CHRISTMAS IN THE CITY

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22594, 27 December 1938, Page 10

CHRISTMAS IN THE CITY

CHURCH SERVICES

SPECIAL APPEALS MADE

TRADITIONAL CELEBRATION OF FESTIVAL

Special Christmas services, celebrating the festival in traditional manner, were held in all city churches on Sunday. Suitable Christmas music figured prominently in all the services. Congregations were large at all services. The sermons emphasised the lesson of charity which the Christmas birth taught.

AT THE CATHEDRAL At the Cathedral Bishop West-Wat-son said; It is now many centuries since the Christmas bells rang out on such an unappreciative world as in these last years. One great country thinks the Christian message mere dope for the people and a tissue of falsehood. Another thinks that it interferes with its mass unity, teaching, as it does, individual judgment and liberty of conscience. Other people turn away sorrowful, as if they would like to believe it. but cannot. Of those who listen gladly to the call many think of it as a chance to escape for a little while from the ghastly reality of things to a beautiful romance, unreal but so restful and charming. To the Christian Christmas music brings a call to turn from the unrealities, the pomp and vanities of the world, to what is real, the love of God in Christ. It is a relief to turn from a world where good and evil are treated just as matters of convenience, and where truth and falsehood are matters of expediency to a message of absolute love and absolute truth.

For day by day the rift is widening between the power politics of the world and the policy of peace and goodwill for which Christian people and Christian churches stand. Not so long ago Christian principles were thought of as the ethics of common sense or common decency, even by those who held that Christian doctrines were an unnecessary embellishment. To-day so far from being common sense they are looked upon by many as nonsense irrelevant to our world and Christianity as a religion of the nursery. The world has grown up now and gone into business on its own account and has left behind Church and childish things! And so the rift \videns day by day. IBi.it it is not all loss to Christians. In Western civilisation, Christianity had become so intertwined with the civil structure that it was hard at times to say just what was due to Christ and what was due to the natural development of civilised man. It was hard to say some--times just where a Christian and a good citizen differed. To-day the unravelling of the different strands is going on apace. On the one hand modern civilisation apart from Christ is revealing itself in what seems to be its natural character—ruthless, self-seeking, oppressing the weak, impatient of all difference of opinion, reckless in taking life, sceptical of truth, and without any power of salvation in and by itself. On the other hand the Christian Church, which has so often depended too much on its organisation or is philosophy, or its wealth, is now being stripped of adventitious aids and forced to reveal itself in its true nature. And that true nature is a childlike nature. It is not by might nor power, but by God’s spirit that the Church looks to succeed in its mission. The Church is brought right back to the cradle of Bethlehem, where we see that the weakness of God is stronger than men..

As the child leaves the future to God, so the Church goes forward in faith. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. We are in a Father’s hand and must let the world see that we trust Him. As the child believes that the parent can do anything, so the Christian believes that God’s power is absolute. Nothing is' too hard for Him. And in the power of prayer the Christian places his reliance. As the child is trusting and forgiving, so the Christian thinks no evil, trusts even to his own loss, - has faith in others. As the child looks up to the parent for guidance. so the Christian believes that God has a plan for him —and that he can depend on Him for guidance in difficulties. It should not trouble us if our religion is called the religion of the nursery. We remember how our Lord said that unless we became as little children we could not enter the Kingdom of' Heaven. At; the moment the world has no ears for the shepherds’ call. “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem-” But it is curs to go on living the life of childlike trust in God, sure that some day. somehow, the world will want to hear ' that call, and will say with us, “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem.”