Our Master: Thoughts For Salvationists About Their Lord Part 3

The birth and infancy of Jesus--notwithstanding that Christmas time comes round again and again--receive less attention than they deserve; owing, no doubt, to the interest attached to the events of His manhood and death.

Nevertheless, they suggest some useful lessons, especially to those of us who have much to do with the weak and trembling, and are ourselves, alas!

often weak and trembling, too. May I offer one or two thoughts on the subject, which, though quite simple, have proved of blessing to my own heart?

I.

_Great weakness may be quite consistent with true greatness and goodness_.

It is unnecessary to dwell even for a moment on the weakness of the Infant Jesus. The Scripture has left no possible doubt about it.

Unable to speak, to walk, indeed to do anything for Himself--weak with all the weakness of the human race; yea, more truly helpless than a young bird or a tiny worm, the Holy Child was laid in the manger hard by the beasts that perish.

And yet we know that there was the Divine SON, the Express Image of the Father, the Everlasting King, the Enthroned One, the Creator, "without whom was not anything made that was made"! It is indeed a contrast, which first astounds us, and then compels our adoration and love. Our G.o.d is a consuming Fire--_our G.o.d is a little Child_. Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory--_and yet He is there in fas.h.i.+on as a Babe_, for whom, in all His sweet innocence, they cannot find a room in the crowded inn.

Yes, my friend, to be weak, to be small, to be sadly unfit for the strifes of time; to feel weary and unequal to the hard battles of life; to realise that you are pushed out and away by the crowd, to be contemptuously forgotten by the mult.i.tude shouting and singing across the road--all this may be your case; and _yet_ you may be G.o.d's chosen vessel, intended --framed "to suffer and triumph with Him." You, even you, may be destined by His wisdom to fill for Him some great place in action against the hosts of iniquity and unbelief. Above all, you may be appointed by G.o.d the Father to be like His Son, with a holy likeness of will, of affection, of character.

For, indeed, weakness in many things is not inconsistent with goodness, and purity, and love. The manger has in this also a message for us. Out of that mystery of helplessness came forth the Lion-Heart of Love, which led Him, for us, to the winepress alone, and which, while we were yet rebels, loved us with an everlasting love, going, for us, to a lonely and shameful death. Take heart, then, remembering that it is out of weakness we are to be made strong. Be of good courage--to-day may be the day of the enemy's strength, when you are constrained to cry out: "This is your hour and the power of darkness!" but to-morrow will be _yours_. The weakness and humiliation of the stable must go before the Mount of Transfiguration, the Mount of Calvary, the Resurrection Glory, and the exaltation of the Father's Throne. Take heart!

II.

_A condition of complete dependence may be quite consistent with a great vocation--the call, that is, to a great work_.

I suppose that there is nothing known to man so absolutely dependent upon the help of others as a little child! Life itself begins in total dependence upon another life, and is only preserved in still greater dependence on powers outside itself--for air, for light, for heat, for food, for clothes, for comfort--indeed, for every needed thing. This is especially the case with the child. The young lions and sheep, the tiny flies and the small fishes--these are all able to do something for their own support; but the new-born babe presents a picture of complete dependence. And this Babe was no exception. What a service of imperishable worth to all the world was rendered by His mother in her loving care of Him!

And yet we know something of the stupendous task to which He came! That little Child was to become the greatest Example, the greatest Teacher, the greatest, the only Saviour, the greatest Healer of the sorrows of men, the greatest Benefactor, the greatest Ruler and King. Upon Him and upon His word, who lies there in His Virgin mother's arms, dependent on her breast for life and warmth, unnumbered mult.i.tudes were to rest their all for this life and the next--tens of thousands, in the face of inexpressible agonies, were to trust to Him their every hope, and for His sake were to die a thousand deaths.

Let not, then, your heart be troubled because you also are so dependent on others--so hedged in by your circ.u.mstances, so limited by sickness and pain, so incompetent through inexperience and ignorance, or that you are so compelled to stand and wait when you would fain rush on and do or dare for your Lord. All this may be even so, and yet you may be called to share in the same high vocation as your Saviour.

I read lately of an old saint chained for weary years to a dungeon-wall, unable even to feed himself, whose testimony for Jesus was powerful to the deliverance of many of his persecutors. He was killed at last, lest, one by one, he should convert the jailers also who were employed to supply him with food.

Are you "bound" in some way? Are you chained fast to some strange trial?

