Return - Ye Children of Men
by Rev. James E. Faucett

In our burial service, we read the majestic words of the ninetieth Psalm, "Thou carriest them away as a flood, and sayest return, ye children of men." The first part of this sentence deals with the obvious present and is disputed by nobody. Every funeral impresses the truth of it upon us that "Earth that nourished thee, shall claim thy growth to be resolved to earth again". Of billions of human beings living upon the earth, a fortieth are destined to pass into the oblivion of the grave during the course of a year. And when we multiply this vast number, or to get the average, by half the number of generations since Adam, we get a number so vast as to be incomprehensible to us. It is this flood of the ages that is to hear the voice of the Son of God saying. "Return ye children of men". The magnitude of this coming event is appalling. Nothing that God has done surpasses it. No explanation of how it is to be done is afforded us. We simply hear Jesus say that "all who are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth." It is a stupendous promise, which only God could make, and to all our questionings as to how, why or when, he replies to our childish prattle, "be still, and know that I am God".

God seems by preference, to deal in wonders. The electronic microscope shows His presence and power incomprehensibly small, as does the Hubble Space telescope in the equally astonishing great. And, without doubt, all His operative powers, from the smallest to the greatest will combine to produce His climax of wonders - the resurrection of the dead.

It is only the reckless believer like Job who cried, "Though he slay me yet will trust I him", that really believe in the resurrection of the body. And those who do not believe in the resurrection of mankind clothed with some sort of a visible body, do not believe the words of our Lord himself. Disbelief in this doctrine was common in Christ's time and it is common today. See it hidden in George Eliot's "The Choir Invisible," where the author's highest wish is to "live in minds made better by their (her) presence". The cautious theologians of Paul's time held much the same view as did also the cynical Romans, which view made impossible the story the disciples told of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. As an introduction to his account of his conversion on the way to Damascus , the learned Paul cried out to Agrippa: "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?"

Well, to all human reasoning and devising, such a thing is incredible. But it would seem that with marvels in every field of human research continually unfolding before us, men might at last, hazard the guess, that nothing is impossible with God, and that therefore He can and will keep His promises to us regarding the supreme climax of all His wonders, His saving: "Return, ye children of men".