Awaken The Dawn

AWAKEN THE DAWN!

Death is not by any means fully Death, for he is born with the taste of it in his soul. Not so Christ. It was the Unfallen Man dying; it was He, Who had no experience of it, tasting Death, and that not for Himself but for every man, emptying the cup to its bitter dregs. It was the Christ undergoing Death by man and for man; the Incarnate God, the God-Man submitting Himself vicariously to the deepest humil- iation, and paying the utmost penalty: Death—all Death. No one as He could know what Death was (not dying, which men dread, but Christ dreaded not); no one could taste its bitterness as He. His going into Death was His final conflict with Satan for man, and on his behalf. By submitting to it He took away the power of Death; He disarmed Death by burying his shaft in His own Heart. And beyond this lies the deep, unutterable mystery of Christ bearing the penalty due to our sin, bearing our death, bear- ing the penalty of the broken Law, the accumulated guilt of humanity, and the holy wrath of the Righteous Judge upon them. And in view of this mystery the heaviness of sleep seems to steal over our apprehension. 9

Thus, Jesus bravely enters the “olive press” of the Father’s good will, that the best oil of personal dedication may be extracted. His Last Morning of Prayer Jesus reaches the pinnacle of His life’s fulfillment as He prays His last morning prayer. This is the final, climactic hour of early morning prayer. 10 In a sense, this is the 150