Are you appointed to serve in what seems like a den of beasts? Are you under the compulsion of some injustice? Are you made to feel helpless and useless without the support of those around you? Ah, well, do not repine.

Do not forget that G.o.d's call comes often--Oh, so often--to just such as you--to witness for Him in spite of "these bonds," to declare the truth, to dare to reprove sin. Above all, _do not doubt your G.o.d. You may be very dependent to-day, but you may be more than victorious to-morrow_.

III.

_Poverty and friendlessness are often found in company with a great heart_.

There was no home for Jesus in Bethlehem. There was no room for Him in the inn. There was no cradle in the stable. There was no protector when Herod arose to kill. What a strange world it is! Did ever babe open eyes on such a topsy-turvy condition of affairs? The King of Glory had not where to lay His head! Mary, it is true, was strong in faith, but both she and Joseph must needs soon fly into Egypt with the Babe. Refused at the inn, soon even the stable must cast them out!

He came to take all men into His heart, and they, ere ever they saw Him, cast Him forth as an outlaw!

And we who know what it means to be loved of Him, what can we say? Our hearts are bowed with something of shame and grief that He thus suffered, and yet we have a secret joy because He suffered so well! For of all the greatnesses of the Babe this is the greatest--the greatness of His heart.

"The Sacred Heart of Jesus," the Romanists call it. "The All-Conquering Heart of Jesus," I prefer to name it. For it was His wealth of love that really gave Him the victory.

Does one read these lines who is poor, who is cast out by those who are dear, who is a stranger in a strange land, who is driven from "pillar to post," who is hara.s.sed by open foes and wounded by secret enmity? Well, to that one let me say, remember your Lord's poverty and friendlessness; remember the tossings up and down of His infancy; the frugal cottage home in Nazareth wherein His family was finally gathered--despite its bareness and toil--was a place of peace and abundance, compared with the stable, the flight into Egypt, and the sojourn among aliens there.

Are you, dear friend, tempted to complain of your narrow surroundings, of your small opportunity to s.h.i.+ne before others, or of a want of appreciation of your service and gifts and powers by those who should know you? Oh, remember the Babe, and the long years of His condescension to men of low estate, to the cramped surroundings of the carpenter's shed, and the sleepy Jewish village. Are you tried sometimes because you have to suffer the hatred or jealousy, secret or open, of those for whom you feel nothing but goodwill, and who perhaps once thought themselves happy in your friends.h.i.+p? Well, in such hours, remember your Master, and the hatred of Herod seeking to kill the Child. Try to call to mind something of the secret, as well as the open, bitterness of men, religious and irreligious alike, which began to hunt Him while yet in swaddling clothes, and which hunted Him still all through His days.

But amidst it all, what a great heart of pa.s.sionate love was His! Blessed be His Name for ever! Whether the poverty and suffering and hatred were or were not favourable to it, there it was--_the Great Heart of all the world_. What about you? Can you ever be again the same since you learned that He loved you? Can you ever be again content to remain little and narrow, with interests and affections that are little and narrow also?

Will you not rise, as He rose, above the small ambitions of the spiritual pigmies who meet you at every turn, determined to look beyond your own tiny circle, and the low aims of those around you? Depend upon it, you ought to do so. Depend upon it, the Holy Saviour can enable you to do so.

Depend upon it, the world's great need is "Great Hearts." Will you be one?

IV.

Christ Come Again.

"_And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger_."--Luke ii. 7.

"_Christ formed in you_."--Gal. iv. 19.

The life of Jesus Christ in Palestine was a foreshadowing of His life in all who accept Him. G.o.d appointed Him a Saviour, not only because He should bring redemption nigh by a sacrifice which He alone could offer, but because He was also appointed to be the firstborn of many brethren, to be the head of a new family, the beginning--the new Adam--the first of a new line, in which character should cease to be merely human, even though perfect with all human perfections, and should become a union of the human and the Divine; in which, in fact, the body and mind and spirit of man should continue to exhibit the wonder of Christ's Incarnation, and show forth G.o.d clothed with man.

The life of Jesus divides itself quite naturally into several distinct periods, each having its own special characteristics and peculiar history.

There is His birth and infancy; His childhood; His youth; His manhood; His perfected or completed life following Calvary and the Resurrection; and, may we not say, His eternal glory, upon which a few of His disciples saw Him begin to enter in the transcending splendour of the Ascension.

