Let us consider some of the religious principles which have given and preserved this holy day to us.
I. “The first day of the week” is a day of mighty memories-memories that we cannot let die.
1. The celebration of the Lord’s Day has never lost sight of that precious fact in all revelation and religion-the creation of the world and of man, and consequently all the claim of God’s law upon our conscience, and of God’s goodness on our gratitude. The main idea of the Sabbatic rest is that man should occasionally lift his eyes from the clouds of earth and gaze into the face of his Creator.
2. “The first day of the week” is full of the memories of redemption.
3. “The first day of the week” is the great memorial of the giving of the Holy Spirit of God to man. It is the memorial of the beginning of that great work in human nature by which it becomes like Christ, and is made one with God-the incarnation of the Holy Ghost.
II. “The first day of the week” is a day of happy and noble associations. It is rich in memories of the past great acts of God, but it comes down burdened with all the brightest and most beautiful thoughts of earth; great revivals of human friendships; great, stirring conflicts with evil; the great, prosperous changes and revolutions of nations-the deliverance of untold millions from the slavery of sin and the power of death; have all left their impress upon it.
III. It is a day of holy anticipations. Memory is blessed; but what would men do without hope. The “first day of the week” predicts perpetually the Sabbath of God’s love-the end of conflict, the light of heaven.
IV. It is a day of holy duties. It is the first day of the week, not the last, the day of activity, not of indolent repose. This day will lend a meaning to your other days. “Hallow God’s Sabbaths.” (H. R. Reynolds, B. A.)
The day of resurrection
Philip Henry used to call the Lord’s Day the queen of days, the pearl of the week, and observed it accordingly. His common salutation of his family or friends on the Lord’s Day in the morning, was that of the primitive Christians-“The Lord is risen, He is risen indeed; “ making it his chief business on that day to celebrate the memory of Christ’s resurrection; and he would say sometimes,” Every Lord’s Day is a true Christian’s Easter Day.”
