When Jesus lay in His mother's arms, the rich world, with its burden of sickness and slavery, was as restless as a hungry child. Down the sunset of that dying era slanted three rays of declining glory, of which the first was Greece, with her arts ; the second Rome, with her laws; and the third Israel, with her religion: while the gloom of selfishness, creeping slowly over the landscape, threw hideous shadows of grosser evils. Then arose the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings, and blended again these diverse colors, and so shone forth as the Day-Light of the World, by which we may now walk in safety.
In Him, the Arts have awakened in truth and beauty; in Him, Law and Love, Justice and Mercy are reconciled by Sacrifice; in Him, Religion is cleansed of Superstition, Prejudice, Pride, and becomes the reverent worship of our Father, by His grateful children. Forget Him, and Art, Law, Religion, die and harden in decay, until He is remembered once more.
The people who came to Him first could not read about Him as we can, in Testaments, or follow His works through the long vista of two thousand years. Even of those who saw Him during His ministry, most only caught one glimpse of Him, and heard a sentence or two of what He said. Hence we find that some of His contemporaries, less fortunate than we are, had to be helped by dreams and visions of angels and by special providences. Joseph was a good man, who could not think for Jesus, but could only work for Him; and as his philosophy did not include the Incarnation, he ohad to be taught in his sleep what he might have learnt from Isaiah about the Virgin Mother. It was a dream that saved Mary's good name, a dream that led the Holy Family to Egypt, a dream that brought them thence, and a dream that hindered a second flight by directing Joseph into Galilee. That God claims man's every thought, both night and day, is very true, but we do not read that Jesus ever depended for guidance upon dreams. If He was in doubt, He won His wisdom by hard prayer, which was His method of setting us free from necromancy, spiritualism, and every other delusion. He taught us, what science confirms, that dreamless sleep is best; and when He slumbered on a pillow in the stern of a fishing-boat, no storm could arouse Him. To the first Joseph, who went into Egypt, dreams were as worship; to the Wise Men, to Pilate's wife, and to the second Joseph they were merely warnings; and this last of inspired dreamers fades from our vision without uttering one word of unaided testimony to the greatness of Jesus. When he visited Egypt, we do not hear that he made a single convert. Nor did he take one step to secure the advancement of Christ's career in the world.
The Angel Mission
Here, then, we see the angels hurrying, as it were, with a resplendent rivalry, to tell their news to the shepherds, so that when one spoke--the first of missionaries--it was in breathless phrase, as if, panting, he had outflown the others. "Behold"--he cried--"a Saviour--born to you--this day--in the City of David--Christ the Lord! " What an eager message--not one syllable wasted! Born, be it noted, to you--not to Pharisees or Herodians or Zealots, whose brains are full of their own schemes, but to those who quietly fulfill their duty and then rest content. The shepherds had no idea how close Jesus had drawn to them; and it seems as if the angels, by singing to them instead of to the Babe, were filled with dread lest some humble heart, so ready to worship Him, should fail by inadvertence of the opportunity.
Those angels who welcomed Jesus never left Him. As He went about His work, He was conscious of them, ascending from Him and descending. In the wilderness, angels ministered to Him, when men neglected Him. In the garden, an angel strengthened Him, when His friends fell asleep. Twelve legions of them, more loyal than Israel's twelve tribes, were ever at His service, and by His empty tomb angels stood sentinel. He tells us that every child has his guardian angel, standing before the face of God; that the angels rejoice over every sinner who repents; that they bore Lazarus to Abraham's bosom; and that at the last day they will gather in the harvest of souls, separating the good from the bad. When, therefore, He sweeps away the polytheism of Greece and Rome and all other idolatry, He does not leave heaven vacant. He tells us, not of gods to be worshiped, not of saints who demand our prayers, but of spirits, glorious with the zeal of obedience, who surround God's throne with praise and service.
And what was to be the sign for the shepherds? A miracle? Not at all. They were to know Him because they would find Him in the manger, the place of their daily employment. He was to be wrapped, not in a lace robe, but, like their own children, in swaddling clothes. It was this sense, that He belonged to their class, which quickened their footsteps and filled them with delight. There was no manger in Bethlehem that they could not find, for they knew of them all.
The angel solo was echoed by an angel chorus, and one would have thought that a multitude, thus bright-winged, would have won the world. It was not so. They did not even win the shepherds, who, having hastened to the Saviour, left Him as speedily--poor and unprotected; nor do we read of one apostle or one martyr arising from the sheepfolds of Bethlehem. No church was there founded; and when Mary desired an offering for the Temple, she could afford no lamb from those flocks which fed around the City of David, but only two young pigeons. The Wise Men had not yet come, with their wealth; and the shepherds, with their sheep, went away without leaving a gift. The seed was sown in their hearts, as on shallow ground; and though it sprang up quickly, because it had no deepness of earth, it withered away. Yet their worship served a purpose which they themselves little suspected. In those early days, the faith most severely tested was that of Mary, the mother of our Lord. Her heart absorbed the shepherds' story as the thirsty field receives the welcome rain. She did not ask for signs, but she was not left without them.
The angel message was: "Peace on earth and goodwill to men." Peace there was, for Jesus lived during one of the few silences in the Roman world when the Temple of Janus was closed. We read in the New Testament of soldiers and robbers, but not of battles; and at no time was the ministry, whether of the Baptist, of Christ, or of His Apostles, interrupted by military operations. The only blood then shed was His blood and the blood of His chosen, so that men had every chance of hearing Him, and were not engulfed again in slaughter until they had made away with Him--the Prince of Peace.
