And He opened His mouth, and taught them.
“My will is set to gather flowers,
Thine blights them in my hand;
Mine reaches for life’s sunny hours,
Thine leads through shadowland;
And all my days go on in ways
I cannot understand.”
The Bible is a book of beatitudes and benedictions. “Blesseds” shine all over the inspired pages, like stars in the heavens. God’s mercy lies everywhere. Wherever we see Jesus in the gospel story he is giving out blessings as the sun gives light and warmth. He was always reaching out His hand to impart good to some life that needed it. Now it was on the children’s heads, now on the leper, now on the blind eyes, now on the sick, now on the dead, that He laid those gracious hands, and always He left some rich gift with his touch. One day those gentle hands were drawn out and nailed back on the cross,, yet even then it was in blessing that they were extended, for it was for our sins that they were thus transfixed on the wood.
Then it is a striking fact that in the very last glimpse we have of Jesus in this world He was in the attitude of imparting a blessing. It was on the mount of ascension. He had been talking with His disciples, and then he lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them He was parted from them and received up into heaven. There could be no truer picture of Jesus taken at any point in His life than as He appeared in that last view which this world had of Him. In heaven now He is still a blessing Saviour, holding up pierced hands before God in intercession, and reaching down gracious hands, full of benedictions for our sad, sinful earth.
Page 1