SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

By

REV. A. H. COLLINS

THE TWO INCARNATIONS. “And she brought forth her first born Son and laid Him in a manger." —Saint Luke 11. 7. “Christ in you the hope of glory." —Col. 1.,' 27. Preachers have no choice of theme to-day. The season supplies the subject. Christmas —the day that changed the world —is on the threshold. In a few hours church bells will chime happy music. Devout spirits of many lands will make mental pilgrimage to the barn where the Little Lord Jesus wao cradled in the sweet-smelling hay, and the -world’s tiny Tims will clap their hands and cry “God bless everybody." It is true the day we keep may not be .historically correct. But that matters nothing. Christmas is not a date, but a spirit, and the advent of Jesus Christ is an event of such cosmic importance that its celebration obeys a profound instinct of Christian hearts. Birthdays are great days, for maternity is a sacred office, and the coming of a child marks the opening of streams of influence, the depth and range of which none can forecast and none can measure. When Gentle Willie Shakespeare was born beside the murmuring Avon it meant a new chapter in English letters. The advent of William Carey was the birth of modern missions. But Christmas was the greatest birthday in all the golden years. We have only to think of all Christ has been and done to be thrilled by the ineffable splendour of the hour when Mary brought forth her first born Son and laid Him in a manger. To say that Christ has changed the chronology of the. world is only to state one of the facts in His wonderful life. A BEAUTIFUL INFLUENCE. More surprising is the influence of this “Beautiful Syrian Saint” in th§ world of ideas and ideals. For He has eteadily built Himself into the life of the ages; given tone and direction to the best thought and the best laws and customs; elevated and refined its religious conceptions until He has become “the supreme Master in the art of right living,” and the world is coming to recognise the rightness and the wrongness of things by their relation to Him. He has baptised the world with a new spirit, given higher meanings to education, lent new lustre -to art, fresh sweetness to music, and deeper wisdom to books. Christ has made cold laws warm, consecrated common toil, made love a sacrament. We hardly realise the. difference between the old world without Christ and the new world with Jesus in the midst. But greatest of all is the change He has made in religion, for Christ has touched the human conscience and changed the human heart, until millions in the most enlightened and progressive nations • confess they know no higher law than His will, and no Diviner redemption than He has achieved. If we have any worthier conception of Divine Fatherhood it is because Christ hasgiven it; if human brotherhood is one of the ruling ideas of the modern world Christ is its author; if duty grows more commanding, prayer more confident and the future life no longer a guess buta radiant certainty, it is because Christ has spoken, and behind the written word has set the illumination of. His wondrous life. These are no idle fancies; they are historic and factual, traceable to the idyll of Bethlehem, .as the Rhine and the Rhone are born in alpine snows. For amid our hospitalities, our carolling and our merry-making, we cannot afford to forget that Christmas is rooted in religion and justified in liistory. THE FIRST TRUE GENTLEMAN. Jesus Christ entered human life by the same low portal we came, for in no merely poetic sense “the word has been made flesh and dwelt among ins." This Jesus with the look of a king in His face and the good cheer of a boy in His bearing, with the light of chaste stars in His eye, and the sound of distant trumpets in His voice; this companion of heroic souls, this gentle knight to Whom all shy and uncertain souls pour out their devotions, this “first true gentleman that ever breathed,” this strong Son of God was nourished in our rough world and increased in wisdom andstature amongst things hard and angular such as bruise our flesh and wound our spirits. Our Lord’s humanity was as real as His Divinity. Jesus had.a real human body, that needed food and rest and sleep. Jesus had a real human mind that learned things as we do, and expanded as our mind does. Jesus had human sensibilities and affections. He could be surprised, grieved,’ troubled, angered, shamed. Jesus had a real human soul. He suffered being tempted and needed to pray not for his disciples alone, but for Himself also. The message of Christmas is. the Gospel of Christ’s humanity, no less than His Divinity. Jesus is the Ideal Man, the pattern and representative Son of man. The Incarnation was the triumph of self-renunciation. It laid the foundation of a new social order in which love and not hate ehall rule. There is no land but is touched by the Christ spirit. Setting forth, like a beautiful summer day, it has journeyed from island to island, from continent to continent, from century to century, and changed the face of the world. It has blessed childhood, for no service is too costly to render to little ones Christ folded in His embrace; it hag invested needy folk with eternal worth, and therefore gifts find their way to poor men's dwellings, and the best “grace” said over any Christmas dinner is the thanks of those for whom we have the day gilt-edged with thoughtful kindness. Therefore we rise and keep the Christmas with holy mirth, for it is the birthday of Hope, the festival of Goodwill, the feast of Charity, and the sign of the world’s redemption. “'And so the word had breath and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds, In loveliness of perfect deeds More strong than all poetic thought." A DIFFERENT'VIEWPOINT. Yet great as this message is, it needs our second text to complete it. For when we turn from the four gospeLs to the New Testament Letters the viewpoint is different, and the emphasis is changed. The epistles say little of the nativity of Christ. Bethlehem is not denied ;or neglected, but It takes on

