December 1929
571
T h e
K i n g ' s
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The stars His ’tire of light and rings obtained, The cloud His bow; the fire His spear; The sky His azure mantle gained. And when they asked what He would wear, He smiled, and said as He did go, He had new clothes a-making here below!
unembittered by treachery, unswerving in, fidelity, un flinching in agony, peerless in His humanity. He moved among men “full o f grace, and truth” and kept the white radiance of His purity unsoiled amid the moral soot that ceaselessly fell about His life. That unstained holiness He committed to His Father’s hands when He, the Sav iour, was made an offering for sin. A S tr ik ing N ame W as H is What a striking name was H is ! “Thou sha.lt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” N ot E xemplar ! Not a pattern to be copied, a model to be imitated. At least, not that only, nor that first of all. That only after the ransom of the Cross and the humility of service (John 13:1-17). N ot T h in k e r ! N o explorer in realms of thought, no prospector in the kingdom of philosophy, but ever drawing from the deeps of His own knowledge wherein reposed all the wisdom o.f God. N ot M artyr ! Not a captive helpless to free Himself ! No wit ness sealing His testimony to divine truth with His out poured life! Passive, but not powerless; meek, but still majestic; weak, but yet mighty; He "moved along the sor rowful way to the crest of the “Green Hill,” and died as He had lived, as only God could live and d ie! Power was His up to the very last. Power to lay His life down, and power to take jt again. N ot R uler ! He had come to His own in lowly guise, “born o f a woman, born under the law” —notwithstanding that He was Lord of all, and the fount and origin of all law, whether written on stone or the consciences of men. N ot W arrior ! His Cause was not to be built on force working from without, but on love operating from within. His mission was not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them ; not to “wade through slaughter to a throne,” but to show that the high est—even the divinest—life is a blend of service and sac rifice, of service through sacrifice. The world has had no lack of examples, thinkers, martyrs, rulers, and warriors. Its primary and perennial need is for a Saviour, and it was to meet that need that Jesus came to Bethlehem, His advent heralded by the hosts of heaven. A D iv ine T ask W as H is What a divine task was H is ! “He shall save His peo ple from their sins.” The Jews were groaning under the yoke of Imperial Rome. How ruthless and despotic that could be, Luke records (13:1). They panted after the fulfillment of those Messianic prophecies which should make Jerusalem the metropolis of the world, and divert to its treasury the riches of the Gentiles. The Jews were ever ready to hail a deliverer from civic enslavement, while content to wear the fetters of sin. They had no eyes for the evils of the heart what time the soldiers of Rome trod their streets. Jesus came to meet their deepest need. His salvation brought rescue from man’s worst tyranny. He came to bring their souls out of prison, to give deliver ance to the captives of sin and Satan. For men are ever keener on salvation from outer perils than from inner evils. The League of Nations, Peace Pacts, and Arma ment reductions are so many attempts to secure immunity from the menace of the mailed fist, the oppression of small nations, and the awful wreckage, waste and madness of war. Yet what the world most needs is de liverance from the vices latent within the individual soul— ambition, lust of power, greed, .vice, .'love of luxury, the vanity of display, the pursuit of-pleasure, indifference to,
The making and wearing of His “new clothes” did not shut out for long the consciousness of His divine origin and mission. At the age of twelve He knew God to be His Father, and was eager to be about His Father’s business. At the baptism in the wilderness, on the Mount of Transfiguration, just before and in Gethsemane, He had either the Father’s audible approval, the com pany of Moses and Elijah, or personal service from the angel hosts. Scattered throughout the Gospel records are incontestable proofs that all the essential powers of the Godhead function through Him. There is only one pos sible explanation of this, and John records it in His Gos pel (ch. 13:1-3; 17:1, 2, 5, 24). He knew that He came from God, knew Himself equal with God, knew He was returning to God, knew that He had, before His human birth, shared the unapproachable glory of God. All that makes the manger of Bethlehem the marvel of the ages. T h e L ife of J esus W as U nique What a unique life was to. be H is ! However we may look upon the birth of Jesus, what occurred at Bethlehem was a marvel of divine condescension. And the more the mind dwells on it, the greater the marvel becomes. For here among the lowing cattle and the lowly occupants of the caravansary, through Jesus, the Eternal drew about Himself a true circle; the Mighty God became limited by the weakness of infancy: “He came, a little baby thing, That made a woman cry.” Yet it was far more than an act of divine limitation. It marked an advance in divine self-expression. It was to give new meaning to the old revelation. It was to make real that which had been faintly set forth by such terms as Shepherd, Father, Friend. By becoming subject to the limitations of humanity, God was drawing as near to man as He could come. Henceforth man’s best concep tion of God would lie in his power to revision Jesus Christ. The Word, who was God, was made flesh in order that He might be “touched with the feeling o f our infirmities, tempted in all points like as we are,” qualified to succor, and made perfect by sufferings. There is this further uniqueness about the Saviour. He stands before the race as God’s ideal of perfect manhood. The first Adam was made in the image of the Last Adam, who restores all that the first lost when he could no longer walk with God in innocence and joy. The Person of Jesus is a prophecy and a pledge that man, redeemed by the sacrifice of the cross and renewed by the Spirit of God, shall be changed into His likeness. The destiny of God’s redeemed is declared by St. John: “We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Is there anything more attractive than the charm of childhood ? The trustfulness, the purity, the unstained in nocence that looks out of a child’s eyes! No wonder Jesus caught little children up in His arms and blessed them! They were akin to His Spirit, nearest the kingdom of heaven, and their angels looked into His Father’s face! What Jesus possessed as the Babe in the manger He kept unto the end. He was unaffected by obscurity, unspoiled by publicity* unsoured by adversity, unmoved by hostility,
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