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The whole world is full of Divine tokens. Everything should put us in mind, more or less directly, of Jesus Christ our Saviour. The sun rising in the east is nature's token, to remind us of Christmas Day; and here in the text we find a no less clear token of the mysteries of Easter, our Lord dying and rising again. It is not anything new to have such a verse applied to the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord. The old fathers and bishops so explained it from the very beginning of the Church. We do well to connect thin mystery with our own lying down and rising up as often as night and morning return. Sleep is an image of death. To a Christian it is an image of the death of Christ. Our daily lying down and rising up is given us for a sacramental sign and pledge of Christ's death and resurrection, and of our own. Our falling asleep is a mystery, a thing which takes place we know not how, a thing out of our power, as much so as death itself. What becomes of us during our sleep? That longer sleep which we call death may come on us we know not how, and leave our bodies without power or thought for awhile, our souls in the meantime departing we know not where, and employed we know not how. There is a still higher and more awful depth of mystery in the Psalmist's words, spoken as they are in His person, who is both God and man. It is as if we heard Christ Himself, risen from the tomb, and saying, "I laid Me down and slept, and rose up again, for the Lord sustained Me." The Lord, the most high and glorious Godhead, still in our Saviour's Person, inseparably joined to His human soul and body, even while the one was in the grave and the other in Paradise, or elsewhere in the regions of the dead, — He still continued the same Christ, very God and very man, and by virtue of that Eternal Spirit He raised Himself from the dead when His time was come. Notice what gracious help is afforded to those who are willing so to lift up their hearts, by Christ's making so common a matter as our daily sleep and awakening a token and sign of this most awful mystery. Christ, even now abiding in His people, makes them already in this world partakers of a heavenly and Divine life. He sustains them, sleeping and waking, in life and in death, in their beds and in their graves; for in both conditions they are alike members of Him. But all this depends upon our keeping our baptismal vows. One or two rules of recovery and perseverance —

1. Since it is Christ only who sustains us, when in our lying down, or sleeping, or rising up, how dare any of us lie down or rise up without solemnly committing himself to Christ on his knees in devout prayer? Private devotion must be one great help towards saving and recovering the heavenly life which our Lord offers to sustain in us.

2. The Holy Communion of the Body and the Blood. This is the sacrament of perseverance and growth in grace, as baptism is of repentance and regeneration. The heavenly life which Christ has. begun in us can be sustained in no other way besides that which He has appointed. Prayer, then, and Holy Communion, are necessary to all.

(Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times. ")

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KJV: I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me.

WEB: I laid myself down and slept. I awakened; for Yahweh sustains me.