"THIS SAME JESUS."

"THIS SAME JESUS."
In the present world everything and everyone is liable to change. Everything that we touch has a tendency to decay; nothing really abides the same. TIMES change, and we shake our heads regretfully. PLACES change. We revisit the scene of our birth after an absence of many years, and lo, the whole district has undergone a complete transformation. The old familiar landmarks have disappeared, to be seen no more. FRIENDS change. Those who delighted in our company once pass us in the street now with averted head, and we feel the smart of it within. We OURSELVES change. The child becomes a youth, the youth develops into a man, and then the gray hairs appear. "Change and decay in all around I see."
Our text speaks of One who is ever the same. As touching His deity, He remains when heaven and earth have passed away (Psalms 102:25-27); and as touching His humanity, He is the same Jesus to-day as when He trod this earth below. He is "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever" (Hebrews 13:8). This comes home to us the more sweetly when we consider the circumstances under which the words of our text were spoken. The Son of God had just disappeared from the view of His disciples into the glory on high. Their eyes followed Him anxiously until the words of the two men in white apparel reached their ears. The disciples had known the Saviour in circumstances of poverty and shame. Together they had endured reproach and scorn. Now He had left all these humiliations behind Him, and had ascended up to the highest seat in the universe of God. But the angels assured them that He was the same Jesus! What comfort is here! How often among men he who has outstripped his fellows in wealth and honours coldly drops the companions of his humbler days. So common is this that we appreciatively speak of the exception as "not having a bit of pride.
Since the Saviour abides the same, we may learn what He is to-day from what He was when present amongst us on earth. Mark His grace as He permitted the city sinner of Luke 7:1-50 to rain her tears of contrition and love upon His blessed feet. His religious host would have dismissed such a person with disgust, but not He! He was the "Friend of publicans and sinners." See Him again in conversation by the well of Sychar (John 4:1-54) with one whose whole life He knew to be evil, but whom nevertheless He did not repel. The divinely appointed Judge of quick and dead setting Himself to win the heart of a gross offender against His laws is a spectacle that should move the most indifferent heart. He is the same Jesus to-day. His attitude towards sinners is still that of grace, and "Whosoever will may come."
Mark, too, His tenderness when confronted with the condition of men as the fruit of sin. At the graveside of Lazarus He wept — tender tears of sympathy with those whose spirits were wounded and torn (John 11:35). And when He looked down upon proud, scornful Jerusalem which was bent upon refusing His grace, He wept for the people's hardness and impenitence of heart (Luke 19:41). He is the same Jesus still; the same in His tender sympathy with distressed saints, and in His yearning over perishing sinners. His invitation is still, "Come unto Me"; the solemn words of dismissal, "Depart from Me" have not yet come upon His lips (Matthew 11:28; Matthew 7:23).
But the angels predicted His return. "This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." A tremendous fact lies before us in these words. The world has not seen the last of the Son of God. A day is approaching when the heavens will be rent asunder, and He will be seen coming forth in majesty and power. Each one of us should challenge our hearts as to this. Would joy or horror possess us if confronted forthwith with the once-crucified Jesus? It is as certain as the sun in the heavens that every created being must yet look upon Him, and every knee must bow to Him, and every tongue own Him Lord. To him who has been cleansed from his sins by His atoning blood the prospect of beholding the Saviour face to face is "joy unspeakable." And when we thus gaze upon Him it will be the same Jesus of whom we have so often read in the Sacred Scriptures, and to whom our hearts have been drawn by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.