Hope and Triumph.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 302, 21 December 1935, Page 8 (Supplement)

Hope and Triumph.

THE LOVE OF CHRIST. BEST NEWS FOR MORTAL EARS. (By DR. J. D. JONES, Bournemouth.) What we are celebrating to-day is not the emergence of some great spiritual genius. We are rejoicing in the fact that God has visited and redeemed His people. The Word was made flesh and tabernacled amongst us. It was for sheer love lie came. And it was love He revealed. "Love came down at Christmas," says Christina Rossetti, "Love, all lovely, love Divine." It was love that brought Him down to the manger. And it was love that moved Him all the way through. It was Jove that 7iinde Him "heal the sick and touch the leper. It was love that made Him give eight to the blind and hearing t<) the deaf. It was love that made Him preach the Gospel to the poor. It was love that made Him the friend of publicans and sinners. And it was love that at last made Him die. Uttermost love. And that love we see in the life of Jesus is just the love of God. For God was in Christ. He that hath seen) Me, He said, hath seen the Father. God seeks us and loves us as Jasus loved the people of Palestine long ago. For God is like Jesus. Jesus is just the Word made flesh.

And to know that God is love like that is the best news that can ever be proclaimed in mortal ears. "Love was born at Christmas,"-*—well, I don't know that. But, at any rate, it was revealed at Christmas. Before that first Christmas men knew that God was great; they knew that He was wise; they knew that He was holy. But they did not know that He was utter-most love, redeeming, .sacrificial, forgiving love. It was Christmas that made us sure of that! And that is the source of the deepest Christmas joy—this assurance of the love of God. For nothing but such a love as Jesus revealed will meet our case. For if we are to face life's troubles with a brave heart we need to be certain that love is watching over us; and if we are to be released from the haunting dread of sin we need to be certain that love is equal to the task of forgiving us; and if we are to have hope and triumph in our death we need to know that in that dark hour we shall still be in the keeping of our loving Father. And all that Jesus has revealed to us. For God and Jesus are just one thing. So it is in John's account of Jeeus' beginning that I take most delight. The other accounts are true in their degree, but this is the final truth. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His Glory, Glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."