From that day to this wars have raged. And now, after all these centuries of wrong, fallen are the spires whence rang out the angel-music, and melted down to dull cannon are the once happy bells of stricken towns in Europe. The very name " Emmanuel," or " God with us," which belongs by sole prophetic right to Jesus, has been graven, large and blasphemous, on every Prussian helmet, as if God's presence among men, and His peace which passeth all understanding, could be claimed and enjoyed where the Son of God is dishonored. "Emmanuel" occurs once only in the New Testament, in the opening chapter of Matthew, when Jesus, still unborn, might have been a welcome Guest. From His earliest breath His Divinity was denied, and somehow the word "Emmanuel" fell into disuse, as if God could not dwell with nations except upon terms of unchallenged sovereignty over kings and peoples. War does not mean that the Prince of Peace has failed. It means that, in time of peace, the Prince is forgotten, and if peace be again granted to the children of men, woe to our race if better use be not made of it.
The Homage of Science
The learned men who gazed at the stars were farther from Jesus than the shepherds who watched their sheep, but they also found Him in their life-work. By their education they were enabled to persevere and inquire and reason it out, until they saw Him clearly; and the very fact that they asked of Herod where the Christ should be born is the first spontaneous homage of an exact science to revelation. We are not told what the star was: it may have been Halley's Comet, or it may have been a conjunction of the planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars; but, on either assumption or any other, it seemed as if the heavens must needs declare the glory which earth, including Jerusalem, denied. Where the children of men were silent, the very stones--for what are stars but stones--cried out. The Wise Men approached Jesus with a grave and symbolic ceremony, bringing gifts of their best--gold for His royalty, frankincense for His divinity, and myrrh for His mortality, as if they knew that here was a King who was God and yet must die. We do not again hear of their presents, for Jesus desired no earthly regalia, and the alabaster box which gave Him joy was a broken one. What was offered to Him for display was used doubtless to supply the needs that would arise before Joseph could return to his workshop in Nazareth. Like the shepherds, these Wise Men departed--not one stayed by His side--all, all are lost in the dim mists of the East, and Jesus, no longer attended by stars and angels, was left once more with Joseph and Mary. It was like the last leave-taking, as He turned the corner of the road, from His home in heaven to the earth beneath.
When He was taken to the Temple, the priests--though warned, as we shall see, by Zacharias--were indifferent, and left the welcome to two of the old folks, not of the sacerdotal caste, who were His only courtiers. As John the Baptist was the last of the prophets, so Simeon was the last of the psalmists, and his slumber-song over the Saviour was a farewell. Like the shepherds and the Wise Men, he also was content to see God's salvation and depart in peace. Of his utterance, since echoed by uncounted millions, Mary and Joseph were the only known auditors, and with this swan-song psalmody ceased; but only to break forth again in hymns of the Christian Church, which are the heritage of every nation. Simeon's words seemed marvelous to those whose eyes were fixed on the wee infant in his arms. To think that such a Babe should be thrust as a rock across the highway of history, over which nations should rise and fall! Simeon spoke as he did before the event; our foresight is negligible, because we merely note the fulfillment. And he saw in an instant that the sword would pierce the heart of Mary herself. It seems as if he saw it in her eyes. This wise old man had not lived his long life in the Jerusalem of Herod the Great without learning what is the custom of an advanced civilization towards the sons of such mothers.
Anna, the Widow
Simeon's predestination was conscious; he knew that he would see Christ ere he died. Anna came in at that moment as if by chance. But the reason why she came in was that she constantly visited the Temple. Her surprise was the reward of a habit. Her tribe of Asher was still scattered, but Anna clung to her moorings. Widowed after only seven years as a wife, she had for eighty-four years found comfort in service, and, though a centenarian, she had still energy to tell others of the Messiah. Her father, Phanuel, was remembered in Jerusalem, and Anna was well known; but we do not read that either she or Simeon--though their witness was clear enough--gained one disciple. The Christ as a Hope, an Ideal not yet realizable, did not capture Jerusalem, and Jesus left the city as poor and lonely as He entered it. No one thought of offering Him the advantages of education which Paul enjoyed. There was no scholarship or bursary for Him. Yet how He would have seized such an opportunity we may realize by remembering with what zest He spent three days, when a boy of twelve, questioning and replying to the doctors. In face of that eager aptitude for learning, a carpenter's bench was the only University open to the Saviour.
Jesus was brought back to Bethlehem, and oblivion. He had not then one follower. He was not to win men easily by reposing innocently in a manger, but by infinite patience and suffering. When He was a Babe, men had the great chance of showing their love to Him, ere He could show His love to them. He was weak--they were strong. He was poor--they were rich. He was dumb--they could speak. He was childlike--they had the knowledge. But when they were called to Him, they went their own way, as if something more than a cradle were wanted, if their devotion was to be won.
The day came when He left the swaddling clothes behind, and with them the seamless robe, and was exposed on a cross of wood, not to worshiping shepherds and magi, but to shame and ribaldry and insult. Then and only then did it dawn on the world -and oh, how slowly-that, if we love Him, it is only because HE FIRST LOVED US.