RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Evening Star, Issue 20980, 19 December 1931, Page 20

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

[By Fokwakd.]

“ Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy; which shall be to all people; for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” This column will be discontinued from to-day until after the school holidays. “ Forward ” wishes to thank those who have contributed to the column, and to wish all readers the compliments of the season. May all workers for the cause of religious education have a happy and refreshing rest, and come back fit and ready for the great work in the new year. Here are eight New Year wishes for all: The Bethlehem Christ your own Saviour and Friend, Tire “ God of the New Year ” your guide to the end; The spirit of Jesus your life in possession; The love of the Master, your Lord, in confession; Three hundred and sixty-six days, spotless white, Twelve months of glad service for God and the right; A pure, holy life in the eyes of your Lord, And riches of treasure brought forth from His Word. •‘S.S. PROGRESS.’- “ Forward ”■ acknowledges with thanks receipt of the latest copy of ‘ s.s. Progress,’ with its twenty-one pages full of interesting material for Sunday School workers. The editor, Mr A. H. Reed, is also thanked for his help and words of appreciation and encouragement. THE MESSAGE OP THE MANGER. The spell of Christmas is falling again upon our busy world, and wo join the little company' that knelt in reverence at the manger side. “ The most precious scene in the world’s history,”- another has said, is this manger scene. The hearts of men find here the message for which they thirst. The message of the manger is the message of love. That is the one message for which men thirst. God gave love to everybody that starlit night. God’s Christmas gift was to the whole world. Jesus’ favourite expression concerning Himself was “ Son of Man.” It was the universal Man, the Man with a message of love for all humanity, who was horn in the Bethlehem manger. The glory which the shepherds saw as they watched their flocks by night flooded the world with light. The whole earth was sunned with the radiance of Heaven. Christ came to everybody, so everybody can come to Him.

• The message of the manger is a message of hope—of hope for the common -life of man. Is not that a message for -which men thirst? If Jesus was born in a manger, then He can he found anywhere, and Ho can be served anywhere. If you or I were to imagine appropriate conditions for the incarnation of God, surely we should picture a child of royalty or of other exalted ancestry. We should have a pomp and display that would attract all eyes. But God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. The Saviour of the world was born not in cultured Greece, nor splendid Italy, but in a despised and distant province of the Homan Empire; not in its most beautiful and central city, but in one of the poorest of its villages; and not in the best house of the village, but in a barn. The Prince of Heaven was not laid by glistening angels upon a golden bed or in a satinlined cradle; not in a palace of the Coesars, surrounded by the greatest in the land, but born in a stable, cradled in a manger, the habitation of His spirit a poor peasant woman. His life was in harmony with His birth. He slept in huts v' -e poor men dwelt. His friends and disciples were fishermen and suchlike. His talk was about common things. He ate the Last Supper in a humble room, and He had to borrow that. And it was on a rough cross Ho hung at last when He gave His life for the world. At the beginning, and all the way through, Jesus identified ! imself with the common ,1 of men. What a message of reassurance and hope that is for those who travel the common ways of life. Tho most famous picture of the Bethlehem scone is ‘ Holy Night,’ by Correggio. Tho child lies upon the straw, the mother bending over Him. The wondering shepherds are near, and in the background are the cattle. It is night, and there is only one feeble lantern in the place. But from the Infant Child a radiance streams which lights up all the rude scene. It is more than a picture; it is a parable. From the manger and from the life of Jesus there streams a light upon tho common ways of life. In that light prosaic things are transfigured. Drudgery for His sake bear ms divine, toil becomes sacred, any occupation becomes a vocation. The daily round of life was the pathway of the eternal. In the light of that tremendous fact there are no common men, and there is no common task. Every life may be redeemed from narrowness and insignificance. The message of the manger is _ tho message of faith. I think of the faith of the shepherds. It is said that they returned “ praising and glorifying God.” They praised and glorified the Father in Heaven for “all that they had seen.” And what had they seen? A human child and nothing more? Then how grotesque the thrilling story scene! Then what a barren travesty the whole sublime event becomes! No, they had somehow seen on that babe the superscription of the Divine; they had seen in Him “ a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” They went back to their fields and their flocks. The old routine began once more. No wonder that it seemed dull after what they had seen and hoard. Gone the a: mis; no more the anthem in tho skies! But the Divine Child remained, and they took up their old faini’hr life again with a new song on their lips and a new spirit in their hearts. This was faith at its best. As I think of the faith of these shepherds, and of the increasing multitudes since, who not having seen, have bclived, my faith in the final triumph of Christ becomes strpng. Christmas 'is gaining ground. This year the company kneeling at the manger will bo greater. We arc told that after the startled wise men had come and seen the Babe of Bethlehem, they departed into their own country another way. It suggests the thought that wo may all return to our own places “ another way ” with another spirit, if we will but take to ourselves the message of tho manger, which is tho message of love and hope and faith. , —H. Porter. Where a life is spent in service Walking whore the saints have trod, There is scattered myrrh most fragrant For tho blessed Christ of God. Whoso boars his brother's burden, Whoso shares another’s woe, Brings his frankincense to Jesus With the men of long ago. When wo soothe earth’s weary children, 'Tending best the least of them, ■ ’Tis the Lord Himself we worship, Bringing gold to Bethlehem,