in advance of anyone, and she,
therefore, comes into the very first place, the first step of the manifestations
of the forty days, and represents for us the first significance of that great
probationary, preparatory, constituting period.
As we look
again at Mary Magdalene, what do we see? We must remember that the great new
dispensation is at its commencement. This is just before the break of the great
dispensational day. That day is just beginning to dawn, and when we think
of all that that embodies and involves, all that was ever in God's heart and
mind as to this dispensation, it is very impressive and striking to see the
first movement. What should we expect if, say, the greatest thing in the history
of the world was about to be brought forth, to be done? I think we should expect
anything but what we find here. Here is the small, the weak beginning from the
human side. God begins at such a small and weak point that you are amazed! It is
almost difficult to believe what we have already said about the immensity of the
forty days and what they were intended to mean for all time and for all
eternity. It is almost impossible to believe that that is all true; and then to
say that all that had its commencement in this first step, and really, in a sense
upon this first step all the rest was to hang. How weak, how small is this
beginning. The whole immense development of the old creation is entirely set
aside. The creation had developed, the old creation had reached immense
proportions of ability, of knowledge, of power, of world glory. What empires!
What ranges of knowledge! Even today a large part of our education is occupied
with the knowledge that was up to the day of Christ. Yes, the world had
developed, the old creation had expanded, it was an immense thing; men had great
ideas of their power, of their wisdom, of their knowledge; and the whole thing
is entirely set aside and ignored. God does not take a fragment of it with which
to begin His new creation, with which to bring forth the new order of things. He
begins at the lowest point with this woman, who speaks to us of weakness and
smallness in human life. That is where God begins, and that is God's link with
His new order.
Listen to that
in your heart. God's link in this universe with His great new order, with His
new creation, with that universe which is to be filled through and through with
His own glory, that new heaven and new earth, inconceivable in its wonder and
glory and blessings, finds its link for God in Mary Magdalene. God begins right
down there. He has chosen the weak things, the foolish things, the things which
are not. Deeply scarred by the fall, having known what it was to be possessed of
seven demons, having tasted the bitterness and the agony of sin and sin's
remorse and Satan's tyranny, now owing everything to Christ as Saviour and Lord;
that is where the new creation begins. That is the basic constituent of the
church and of every member of Christ.
Where do you
begin? Not high up at some lofty point of human development, but having known
something of sin's awfulness, and Satan's cruelty, and the remorse of a lost
state, and having come to find Christ as Lord of Satan and of sin, and of all
adverse circumstances, to bring them under His dominion and save them. That is
where the church begins. Any church which takes the name of the church which is
not the embodiment of that basic thing, is not His church; it is foreign to His
thought. We must remember that the very inception of our beings in relation to
God in Christ is of this mind, where we owe everything to Christ's Lordship and
Saviourhood, where out of the recognition of Him to Whom we owe everything we
cry, Rabboni! Master! That is the beginning of the church in its basic elements.
That has to abide through the age, and has to come out in the ages to come; that
in the ages to come the manifold wisdom, the grace of God should be displayed by
this church. What will be the abiding, the ever recurrent note of the song
through the ages to be? "You are worthy!" The church is founded on that.
The church has
inclined to depart from that position, and has become something in itself; with
glory and prestige, fame and honour, and lavishness, and much more which is not
just the worshipping, adoring, thankful, humble acknowledgment of Christ as its
all. Here is Mary: a clinging, dependent, devoted debtor. Clinging - she would
have taken hold of Him; devoted - we know from her past life her devotion to
Him; dependent - ah yes, the sun had gone out of her life, everything was
eclipsed. There was nothing left when He went; she was heartbroken. She said to
the one whom she thought was the gardener, "Sir, if you have carried Him
away..." 'He is all I had; to Him I owed everything. I have nothing. As long
as it is possible even for me to be in proximity to His lifeless form, let it
be. That is all I have left. Debtor - He saved me, He delivered me, I owe
everything to Him.' It requires a good deal of imagination to reproduce the
feelings that must have rushed through her soul to discover that He was alive
from the dead.
The Lord was
definitely seeking to do things in those forty days. He was establishing for
them the fact that He was risen, the fact of resurrection, but the details also
have their meaning and value, and this is the first.
It says to our
hearts that the church which He was bringing into being was to be constituted
upon this basis: that it is composed of clinging, dependent, devoted debtors to
Him Who is their All, and they have naught beside Him. If you and I are there,
we have a fairly sure foundation for union with Christ and to the purpose of
God.
