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Dwell as we will on the brighter side of things, life is very hard, and men and women are hard on one another, and we ourselves are growing hard, and that is the worst of all. We need something to soften, in no enfeebling way, the hardness of life, and of men, and of our own heart. And most of the blessings we seek of our own will, weaken our souls; and in the weakening, make us harder in the future. But the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, if we could win it and take it, softens all things by making us stronger towards goodness and truth and righteousness and love. What is it? What is His grace?

I. WHATEVER THIS GRACE IS, IT DOES NOT COME FROM ONE WHO IS IGNORANT OF ALL WE NEED.

1. He has known to the full the weight of human suffering, and the blessing of His grace that is with us is brought home to us by that knowledge. He can comfort because He knows. He has known what temptation is, and can feel with the agony of our resistance, and through that with our weakness. He has not known remorse or the loss of good, but, through His infinite pain in contact with sin, and His infinite pity for those enthralled by it, He can understand our unhappiness in guilt. By knowledge of sorrow He can bring blessing to sorrow.

2. Nor has He known joy less. In early life, as boy and youth, He knew all our simple and pure joys. In manhood, when He first went out to the world, we have often traced the joy of enthusiasm in His work. In later days these only lived in memory, but another joy took their place — the mighty joy of universal love, the joy of giving up all things for all men — that wonderful and mystic joy which we faintly realize whenever out of the depths of personal suffering we rise into the glorious life of self-surrender because we love.

II. CHRIST'S FITNESS TO GIVE COMES NOT ONLY OF KNOWLEDGE OF OUR NEED, BUT ALSO OF HIS VICTORY OVER ALL THAT IS EVIL AND WEAK IN OUR NEED. It is the Victor who can give grace and strength to those whom the same foes attack. In order to conquer, win His grace who has conquered, and who will give it to you.

1. Kindness, the goodwill of love. The first meaning of the invocation in the text is: "The loving kindness which belonged to Christ, which formed part of His character, be with you, and form part of yours." Filial tenderness. Penetrating love and insight. Nay, more than this: to be perfect, it ought to reach, through frank forgiveness, those who injure us; through interest in the interests, ideas, and movements of human progress, those who are beyond our own circle, in our nation, nay, even in the world; and finally all men, those even who are our bitterest foes, through desire that they should have good and be good.

2. The kind of beauty we express by the word charm. "The beautiful charm of Christ be with you all" — the charm of harmony of character, the musical subordination and accord of all the qualities and powers of His nature, so that the whole impression made was one of exquisite and various order in lovely and living movement. Sensitiveness to the feelings of others, and to all that is beautiful. An eye to see traces of the Divine loveliness everywhere; faith to believe in it; power to draw it forth. Conclusion: Pray for this grace. It will make you at one with all that is tender, pitiful, dear, and sweet in human lovingkindness, and with all that is sensitive and delicate and graceful in manner and speech, and will create in you an harmonious soul. It will make you at one with moral good, just and true and pure. It will take all that is living in humanity, all that is fair, all that is moral, and link them to and complete them by uniting them to the love of God, and to God's love for all men; so that to human love and moral love and imaginative love will be added the spiritual love which gathers them all into perfection.

(Stopford A. Brooke, M. A.)

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KJV: Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.

WEB: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.