THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

lation, the quickening, the bliss, the joy, the happiness, the glory that is contained in this sweet precious name of Jesus! I have been able to experience these in my heart and life through God’s almighty grace, so that I can now say: I know Jesus Christ the crucified. I do not say I know and know intimately His teaching, His history, His life, His wonders and signs which He did; no, I say: Him, personally, this Jesus Christ, the crucified, I know and know intimately. I know Him as the One who can save lost sinners, under the wrath of hell, and can liberate and set free out of the claws of the terrible enemy, Satan. I know Him as the One who can give rest and peace to the unhappy soul, that has run itself weary in the world, and the One who calls all who labor and are heavy-laden unto Himself, in order to refresh them and to allow them to find rest for their souls under His easy yoke and His light burden (Matt. 11:28-30). I know Him as the bread of life, as the heavenly manna, that allows the partakers thereof to live eternally (John 6:48-51). I know Him as the One that has, for the thirsty soul, a living water, which causes a man never to thirst again (John 4:14). This Jesus Christ, the crucified, I know and know Him as my one and all! O, to love Him, I thirst; to serve Him, I long after. Him alone I fear to grieve; for Him alone I live and die. 4. And this Jesus I intend to preach and make known to you. Him will I exalt and seek to depict before your eyes in His self-sacrificing love, in His cursed and martyred form, as the Savior of sinners, even as I have experienced Him. We can be certain that if man, if a group of learned doctors and professors, had had to devise a plan for the redemption of a poor mankind sighing under its burden of sin (no place would have been found) for a suffering, a dying Messiah, particularly one dying on a cursed tree. But God be praised, it is in this way that He has been “made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (I. Cor. 1:30). Indeed Christ, even the crucified, is the focal point around which my preaching of the gospel shall also revolve. With Him I will confront the unrepentant sinner. O, in the cross of Christ, in truth, there lies a marvellous power to repentance. The law, which in most cases plays the leading role in repentance sermons, indeed brings a knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20), but there lies no power unto salvation in the law, for it works only wrath (Rom. 4:15). Only beneath the cross of 216 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH Calvary can the sinner be broken and brought to godly sorrow, tears and contrition. I will hold Christ the crucified before the eyes of him who is covetous and greedy, because of whose greed Christ hung naked and exposed upon the cross. A person greedy of honor, who desires only to be renowned in the world, will I lead to the judgment hall, where his Savior stands before Pilate, surrounded by a mocking crow