You notice,
then, that the power of resurrection was linked with deep human weakness, and is
to be so abidingly. There is no question about the power expressed in
resurrection. We are familiar with the words which speak of that: "surpassing
greatness of His power... which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from
the dead"
(Eph. 1:19,20). Here is the immensity of divine power in resurrection, but it is
all veiled, all hidden, all a secret thing, and becomes linked with the deepest
human weakness, the deepest human need and dependence.
That is going to be so always. Do you pray for power? Do you pray to know the
power of His resurrection? What are you prepared for? How do you expect to have
your prayer answered? The Lord will answer you in words like these, "My
strength is made perfect in weakness"; "Always carrying about in the body
the dying of Jesus, so that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body";
"Death works in us." For the manifestation of that power there will ever
be required a weakness on the human side, and therein is the mystery of that
power, therein is the seeming contradiction - power linked with weakness and
death, and both present at the same time. That requires a lot of explaining. You
say, If the exceeding greatness of God's power is present, there will be no
weakness. That is not the case. Resurrection power is not obvious to natural
perception. It is something which works in secret. It is secret and spiritual.
It is God doing something unseen for the moment, but that will prove that it had
and has in it the exceeding greatness of His power, because it will stand every
test that can be applied to it, and go through every storm that can burst upon
it, and endure through all ages. That is resurrection power.
This is why the Lord Jesus did not reveal Himself to the world after His
resurrection. He only appeared amongst His own. This kind of thing cannot be
apprehended by natural standards of judgement. This can only be known in a
spiritual people, and they will go out and before the world will be just the
same people as ever they were. They will be accounted ignorant and unlearned
men. They will be accounted as weak things, the off-scouring of all things,
nothings amongst men; they will be looked down upon and despised, seem to be as
in themselves quite at a discount amongst men. And yet there is something about
these men and these women which you cannot explain or account for on human
grounds at all, but you are up against God. Touch them and you touch not them,
but God. Counter what they are doing, and you have to reckon with God. That is
the power that is present. It is not our presence; it is not what we are at all.
We shall be present in weakness, in fear, perhaps in much trembling amongst men,
and yet there is present a power which is no less than the exceeding greatness
of His power. There is a paradox, a seeming contradiction about this weakness
and strength, both present at the same time. Too often foolish and ignorant
people have thought that they could touch the Lord's anointed with impunity,
they could put their hand upon God's work, they could interfere with something
that the Lord was doing, speak against it, do it harm and pass on their way
unscathed. Oh no! Sooner or later they will awake to the fact that they have
touched God, they have touched the anointing, they have stood in God's way. He
is very long-suffering,
but
"The mills
of God grind slowly,
But they grind
exceeding small.
Though with
patience He stands waiting,
With exactness
grinds He all."
There is no
escaping God. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
God was in Christ, and God in Christ is
in His Body in the power of resurrection. But it is hidden, it is veiled, it is
mystic, and we must never pray for power with an eye to a display, with any
ambition for glory or demonstration. Our prayer for power may be answered with a
new experience of weakness: weakening, and emptying, and breaking to make room
for the Lord, so that the only thing that will be recognised will be that there
is more of the Lord there than there was, and there is less of the man and of
the woman in themselves. Resurrection power is after that kind. It is, when we
have said all, the producing of Christ Who is to be the very essence and
substance of God's new universe. When God has His new heaven and new earth, His
new universe completed and perfected, its characteristic through and through
will be Christ. Everywhere Christ will be felt, Christ will be seen, Christ will
be centre; the atmosphere of that universe will be Christ. The slightest
experience and touch of that now is a wonderful thing, to be anywhere where you
can say that the atmosphere of the place is Christ, to be in touch with anyone
concerning whom you can say: 'To be in touch with that one is to be in touch
with Christ', is marvellous. When a company of the Lord's people, forgetting all
that is of this earth, even in a religious way - all that divides, every human
limitation - are just together met to the Lord, and it is all Christ, it is a
wonderful place to be in, it is a wonderful time to have. But think of the
universe like that, with nothing else in it; Christ, only Christ, seen, known,
heard and felt through and through.
That comes in with resurrection, and
resurrection is the bringing of Christ into us, the producing of Christ with
that end in view. All that is not Christ will fall away like an old garment, and
pass for ever, and just what is Christ will remain and go on for ever. That is
what God is doing in teaching us what it means to live on the ground of His
risen life producing Christ, but what an immense thing it is to bring in Christ!
We are not forgetting the Person when we say that the essence and substance of
God's new universe is Christ. He remains the divine Person, but He is
ministering of Himself, in His risen life to His Body. So you see the
dispensation and the church rest upon Christ known in
resurrection life, not upon doctrine, not upon creed, but upon Christ known in
resurrection life. Was not that the great characteristic of the forty days?