SERMON V.
THE DRAWING OF JESUS BY HIS ASCENSION.

ASCENSION DAY.

THE SONG OF SOLOMON i. 4.

"Draw me, we will run after Thee: the King hath brought me into His chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in Thee."

We of Christ's Church are, on this day, as persons out of whose sight a dear friend has just gone, watching the door through which He vanished out of our sight. Jesus Christ has been so long, three and thirty years and more, going in and out among us; and now in a moment He is gone. A cloud receives Him out of our sight. He is gone; and we, His flock and people, may seem to be left alone on earth. We have gone out with Him to the mount of Olives, to the garden, where His sad sufferings had their beginning. He has led us out on this road as far as Bethany, the village where He had last had something like a home on earth: choosing the place of His departure in such a way, as if He would bid farewell at once to all the troubles and all the comforts of this world, and leave His blessing on both. I say, if we have read the Gospels in faith, we have in spirit accompanied our Lord with His Apostles for the last time to that well-known and chosen spot; we have heard His parting commands; He hath lifted up His hands and blessed us, and in adoring wonder we have seen, how in the very act of blessing He was parted from us, and with quiet and gentle motion was lifted up into heaven, and slowly and gradually taken out of our sight, a cloud coming between Him and us, as it comes between the stars and us.

Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Redeemer, is gone away from us into heaven, and we are left here on earth. What shall we do? Shall we wait kneeling here on the hill, watching, as it were, the door through which He vanished? Shall we gaze on that spot of the heavens, until He return, as He promised, again? This indeed to a loving heart might seem most desirable of all things, so to go on contemplating our departed Saviour: even as those who from their hearts are mourning for a deceased parent or friend sometimes feel as if they would gladly go on thinking of him all their lives, and give up every thing else: as the aged Jacob, when he was told that Joseph was lost: "I will go down to the grave to my son mourning."

Something of this sort might well suit the inclinations of some loving hearts. But His will was plainly declared, that His disciples should not so gaze up after Him, nor so mourn His departure, as to withdraw themselves in any degree from the tasks He had set them. By His angels He sent us this message: "Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" And to His Apostles, when He was preparing them for this day, He said, "Because I have said these things unto you,--because I have said, I go away, sorrow hath filled your heart. And yet, if ye loved Me, Me chiefly and not yourselves, you would rejoice, because I said, I go to the Father." He told them beforehand, true love would make them rejoice when they saw Him go out of their sight: and now, when the time is come, we read that they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. It was to them, as it has been to the Church ever since, a matter of the deepest joy and thanksgiving, that Christ is gone up out of sight to His Father's Right Hand. So the Bride in the Song of Solomon, the mystical Bride in the text, invites us to rejoice. "The King hath brought me into His chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in Thee." Why are we all to be glad and rejoice? Because Jesus Christ, the great Bridegroom, has begun to lift up the Church, His Bride, into Heaven. In the womb of the Blessed Virgin, of her substance, He took to Himself a pure Body, and so first espoused to Himself our human nature: marrying, if I may so speak, the Manhood to the Godhead, so that the two should never more be divided, but for ever united in His most Sacred Person. And now, by His Ascension, He hath unspeakably glorified, and that for ever, His Human Soul and Body, made, as it was at the first, like us in all things, sin only excepted. He humbled it in the garden, at the Cross, and in the grave: and now He hath glorified it far beyond His humiliation. He hath taken His Soul and Body as a spouse into the Bedchamber, and thereby hath given to each soul and body of Adam's seed an invitation and power, to have a share in that glory. Well then may we, as well as the Apostles, be glad and rejoice on Ascension Day!

We are not then merely to gaze after Him; we are not to stand bewailing ourselves for His absence: but this one thing we are to do. For the whole of our time, until He come again or call us into His Presence, we are to set about fulfilling His dying commands. That is the point. He is gone, but will come again some day, no one can tell how soon: and in the meantime we are to do all His bidding.

