THE TREASURY. A Christian Magazine. VOLUME XIX. JULY, 1901. NUMBER 3. AN ILLUSTRATED SERMON: THE LAMB OF GOD.* BY REV. GEORGE H. HUBBARD, ENFIELD, MASS. Behold, the Lamb of God.-JOHN i. 36. 1. A SINGLE phrase may express a volume of thought. The Japanese artist with three or four deft strokes of his brush suggests a complete picture. So this rude artist of the wilderness unfolds a panorama in five words. You remember the occasion: "John stood with two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold, the Lamb of God." And the words were caught up by the recording angel and made immortal. The expression of a grand truth, they have been woven into the religious life and thought of Christendom. They have won for themselves a place in the living and eternal Word of God. THE LAMB OF GOD. How the words turn our thoughts backward to that endless system of sacrifices and offerings which began with the first spiritual yearnings of righteous Abel and grew with the growth of human sin and need until we see all nations blindly groping "Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope through darkness up to God." We see also a procession of innocent and bleeding victims that runs like a scarlet thread through the religious history of the race. Again the words lead our thought forward and bid us find the interpretation of all this dark mystery in the sacrificial death of the Son of God for the redemption of men. They flash like a sunburst of light through the mists and shadows of the ages, showing how the crude efforts and blind aspirations of men are but imperfect foregleams of the great truth which is perfectly revealed in the passion of Jesus and the Gospel doctrine of sacrifice. So to-night, as I repeat to you this word of the wild preacher of the desert: "Behold, the * A list of pictures more fully illustrating this sermon is given on page 183. Lamb of God," it is that I may bring before your eyes the most sublime picture of sacrifice ever witnessed. It is that, looking upon the familiar scenes of our Lord's passion, we may read together its lesson of sin and redemption, and that, as never before, we may yield our hearts to its pathetic appeal. 2. Following the line of vision to which the words point, a mountain gradually outlines itself against the horizon. Not some lofty Alpine peak, or rugged, towering cliff, but a humble and inconspicuous hillock; yet lifted NO. 2.-MOUNT OF OLIVES: GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE IN THE MIDDLE FOREGROUND. far above all the snow-capped summits of all "the great watch towers of earth" by hallowed association and suggestion. It is the Mount of Olives. 3. And on this mount one spot appears more sacred than all the restthe Holy of Holies where our Great High Priest knelt alone in the presence of His Father in that hour of agony which not even His most intimate friend could share. Modern walls and chapels and adornments have added nothing to the glory of the place; rather do they seem profane intruders upon the hallowed retirement of Gethsemane. 4. Here it is, upon the mountain side, among the shadows of the olive garden, with a background of huge rocks, that the great panorama of sacrifice really begins. Here it is that the terrible weight of the world's sin first makes itself most keenly felt. |