[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-0425":3},"APRIL 25\r\nAnd there was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre (Matt. 27:61).\r\nHow strangely stupid is grief It neither learns nor knows nor   wishes to learn or know. When the sorrowing sisters sat over\r\nagainst the door of God's sepulchre, did they see the two thousand  years that have passed triumphing away? Did they see anything but this: \"Our Christ is gone!\"\r\nYour Christ and my Christ came from their loss; Myriad mourning hearts have had resurrection in the midst of their grief, and yet\r\nthe sorrowing watchers looked at the seed-form of this result and saw nothing. What they regarded as the end of life was the very   preparation for coronation; for Christ was silent that He might\r\nlive again in tenfold power.\r\nThey saw it not They mourned, they wept and went away, and came\r\nagain, driven by their hearts to the sepulchre. Still it was a sepulchre, unprophetic, voiceless, lusterless.\r\nSo with us. Every man sits over against the sepulchre in his\r\ngarden, in the first instance, and says, \"This woe is irremediable. I see no benefit in it I will take no comfort in it\" And yet right\r\nin our deepest and worst mishaps, often, our Christ is lying, waiting for resurrection.\r\nWhere our death seems to be, there our Saviour is. Where the end of hope is, there is the brightest beginning of fruition. Where the\r\ndarkness is thickest, there the bright beaming fight that never is\r\nset is about to emerge. When the whole experience is consummated, then we find that a garden is not disfigured by a sepulchre. Our\r\njoys are made better if there be sorrow in the midst of them. And\r\nour sorrows are made bright by the joys that God has planted around about them. The flowers may not be pleasing to us, they may not be   such as we are fond of plucking, but they are heart flowers, love,\r\nhope, faith, joy, peace-these are flowers which are planted around about every grave that is sunk in the Christian heart.\r\n'Twas by a path of sorrows drear Christ entered into rest;\r\nAnd shall I look for roses here, Or think that earth is blessed?  Heaven's whitest lilies blow\r\nFrom earth's sharp crown of woe: Who here his cross can meekly bear, Shall wear the kingly purple there.",1783499792953]