And what is His bidding? That we should run after Him: that we should obtain a place in the same heaven where He is gone before: and in order thereunto, that we should even now ascend thither in heart and mind. But because the Church knows that we cannot by mere wishing obtain such a mind as this, therefore she prays, and teaches us to pray. "Draw me," she humbly and seriously prays, "and we will run after Thee." As if she should say, "I know well that in me, i.e. in my flesh, dwelleth and abideth no good thing: therefore it must be quite changed and renewed; and this is far too hard a task for me: I commend it therefore to Thee, O Lord. Take me in hand, I beseech Thee, and draw me constantly and mightily towards Thee. Fill my heart with a sincere love of Thee, and of that heaven where Thou art gone. Attract and entice it towards Thee, unworthy as it is, by all sorts of loving and affectionate dealings. Draw me towards Thee by Thy good providence, ordering the events of my life; the friends and acquaintance that I meet with; my joys and sorrows, my health and sickness, my employments and diversions, secretly and wonderfully, in such sort as shall most turn my soul from the world and turn it towards Thee. Draw me towards Thee again by the reading and hearing of Thy most holy and heavenly Scriptures: causing me to light in the proper time upon those verses that will do me good: to hang upon them: to taste all their sweetness, or, if need be, all their bitterness; not to let them go till they have become, as it were, part of my mind, and are in a way to do me the whole good Thou intendedst by them. Draw me by the noble and winning examples of the holy men women and children, whom Thou from time to time hast blessed with a double portion of Thy Spirit: shew me Thine own brightness upon them, and incline my heart to delight in it: for, left to myself, I know too well, I shall but neglect or even hate it. Draw me, once more, and most of all, draw me, I pray Thee, by Thy most holy and lifegiving Sacrament. There, above all, help me to taste and see how gracious Thou, O Lord, art: there let me touch Thee, as Thou didst promise to S. Mary Magdalene, now that Thou art ascended to the Father: let me in the Sacrament of Thy love touch but the hem of Thy garment, and by that draw me onward and upward, till, my old impure self being thoroughly put off and cast aside, I being wholly and only Thine, may dwell only and wholly with Thee."

This is the Christian soul's prayer, when she muses earnestly on her Lord's Ascension. Thus day and night she seems to say to Him, "Draw me." But that is not all. She knows well that her holy prayers and heavenly desires, if not embodied as it were in deeds, would soon cease to be holy and heavenly: they would vanish in the air like thin clouds, which never drop down in wholesome dew. This the enlightened soul greatly fears: and therefore she cries out not only, "Draw me; " not only does she pray with all her might for the grace, without which she can do nothing, but she is careful to add always, "We will run after Thee: we will act, and that heartily and zealously, according to the good desires which Thou breathest into us." "Draw me," that is her devout petition: "we will run after Thee," that is her humble and courageous vow, her good resolution made on her knees before God. And we know that these two things must go along with every good prayer, viz. a devout petition, and a humble and courageous purpose. But now mark well the word, in which the devout soul expresses her holy intention. She says, "We will run after Thee." She does not say walk, but run. For why? She is full of love: she is like a loving child who has caught sight of his father at a distance, and we see that, when that happens, the child does not creep slowly towards his father, but runs to meet him as fast as ever he can. So should we, permitted, as we are, to behold our Lord with the eye of faith afar off on His Throne in heaven. We must not walk, but run towards Him: or if we cannot run, because we are weak through sin, at least we must endeavour to walk our very best. The child, who for love runs out to meet his parent, does not mind his playthings if they happen to lie in the way: or if he minds them, he does not stop for them. No more should we mind the playthings, the toys of earth, when, according to the Church's invitation, we are hastening after our Lord.

But you will say, "It is so hard to disengage one's-self from these earthly cares; they have so wound themselves about us, like clinging weeds, before we were aware. And in truth it is hard: but observe, Jesus Christ, because He knows it is hard, has told us how we may get strength to do it. Because we have to run after Him, and He knows we have little strength, therefore He teaches us to say, "Draw me:" as the little child that wishes to run and cannot, stretches out its arms and asks for help as well as it can. Since then He has taught us to pray, we may not doubt that He will help us to run after Him: any more than the young child doubts the mother's or nurse's will to help him. He will set your heart at liberty, that you may run the way of His commandments. He will help you to untie for ever the bands and chains of evil habit, which fasten you, as yet, more or less down to earth, so that you may be free to ascend to Him in heart and mind, and with Him continually dwell. Morning by morning, and evening by evening, say to Him in earnest, "Draw me;" and day by day you will find yourself better able to run after Him. Again, endeavour day by day to run after Him, to be more alert in His service, and you will be helped morning by morning to pray to Him more earnestly.

And even as those, who are teaching young children to run, very often go before them, and run a little way themselves, and then turn and entice them onwards, beckoning to them with all kinds of affectionate endearments: so our loving Lord before He went up into heaven, had in our sight hastened along the very worst of the rough way which He calls upon us to tread: and now, with unutterable yearning love, He turns towards us from His holy eternal Rest, and beckons us onward by a thousand signs, which we shall see and understand more and more, as our hearts are more open to any kind of goodness. Every hour something happens, by which He speaks to the believing soul, and says, "Behold Me here preparing a place for you: are you preparing yourself for the place?"

O may we often, very often, think of Him in this manner: of Him and of this His own Ascension Day! May the remembrance of Him, caring for us in heaven, sweeten and allay the troubles of this life; quicken all our languid obedience, and above all, keep us from the horrid ingratitude of affronting Him by wilful sin!

"O holy and merciful Saviour, Thou hast been lifted up from the earth, in order to draw all men unto Thee: Thou knowest how corrupt, how childish we are: draw nigh unto us, O Lord, that we may draw nigh unto Thee!"

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