SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 20 December 1930, Page 14 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

By

REV. A. H. COLLINS

“THE ETERNAL INCARNATION.”' 1 “Then I was by Him, as a master workman:. And I was daily HiS delight, rejoicing, always before Him; rejoicing in His habitable earth; and my delight was with the sons of > men.’’ Proverbs, 8, 30, 31. The words are part of the autobiography of wisdom. It is doubtful if the words were intended to describe rihy person known to the inspired writer. He simply did what we all do constantly; that is, idealise and personify certdin qualities of the mind rind thq hedrt, arid in this place “wisdom” is regarded as personal’. But wisdom is not simply intelligence; it is intelligence joined to goodness; and the highest expression of that was found in Him when the Apostle Said. “He is riiade unto us wisdom” —that is, Christ Himself. Matthew Arnold, speaking of the great men who reared those glorious cathedrals which are the wonders.of the world, said “They builded better tliau they knew.” 11l the same way ancient bards of the Bible, in describing their heroes A and saints, were unconsciously depicting One greater than they dreamed. Dying Jacob, forecasting tlie future of His son, cried, “The sceptre 'shall riot depart but of Judah until Shiloh come.” Isairih, thinking of some .great national leader, sang; “For unto Us a child is born, inito us a son is given.” Arid tlie ancient philosopher, describing Divine Wisdom, used language that could only apply, in its fulness, to Him of whom Moses and tlie prophets did write; and we shall'do no violence to tlie spirit of propheby if we say this is the voice of the Incarnate Sbn of God. saying, “arid my delights were with the soils of men.” THE FOURFOLD IDEA. -For notice liow this idealised and personified wisdom speaks of himself under a fourfold aspect. (1) As existing before all time. ‘‘The Lord possessed me in the beginning of HiS ways, before rfis works of old.” Ask the rige of . the universe. When Was the beginning? Arid however far you push back tlie answer, this eternal ivisdom was before all worlds. The Builder is older than the building, the artist than his picture, tlie Creator than His cfeatiori. (2) He speaks of being present at the creation. “When He prepared the heakeiis I was thbre. Matter is not eternal. It is spirit aldiic that is eternal. The bright arid vast creation' neither rose By ciiarice nor ribraiig tb gldrious birth the agency of a plurality bf gods. But Biit th£ Etei-ual'Son.’d'as tlierb. (3) He speaks of being ill assbciatlofl with the Creator. “I was ds bite brduglit up With liim.” Saiiit jdhii says the'sahte tiiiiig, only in a filter, fuller Way. ‘‘The same whs ill tlie beglnriiiig will! God’’ —one- in nature, oho ill pflfpose, OHO in fellowship.

(4) He speaks of having an interest in men before all worlds “rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth.” Humanity was present to His thought erei the’ first main Was cteate'd. Christ, the Son of God, mingled with men, ere He w.alk€'d the' streets of Jerusalem, or the sliores of Galilee. He saw the human race—its " sorrows, sins, shames—before He appeared in human cuise. “The word” that “was with God, arid was God,” did not come to earth for the first tinie when “the word Wari made flrish rind dwelt amorid us.” The appearance bf Christ in Bethiehem was not His first appearance. God was incarnate in the world, and in the written word, before He was incarnate in the Son of/Mriry. He Wag in the burning bush, in the fiery cloudy pillar, in the shekinah flame. He spoke to our fathers of the prophets. THE VOICE ALWAYS HEARD. God never bedri an absentee. God hag never been dilnib. A dumb Grid is unthinkable. The voice of God was always heard, though that voice spoke in freer and fuller tones in “the WOrd made flesh.” As Dr. Drile says, “The incarridtioii was not an isolated and abySriial wonder.; it was God’s witness to' the true and ideal relatioii bf all men to God.” At this advent season Oiir thoughts fly back to the Bethlehbm idyll. Wd see the manger and the shepherds listening to the sorlg of angels. It is a Wonderful and beautiful story—the most Wonderful and Beautiful story in dll the world. Yet when We come to study the new text we Arid, the Birth of Christ does not occupy the prominence We should have expected. Two out' of the four evangelists do not record the story Of the nativity; and the sainc fact meets ite in the New Testament letters. Thesb writers do not ignore Bethlehem; still less do they deny it; but their minds are engaged in the thbiight of the fne-existertce bf the Christ. FOr them His earthly life Was like a valley between two rhountaifi peaks, and. they kept their eyes ori the peaks instead of the valley. \ So profound Was the impression Christ made Upon theih that thdy could not conceive of Him aa just another man. They who lived with Him, and beheld His glory, did riot dwell Oft Bethlehem and the manger; but in His eternal Sonship. They knew the gladness of the prophetic message; “For unto us a child is bora,” blit they knew also that He had said, “Before Abraham Wfte I am.” And what I would impress upon you now is the fact that the joy of Christmas is not that Another life was added to the life of the world, but that in the coming of Mary’s child the Eternal God crime nearer than lib had ever crime before. Christ made God ffeai and lovable to multitudes of hungering hearts of rtten the world over. fllE NEED FOR SYMPATHY-. Have you ever tried tri understand why multitudes of people offer Worship tb'Alary? Is it not this, that We have thought of Grid as a male, and the sorrowing heafts of men ei’aye the motherly in God? The infinite patience and tenderness, the infinite hope and interpretative sympathy of bur mothers. lan Maclaren tells how he visited a church in Italy and watched a peasant woman at her prayers. When she rose from her knees, he approached her and gently asked her why she prayed to Mary instead of praying to God direct. The woman turned to him an eager; wistful face,, arid said: “Ah! sir; but you are

a nidn.” Maclaren saw the point, and apologising' gaid. “Forgive me, my dear woman, and pray on.” Now the incarnation meets this crave for a God who is near and kind, for tli£incarnation say’s that God is not a cold and shadowy abstraction. God is not outside and apart from the world. God is not stem, unbending, vengeful. He is warm,- close, gracious,, genial. “My delight was with the sons of men.” And the incaniritio'ri sheds, light on man. God and man are hot twain; they are one. The very. life that is in Him is in you, as ocean an<| drop are oU'e, as sun and ray are one. If God 1 and man were not one, how could there I be communism ? If I speak to a pebble on the beach I convey no idea, for the I pebble and I have different natures. If I speak to a dog, I might convey* some part of my meaning, for. the dog shares part of my nature. But if I

speak to you, you understand, for we are mentally and spiritually akin. Revelation is possible -because spirit with spirit can meet.” God is not living outside earth’s domain and drawin® its revenue. He is living in yop and me, as soul dwells in. the . body..; The incarnation means that air who by the spirit are the sons of God. There is no such thing as “mere man. Man is the child of eternity, and the . gon of the Highest. The true shekinah is the spirit of man. .♦ ... The supreme message of the incarnation is this, that God wants to speak ?t 0 all, through all. We ar® not here merely to get a living; wd ard prolong the life of Jesus' Christ, for the spirit of Jesiis, lives through- you and me. History is man’s search after God, and the gospel is God’s answer to J-unanity’s search. “See the Christ stands.” “The Master te come.” . . .