King's Business - 1958-12

A n d when they were come into the house, they saw the young child . . . and fell down and wor­ shipped Him . . . and they presented unt o H im g i f t s ” (Matthew 2:11). Someone has said, “ the approach to Christmas is far more important than the approach of Christmas.” People everywhere will be doing much think­ ing these days about the approach of Christmas. We would do well to pause and consider the approach to Christ­ mas. On the first Christmas, gifts were presented to the Christ Child. The custom of giving is beautiful; the tragedy of such a time is the fact that along with the giving of gifts to one another, there seems to be no thought of giving a gift to the One who made all of this possible. There was no room for Him in the inn on that first Christmas so many centur­ ies ago; He was bom without. Today there still is no room for Him in the hearts of men and women; He re­ mains without. The word “mass” comes from the Latin and the verb root literally means “ to send” . Christmas, there­ fore, means “Christ sent” . Christmas has become X-Mas, meaning that something has been sent, but no one seems to know who or what has been sent. Every time we repeat the word “ Christmas,” we are saying, in effect,

Œj)e Jftrst B y DR. S. H. SUTHERLAND, iences and now before the hour of his departure he wanted to set down for all generations the record of those things that he had seen and heard and believed. As one turns to the first chapter of the Gospel according to John, he discovers the fact that was outstanding in John’s mind concern­ ing the life and person of Jesus Christ; it is this, that the greatest, the most amazing act of the ages was the com­ ing into human flesh of God, the Son. The wise men worshipped Him on that night so many centuries ago; John worshipped Him after seeing His life finished upon the earth and seeing Him go back in His resurrec­ tion body to Heaven from whence He had come. And the wise men, from those days to the very present, are those who worship Him and rec­ ognize in the coming of this Babe, bom on a Christmas night in Beth­ lehem of Judea, the glorious and mys­ terious fact that God came to dwell among men. Such a coming was rea­ sonable, and it was indeed necessary, for it was the only way to bridge the great gulf between God and man. We need not stop to argue the exist­ ence of this gulf; we know that it does exist. That desolate, lonely cry of our Lord as He was hanging on the cross, “my God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” is the cry of humanity all down through the’ ages. But it has never uhderstood that it was not God who had forsaken humanity but rather that humanity had forsaken God. The coming of Jesus Christ was also necessary in order to reveal God. The world knows nothing of God, apart from the revelation that has come through the Lord Jesus Christ. It has been said, “You may guess much, you may hope a little, you may dread a great deal, you may question more than all—but you can know ab­ solutely nothing for a certainty about God except as He is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.” John wrote, “ No man hath seen God at any time; the only Begotten Son, He hath re­ vealed Him.” It is as though you had a distant friend whom you had never seen. You had met some of his friends;’ they had told you of him. You had heard about him; he had written to you and in his words you glimpsed something of his mind and character. One day the door to your home opened, and he stood before you. It was his face; it was his form;

“ Christ was sent.” The wise men, centuries ago, realized this glorious truth and they came and fell down before Him and worshipped Him and presented unto Him gifts. And wise men from that day until this have done exactly the same thing. The peo­ ple of the world are the foolish ones; they spend much time, effort and en­ thusiasm on X-Mas, not knowing who or what was sent. But thank God, we as Christians do not worship an un­ known God. We know Who was sent; we know whom we have believed. John had been an eye-witness dur­ ing the life of our Lord; he had seen the miracles in Cana of Galilee; he had heard the majestic voice of the Lord calm the waters of the lake, he had stood by the graveside of Lazarus and had heard the Lord speak and had seen Lazarus come out of the grave in response to His command. John had lain on the bosom of the Lord at the last supper; he had stood by the cross while Jesus was hanging there; he had been the first of the disciples to reach the empty tomb. For fifty years, John had been pon­ dering the mysteries of these exper­

THE KING'S BUSINESS

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