This is an illustration of the second half of C.S. Lewis' sermon 'The Grand Miracle', which was a quick summary of Chapter 14 of his Book called ‘Miracles’: "Here is something telling us – well what?" 0:15 - “Every year God makes a little corn into much corn: the seed is sown and there is an increase. And men say, according to their several fashions, ‘It is the laws of Nature,’ or ‘It is Ceres, it is Adonis, it is the Corn-King’. But the laws of Nature are only a pattern: nothing will come of them unless they can, so to speak, take over the universe as a going concern. And as for Adonis, no man can tell us where he died or when he rose again. Here, at the feeding of the five thousand, is He whom we have ignorantly worshipped: the real Corn-King who will die once and rise once at Jerusalem during the term of office of Pontius Pilate” (Chapter 15, Miracles, C.S. Lewis). 0:31 - Bergson's Modern and Western Type of Nature or 'Life Force' Religion: "We take over the existing trend towards 'development' of increasing complexity in organic, social, and industrial life, and make it a god" (Miracles, Chapter 14). 1:18 - Lassitude (physical or mental tiredness), delicacy (fragility or politeness), and compassion (empathy with others). 1:51 - "I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof; 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures that, in a moment, can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, wife, and children stand afraid and start [are startled or alarmed] at us" (Thomas Browne, 1642). 3:10 - Romans 8.19-25 "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration...in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies..." What are first fruits? Before machine planting, corn was sown by hand so only some corn seed would start life at a perfect depth and would ripen at a slightly earlier date than the bulk of the crop. Also fruit trees produce some of its crop much earlier than the bulk of the harvest. So this fruit was your first ‘sample crop’ of the coming harvest year. 4:16 Summer 'pomps' are summer's 'splendors'. Think of a wild English garden or the countryside in Oxfordshire in midsummer. 4:35 Handel Messiah, 'The Trumpet's shall Sound' by Phil Driscoll. "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." 1 Corinthians 15.52-53.
