Death and resurrection are the central ideas of nature and Christianity. We see them in the transformation of the chrysalis, in the buried seed bursting into the bud and blossom of spring, in the transformation of the cold shroud of winter into the tinted robes of spring. We see it throughout the Bible in the symbol of circumcision with its significance of death and life, in the crossing of the Red Sea and the Jordan leading out and leading in, and in the cross of Calvary and the open grave of the Easter morning. We see it in every deep spiritual life. Every true life is death-born, and the deeper the dying the truer the living. No doubt the passing months have shown us all many places where there ought to be a grave, and many lingering remnants of the natural and sinful which we ought gladly to commit to a bottomless grave. God help us to pass upon them the irrevocable sentence of death and to let the Holy Spirit make the interment eternal. Then our life shall be continually budding and blossoming and shedding fragrance over all.
