"And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger; because there was no room for Him in the inn."— Luke II., 7.
"His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eye were as a flame of fire; and His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and His voice as the sound of many waters. Rev. i., 14. 15.
These two passages mark respectively the beginning and the end of the story which the New Testament has to tell about Jesus. At first sight one would hardly recognise them as belonging to the same story at all; they breathe such different notes. A little child lying in a manger because the eastern inn could find no room for His mother at her critical hour, and a mystic picture of One who has power written on brow and feet and eyes and lips, what possible similarity is there between the two portrayals? There seems to be no connecting link between them, and yet there is one very obvious connection. They are linked together in fact. Apart altogether from any explanations which may be offered men's minds did travel this incredible distance in relation to Jesus. Some who were already living when He was born did, before they died, think about Him after the manner of this book of Revelation. The sweep of thought between these two extreme points which carries the mind so far did not take long to accomplish. When the minds of men are in contact with Jesus they have to travel fast and far, and so it comes to pass that the book which tells us about Him commences with a world which can find no room for Him and closed with a heaven which He fills with His presence.
It is well to remember that the distance which men's minds travelled about this great matter was a natural one. They were led easily and inevitably from stage to stage. It was not that a coterie of designing theologians forced the later view upon reluctant minds. Sometimes we are apt to think that such was the case and to regard the later conceptions of the New Testament as perversions of an original simplicity. But the explanation will not fit in with the facts. No cold hands forced the glowing human facts into the hard and set mould of an iron theology. The process was a natural one. It was the feet of love which took every step of this long journey. The creeds arose not as a coldly intellectual design, but as a song sung by passionate hearts. That is the spirit of the story whatever explanations we have to offer about it.
The first picture conveys all the romance of the Christmas spirit. For centuries the imagination of the world has played about that manger in the courtyard of an eastern inn with the shepherds in the fields near by. Around that theme all our carols have been written, art has dwelt upon the scene and legend has surrounded it. The very facts have, the nature of poetry about them, the kind of poetry which softens the hearts of men. Yet even here the beauty of the Christmas stories springs from a very deep source. There is a great creed for example, implicit in such a lovely song as Francis Thompson's 'Little Jesus'—
Little Jesus, wast Thou shy
Once, and just as small as I?
And what did it feel like to be
Out of Heaven and just like me?
Didst Thou sometimes think of there,
And ask where all the angels were?
I should think that I would cry
For my house all made of sky:
I would look about the air
And wonder where my angels were:
And at waking 'twould distress me -
Not an angel there to dress me!
No song like that could be written except with a great creed in the background of the mind. But it is in the background, and the note of our carols and poems is the human note, the picture of weakness and helplessness, the conditions of our human lot, the strange romance of it, the mysterious blendings, the beauty which is always near to the elemental facts of life. Then as the story continues the same thing is true, the facts are near enough to our experience — the growing boy, the first conflict between independence and parental wishes, the carpenter's shop, the slow way in which knowledge accumulates and truth is learned. That is the first chapter in the story, and its note is the familiar and the human one.
But what a world of difference when we turn from the first to the last chapter. What relationship can we find between the child of Bethlehem and this mystic figure, standing among, golden candlesticks, with hair as white as snow and feet like burnished brass and eyes of fire and a voice like the music of falling waters? The one picture expresses the weakness of the human lot; and the other a power which is divine. Yet there is at least a similarity between the two, that both have the spirit of poetry in them. Every feature in the wonderful description is closely related to some discovery which men made about Jesus as they walked the earth in His company. Just as in the simple story of the early days there is a great divine background, so in these later ideas which sometimes seem remote from the Jesus of the Gospels there is a human background. Does not the hair white as snow express men's feelings that Jesus cannot be understood unless the mind goes very far back in time? Are not the feet of fine brass a symbol of the tireless and swift journeyings of Jove which Jesus took at the bidding of human need? Are not the eyes like a flame of fire pictured memories of a look which, was sometimes like a tender light and sometimes like a blaze, and the voice the the sound of many waters, the recalled music of His speech? It is all natural and human if you will see in this picture the work of memory, painting the figure of a heavenly Christ after the fashion in which He was seen when He moved among men.
