"LET US EXERCISE THE NEW LIFE IN SUITABLE PURSUITS. “If you then are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.” Let your actions be agreeable to your new life. First, then, let us leave the sepulcher. If we are quickened, our first act should be to leave the region of death. Let us quit the vault of a merely outward religion and let us worship God in spirit and in truth. Let us have done with priestcraft and all the black business of spiritual undertaking and let the dead bury their dead— we will have none of it! Let us have done with outward forms and rites and ceremonies, which are not of Christ’s ordain- ing and let us know nothing except Christ Crucified, for that which is not of the living Lord is a mere piece of funeral pomp, fit for the cemeteries of formalists whose whole religion is a shoveling in of dust on coffin lids. “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” Let us also quit the vault of carnal enjoyments where men seek to satisfy themselves with provision for the flesh. Let us not live by the sight of the eyes, nor by the hearing of the ears. Let us not live for the amassing of wealth, or the gaining of fame, for these ought to be as dead things to the man who is risen in Christ. Let us not live for the world which we see, nor after the fashion of men to whom this life is everything. Let us live as those that have come out of the world and who, though they are in it, are no more of it. Let us be unmindful of the country from where we came out and leave it, as Abraham did, as though there were no such country, henceforth dwelling with our God, sojourners with Him, seeking “a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” As Jesus Christ left behind Him all the abodes of death, let us do the same. And, then, let us hasten to forget every evil, even as our Lord hastened to leave the tomb. How little a time, after all, did He sojourn among the dead! He must lie in the heart of the earth three days, but He made them as short as possible, so that it is difficult to make out the three days at all. They were there, for there were fragments of each period, but surely never were three days so short as Jesus made them! He cut them short in righteousness and being loosed from the pains of death, He rose early, at the very break of day! At the first instant that it was possible for Him to get away from the sepulcher, consistent with the Scriptures, He left the napkin and the grave clothes and stood in the garden, waiting to salute His disciples!
So let it be with us! There should be no lingering, no loitering, no hankering after the world—no clinging to its vanities, no making provision for the flesh. Up in the morning early, oh you who are spiritually quickened! Up in the morning early from your ease, your carnal pleasure, your love of wealth and self and away out from the dark vault into a congenial sphere of action—“If you then are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.”
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