new meaning. History is changed to experience, and we are helped to see another incarnation. The Christ of history is changed for the Christ of experience. God, incarnate in Mary’s Son, is seen incarnate in believing souls. In the Gospels the human Jesus is seen growing into consciousness and taking His place in boyhood and manhood, °then into Teacher, Healer, Friend, Brother, Saviour, and that is the Jesus of history. In the epistles Jesus Christ is seen in human lives, growing with their growth, slowly unfolding Himself in the°thoughts, aims and habits of His followers, and that is the Christ of experience. “Christ in you”—in you as the fragrance is in the flower, the light in the diamond, the sap in the tree, and the spirit in the body; in you to illuminate the conscience, reinforce the will, control angry temper, and regulate conduct; that is an aspect of the Holy Nativity not pondered as it should be. Jesus Christ may be born in Bethlehem a hundred times’, and we none the better unless He is born into our life, thought and daily needs. NO MYTH OF THE PAST. ' We believe in the historic Jesus. He is no creation of a poet’s fancy, no myth of bygone years. It is as certain that He lived-as that William the Conqueror landed, on the shores of Great Britain, .as certain that Jesus .died on the cress as that Socrates drank the hemlock cup at the hands of the Athenians. But the first triumphs'of Christianity were not won by logical proofs o-f the Bethlehem story; they were won by the witness of men and women whose hearts supplied the new cradle. Men have questioned and wrangled about the first and second advent, and they are doing it still, until His blessed face is hidden in the, dust of controversy. It is time we ceased from such folly, and instead of wrangling, turned to worship. The Christian message is not that Jesus Christ lived 2000 years ago. That is only part of the truth; Jesus Christ is living now, living in the changed lives of His people, and their mission in the world is to make the ancient story credible by lives that enshrine His love and breathe His spirit. Christ wants incarnations of Himself in living men and women of to-day. The supreme message of the Incarnation is that God wants to speak to all through all. We have to be his interpreters to men. We have to let the hope and the patience of Christ be manifest through us. That is what we are into the world for. THE PERPETUAL INCARNATION. To think of life as the main chance to make a living is to lose your life. We are in the world to prolong the life of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of the perpetual Incarnation is this, that as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of god.” Christ lived in William Lloyd Garrison as he sounded his clarion call to liberty, and Frances Willard as she pleaded the cause of purity and temperance, in William Booth «s he lived to mend “broken earthenware.” and rescue the perishing; and Christ is living now in men and women of Taranaki, for man is the shekina of God. But you may say, “Did God not speak to men before Christ - came in human guise?” Of course He did. God was incarnate in His world and in His word ere He was incarnate in His Son. God from the beginning has been seeking to communicate with men, and in Christ God has found His freest and fullest utterance. As Dr. Dale remarks, “The Incarnation was not an isolated and abnormal wonder; it was God’s witness to the true and ideal relation of all men to God.” If there had not been the Incarnation in Bethlehem the world would have been wait’ing for it for the simple reason that it is a felt want in the heart of man. A God who never speaks and is unapproachable is unthinkable. See the Christ stands. “Oh! come let us adore Him Christ the Lord.” Sing, sing, 0 Universe! till thou hast exhausted thyself; thou canst not afford a song so sweet as the song of incarnation. Though creation may be a majestic organ of praise, it cannot reach the compass of the golden canticle, incarnation. There is more in that than in creation, more melody in Jesus in the manger than there is in worlds on worlds, rolling in grandeur round the throne of the Most High.