“LOOKING UNTO JESUS” (Heb. xii. 2)

No one can ever run the race set before him, except by “looking unto Jesus”. He is at the head of the race; He stands at the goal, holding the crown of victory in His hand, which He puts upon the head of the successful runner. And we can only run on as we view Jesus by the eye of faith at the right hand of the Father opening His blessed arms to receive us into His own bosom at the end of the race. Nor indeed can anyone really look to Him but by the special gift and grace of God. He must be revealed to the soul by the power of God; we must behold His glorious Godhead and His suffering manhood by the eye of faith; and we must view Him as the incarnate God; the only mediator between God and man. We must see the efficacy of His atoning blood to purge a guilty conscience; the blessedness of His obedience to justify a needy, naked soul; the sweetness of His dying love as an inward balm and cordial against all the thousand ills and sorrows of life. We must see His glory, as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth; His suitability to every want and woe; His infinite compassion to the vilest and worst of sinners; His patient forbearance and wondrous longsuffering of our sins and backslidings; His unchanging love, stronger than death itself; His readiness to hear; His willingness to bless; and His ability to save to the uttermost all that come to God by Him. Thus the heavenly runner looks not to the course however long, nor to the ground however rough, nor to his own exertions however multiplied, nor to his own strength whether much or little, nor to applauding friends or condemning foes; but wholly and solely to the incarnate Son of God. Jesus draws him onward by His invincible grace. Every glance of His beauteous Person renews the flame of holy love; every sight of His blood and righteousness kindles desires to experience more of their efficacy and blessedness; and every touch of His sacred finger melts the heart into conformity to His suffering image. This is the life of a Christian — day by day to be running a race for eternity; and as speeding onward to a heavenly goal, to manifest his sincerity and earnestness by continually breathing forth the yearnings of his soul after divine realities, and to be pressing forward more and more toward the Lord Jesus Christ, as giving him a heavenly crown when he has finished his course with joy.

A PASSOVER PLATE

THE BEGINNING OF A CALENDAR

This is the time for putting up new calendars on our walls, in all their bright freshness. Some value the Almanacs, with a text for each day; like the friend who recently asked, ‘How do they choose these texts, for they are often so exactly suited to the needs of the day!’

Have you ever thought why calendars start when they do? Few events are of such importance that the calendar is affected. One is the fact of Christ’s birth, proclaimed to us by the very number 1968. But our picture reminds us of the passover, when the Lord’s angel of death passed over the Hebrew dwellings in Egypt — wherever the blood of the lamb was sprinkled on the doorpost. In every other Egyptian home that dread messenger called, and the firstborn died. It was a tremendous event that brought the Jews to nationhood visibly by their expulsion from the land; and the Lord commanded that that month should be to them the beginning of months, the start of the calendar.

Still the feast of the passover is observed each year by Jews in their homes, and our photo shows a beautiful Italian passover plate from the last century. During the meal, there will be the eating of three flat loaves of unleavened bread, a reminder of the haste with which their bread had to be made the night of the flight; parsley, and bitter herbs reminding them of the bitter slavery of the past; salt water, telling of the Red Sea that God miraculously divided to make a way of escape from their pursuers; cheroses, a mixture of nuts and apples, resembling the clay of which they were forced to make bricks in their Egyptian bondage; a roasted bone, and baked egg.

But the passover lamb, roast with fire — have you read the key in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 7 and 8?

May the knowledge of Christ and Him crucified, yes, and risen again, be a new beginning to life for our readers.

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