For the Sabbath

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15864, 8 December 1923, Page 14 (Supplement)

For the Sabbath

LET YOUR MASTER IN 0 marts of trade, with all your clang anti din, Pause in your rush for this world’s goods and gold. The things you cherish are but dust and mold— Swing wide the gate and let your Master in. 0 classic halls, where one may learning win, The magnet that brings near a nation’s youth To lead them in the widening way of truth— Swing wide th e gate and let your Master in. 0 palaces of state, where men do bring Their counsel for the things of peace and war, Have you no place for this Ambassador?— Swing wide the gate and let your Master in. 0 rebel heart that hast no need of Him, Thou go’st they way so sure in all thy sin, Shalt thou hold siege in thy Jerusalem? —• Swing wide the gate and let thy Master in. • —Harry Pressfleld. AT THE DOOR, PREACHING IN ADVENT. (From a Correspondent.) The traditional language used by the Church in Advent presupposes a world in which sudden changes may be expected. There ]S One near, even at the door; for those who will he quiet the sound of the knocking fills the halls of life. Th e songs and lessons of the seasons are appropriate on the lips of a company beslirring itself to meet some fresh and startling call. They are the liturgy of the fourth watch, which comes before the dawn. But how is th e preacher to give reality and immediacy to such language? How can he relate it to the interests and motives of the average man? He may diregard the tradition altogether, but if he takes his place within it at all, he must be able to show cause for the urgent language, and to mak e clear Who is He that stands at the door and why He knocks. It may be discovered that there are within the Church many to whom this language has but a sentimental value; they experience a thrill, borrowed from some oilier days; that is all. The preacher who wishes to speak to the condition of such hearers may cease for a while to think in terms of vast cosmic movements, or to speak of th e world in terms of tilings; to him the knocking comes not from a Power described in abstract language, but from a person whose name and lenguage are known. He is a person and lie seeks admission into a personal life. lie is a Spirit, and “spirit with spirit can meet.” For other Advents tile souL may need to wait; for this spiritual Advent—the incoming of the Lord Christ —there is no need to wait; He is at the door.

Such a preacher will enforce with all the earnestness at his command th e immediate issue; he will bid each soul without waiting for others to open the door. It is not necessary to this end to let the mind be absorbed with the future of this planet, or to let it lose itself in the attempt to trac e the destiny of nations; the One Whose voice ho hears as though from without has lo do with all things in heaven and earth, but in th e delight of speculation the mind may lose the bearing of the Advent massage upon the individual life. It is with this advent which need not. be deferred that the preacher has chiefly to do. Of times and seasons he can know nothing; with things he has not to do in the first place, but with the personal fife, the secrets of which and the powers of which arc still so largely hidden. If he can awaken som e hard-pressed soul, longing to be free, to the faith that there arc spiritual reinforcements waiting for him, not after a long delay but now, he has given a real meaning never to be lost to the ancient language of Advent.

A beginning, if it is no more, can be made here. The facts to be related are these; on the on e side man seeking for goodnoss, which can only be his with the entrance into his life of One Who brings forgiveness and the new birth and the power to endure. The other fact is the presence at the door of One Whose chief concern is to give to men, not so much as an answer to their problems as a deliverance from their sin. The task of the preacher in Advent is to bring together the soul in its need and ihe One, Who is waiting to enter across the threshold. Or sometimes the task is simply to call for a silence in the house of fife that the knocking may bo heard. If the first concern of the preacher is with the inner personal life, then there is no reason to discard the thought of crisis and of sudden actions. The entrance of th c new iifo may not be as sudden as it seems; long preparations may have led to the moment when in the hush the loud knocking is heard and the soul opens, and its Lord enters in to sup with him. But in the personal life there is always a place for crisis; thc spiritual life is not one long steady progress; it has its moments, in which more is wrought than in years. The message of th c Advent to the soul of man is one which can only be interpreted in the light of the action of one personality upon another. All analogies break down here. We are in a strange world, over great tracts of which the gcograph-cr must write terra incognita. But enough is known to justify thc preacher to make the promise that, thc door being opened, there will come into life a grace and truth whose touch will be new life and hopo and peace. A Christmas preacher is in order when he offers the promises of Advent to any who without tarrying will unlatch the door. There are other great and tremendous truths to be remembered; the wise and learned will discuss thc bearing of the Advent message upon the meaning of progress; others will soar into cosmic heights; but the man who has the Divine Guest to sup with him has an Advent of his own.