Every one of these phases or sections of His wonderful experience of earth has its continuing lessons for us. All speak aloud to us of His purposes and plans, and reveal to us the power and force of His inner life in the outward or public appearances and acts which belong to each. G.o.d has hidden many things from us--mysteries of nature, of grace, of eternity; but this mystery of G.o.d's relations to men, He has exhausted His resources in order to make plain. Before all else the life of Jesus is a revelation of the mind and methods, the principles and the practices of G.o.d, as they ought to appear, and as they ought to work out, amid the surroundings and limitations of humanity.

It is to the beginnings of that life to which our thoughts turn at this Christmas season. We dwell with affection on the oft-depicted picture, and repeat the oft-repeated words, and join in the old, old Hallelujahs of the shepherds with something of the zest and freshness of a first love. The story is so unlike all others, and touches with such unerring potency chords in the human soul which call it to a higher and n.o.bler life, that, no matter who gazes upon the Babe of Bethlehem, he feels a kins.h.i.+p with all the world in hailing the Desire of all Nations. The manger, the silent companions of the stable, the swaddling clothes--what a touch of human tenderness--_motherliness_, so to speak--is in that line, "and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes"!--the adoring shepherds, the star, the wise men (all thoughts of their wisdom for the moment gone); the gold, the frankincense, the myrrh, the rejoicing and yet trembling mother, the little Child--we see it all. Seeing, we believe; and believing, we rejoice. The Day Star from on High hath visited _us_. We _know_ in whom we have believed. The great condescension is before us. Strength has made itself dependent on weakness, cause upon effect, eternity upon time, G.o.d upon man; and He has done it for our sakes.

The Divine condescension never appears so new and so real to us as when we stand at the side of this lowly cradle. Here are no high-sounding doctrines, no hard words, no terrible commands, no far-off thunders of a new Sinai, no rumblings of a coming Judgment. Here we see Jesus, and Jesus only. Jesus showing Himself in our very own flesh and blood; submitting Himself to the weakness of our infirmities; voluntarily clothing Himself with our ignorance, and making G.o.d the present tangible possession of the whole human family, bringing Him "_very nigh to us, in our mouth and in our heart, if we can but believe_." And, more than this, G.o.d joined in that Babe His great strength to our great nothingness; He bound us to Himself; He robed us, as it were, with Himself, and He robed Himself in us. Henceforth the Tabernacle of G.o.d is with men. Henceforth every one of us may be conscious of an inward Presence, of which we may say in holy joy: "Angels and men before Him fall, and devils fear and fly."

It is this manifestation of Jesus in His people for which the Apostle prays in the words I have quoted, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." Nothing less will satisfy him, because he knew that nothing less will prevail against the power of the world, the flesh, and the Devil, in any human heart. "_Christ formed in you_," Christ born again in them--that is his agonised prayer, his one hope for them.

In the workshops of human effort no instruments, no skill, no motive power exist for the formation and development of character apart from the energising vitality of G.o.d's Spirit dwelling in us. He is the indispensable foundation of any goodness, or wisdom, or beauty that can last. Purity begins and ends in Him. Faith finds her author and finisher in Him. Truth, which is the beauty of the soul, is but a reflection of His image, and love has no being but in Him. And so Paul says, _Let Him in_. Conformity to His example is only possible by the re-formation in you of His life, and the growth again in you of His person; the mind of Christ in your mind, the spirit of Christ in your spirit, the presence of Christ in your flesh and blood; the motive power of Christ, the Father's will, prompting your every thought and word and deed, and thereby transforming your body into a temple of the Son of G.o.d.

And, because, in this unity of purpose with the Father, the Christ of Glory stooped to the infancy and childhood of Nazareth, yielding Himself completely to the bonds and limits inseparable from the life and conditions of a little child, and thinking no humiliation of our nature too deep for His love to tread, _so He will condescend to the lowest depths of weakness and want revealed in your heart and life_. He will meet you where you are. He will deal with you just where you are weakest and worst. This is indeed the key-note of all that G.o.d has to show you. It is your own link in the long chain of patient and ever-new revelations of G.o.d to man.

For what is the history of man, what is the story the Bible has to tell, what is the testimony of all time, but that G.o.d has ever been speaking to man, appearing to man, opening now his eyes, and now his understanding, and now his heart, and making an everlastingly new revelation to the soul that G.o.d in him is his sole hope of glory. And His Christmas-message to-day is still the same. To you, if you are willing, Christ will come as really, as sensibly, as wonderfully--nay, a thousand times more so--as He came to Mary and to Bethlehem. In truth, a second coming; but in many and wonderful ways like unto the first.

I.