Matthew 6:26

Matthew 6:26 , Matthew 6:28

Consider the Lilies of the Field.

I. What has this text to do with Easter Day? Let us think a while. Life and death; the battle between life and death; life conquered by death; and death conquered again by life. Those were the mysteries over which the men of old time thought, often till their hearts were sad. And because our forefathers were a sad and earnest folk; because they lived in a sad and dreary climate, where winter was far longer and more bitter than it is, thank God, now: therefore all their thoughts about winter and spring were sad; and they grew to despair, at last, of life ever conquering death, or light conquering darkness. All living things would die. The very gods would die, fighting to the last against the powers of evil, till the sun should sink for ever, and the world be a heap of ashes. And then so strangely does God's gift of hope linger in the hearts of men they saw, beyond all that, a dim dream of a new heaven and a new earth, in which should dwell righteousness; and of a new sun, more beautiful than ours; of a woman called "Life" hid safe, while all the world around her was destroyed, fed on the morning dew, preserved to be the mother of a new and happier race of men. And so to them, heathens as they were, God whispered that Christ should some day bring life and immortality to light.

II. "So it pleased the Father," says St. Paul, "to gather together in Christ all things, whether in heaven or in earth." In Him were fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, the dim longings, the childlike dreams, of heathen poets and sages, and of our own ancestors from whom we spring. He is the Desire of all nations, for whom all were longing, though they knew it not. And now we may see, it seems to me, what the text has to do with Easter Day. Be not anxious, says our Lord, for your life. Is not the life more than meat? There is an eternal life which depends not on earthly food, but on the will and word of God your Father; and that life in you will conquer death. Consider the lilies of the field. All the winter they are dead, unsightly roots, hidden in the earth. What can come of them? But no sooner does the sun of spring shine on their graves than they rise into sudden life and beauty as it pleases God, and every seed takes its own peculiar body. Even so is the resurrection of the dead.

C. Kingsley, Discipline and Other Sermons,p. 168.