SUNDAY READING.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 11404, 3 January 1931, Page 12

SUNDAY READING.

A BABE IN A MANGER

(By the Rev. James Aitften. M.A.) In the most beautiful story' in the world' we read how the shepherds came to Bethlehem anti found the Babe wrapped .in swaddling - clothes lying in a manger. Suppose that -we had been among the guests yho filled the inn on that occasion, and heard in the morning that a peasant woman had given birth to a child overnight in the stable.. should we not have shared the amusement and curiosity of the crowd? Who was she, where did she como from, wo should have wanted to know. And all we should have learned was that she was the young wife of a carpenter, whose home was in Nazareth, (hat despised town of a despised province. Suppose we had done like tho others and .taken a peep into the stable to, see tli? poor little family, what should we have prophesied for the infant? Nothing, probably, hut an obscure life of "’manual toil, . soon over and soon forgotten. And suppose some twenty years later we had happened to be in Nazareth, and had passed the Carpenter’s shop and seen the young man there at work upon his yokes and ploughs, we should have had a passing interest in him because of the romantic circumstances of his birth, and because we had actually been in the inn at Bethlehem when he was born. We should have asked some questions about him, and heard Lorn the neighbours how lie had got on, and. how, though he was strange in some ways,' lie was respected and even loved bv most people in the. village. We should have been interested for the moment, but wu should not have modified the casual anticipation we had originally formed for him. He had turned out just what we said he would, a common v. orbing man. And suppose in ten or fifteen years time after thap /we had happened to be in Jerusalem at Passover, and had. learned there that our Carpenter had just been crucified. We should certainly have been interested again. What had occurred, we should have wanted to . know, and what had lie done. And some would liavo 'obi us that lie' had been condemned lor sedition or treason, or something of-that . sort; and some would have said No it was for heresy, for speaking against the priests anil criticising the national religion. And we ' should have felt how sad.it was, but ve should not have been surprised. Had not, the people of Nazareth told us that lie was strange. Surely it would have been impossible for us, as casual onlookers, to guess the significance of the Babe in the manger; how He would change men’s wavs of thinking about God. and life a lit 1 duty, and how after nineteen centuries had passed, his would dill be the most potent influence in the world, and a growing influence. Yet there it is. Things qro not what they seem. They are very often far more than they seem to be. The inward spiritual reality differs so from the outward ' material appear- , since. Y\’e see a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger: and Lo! This Babe proves to be the very Son of God. We see a Carpenter at liis bench making j’okes and ploughs; He is the Saviour of the - world. We see a man hanging on a cross: He is the Kiiior of Glory. It. is thus tho most High God draws nea. r to us—in the garb of common life.

How true it is not pnly of His coming to us in Christ, but of all His dealings with us. On the surface they look like commonplace experiences, but to the insight of faith they are divine. God makes - His will known to us under the guise of common duty. Under all circumstances there is * .something that ought to bo done: every day is filled with a number of things that should be attended to. Those things which our sense of duty recognises are God’s will for us. His bounty fakes the shape of common gifts—food and shelter and clothing. Our labor is t:hc\ putting forth of our hand to take wliat He supplies. His love for us expresses itself through human channels. The affection of our nearest and den.rest, the res-pect and attachment of our friends, have their source m God’s love fo r us. His forgiveness comes in heavenly wrappages of sunshine and rain. For He makes His sun to shine and His rain, to fall _m the evil as well as on the good. He clis ciplines us and trains us through the common trails of life, the pain, and sorrow, the disappointment and- perplexity, that fall to the lot; of us all. Anil His grace reaches us in all sorts of ways, in the word of a 'friend, the example of some one we know, a sentence in a book, some common experience. God is always near to us and always seeking us, and it is Lhus He comes —in the garb of common things. To realise that truth, end to keep hold of it, and io live Iron; day to day m the light ana strength ot it. is.to walk with God.