These, then, are the two extremes of thought in relation to Jesus which we find in the New Testament. We start at the lowliest cradle of which it is possible to think, and we finish with a greater throne than man can imagine. And now I come back to the spirit of the story, and the first thing to say about it is that even putting it on the plane of a story it is the most wonderful in the world. But truth is proverbially stranger than fiction, and the way in which man's dreams are realised is never the anticipated path. You can see, for example, in the Old Testament, and especially in the later books, it that religion was more and more focusing itself on a great anticipation. You can feel that what everyone is trying to say is 'Something is going to happen,' 'Some-one is coming.' It was as if all the old inspirations had become exhausted, and that something more must happen if the world was to go on at all. When that feeling is widespread something, always does happen. No need, if the need is deep enough, is left for long unfulfilled. Expectation may sometimes build castles in the air but as often it builds roads along which the real can travel. But while the expectation of Christ's coming was preparing the actual way for Him no one imagined He would come in the guise He did. They thought He would appear full grown, prepared for His work, or if He came as a child it would be in princely fashion, where childhood is not quite the same. When He came, however, it was to be the simple, human story of growth through weakness to strength; the making of a place, rather than finding it ready, and waiting. No one could have dreamed He would have come as He did come. Anticipation would never have seen the significance of it, only retrospect can do that. But while the beginning was lowlier than man could conceive, the end was loftier than man could picture. Not one of the prophetic forecasts saw a Christ like the Christ of revelation. They fell below the level of the truth which unfolded itself step by step until it reached this incredible height.
But now taking the two extremes, the lowly beginning and the exalted climax what message have they for us? I should like to describe it as the importance of keeping the connections. What do I mean by that? The thought is very simple and straightforward. When we are thinking of the human life, of the way in which Christ came into the world, and of the unfolding incidents of His youth, and His later ministry, we only see it partially and imperfectly unless there is somewhere in our minds a sense of the divine meaning of it — that these facts do not merely form one little isolated romance of beauty, but that they spring out of the purpose and the love of God and breathe a note which is as true to-day as when the stars looked down on the fields of Bethlehem. The reverse is just as true. When we have before our minds these pictures of a Christ who is enthroned in heaven, majestic and awful the Saviour and the Judge of men, we are set upon false tracks at once, unless all the time we see the connection between those pictures and the human story. The images may be different, but Christ does not change with our changing thoughts, and He is the same whether earth or heaven be the stage He walks.
That is what I mean then, by keeping the connections. Perhaps the most common danger from which the Christian faith has suffered is that men have tended to isolate one part of the story from another. We think of the two extremes as though they were contradictories. One age loses the sense of the human values, its Christ is shorn of all the qualities that made Him what He was. He is a theological figment in the centre of a vast scheme, splendid perhaps but not recognisable as having any relationship with the Christ of Nazareth and Galilee.
Perhaps in our time we are at the other extreme, or at least most of us are. We can see the breadth of Christ's human sympathies, our hearts respond at once to that part of the story, but for the rest we are not sure that we can turn with any confidence in Him to-day. Instead of being lost in the machinery of a theological scheme, He is lost in centuries old, and our modern cry is that of Palgrave's Verse:—
Comes faint and far Thy voice
From vales of Galilee.
Thy vision fades in ancient shades,
How can we follow Thee?
Now in both these cases what has happened is that the connections have been lost or obscured. There is a way of losing Christ among the divinities as history proves, and He has to be disentangled from great conceptions and rediscovered, and the story has to learned all over again. But there is another Way of losing him and that is among the humanities, idealising Him as a figure among His fellows but losing all grasp of Him as a living presence now. Then again He has to be rediscovered, but in another way, the other way of the journey has to be taken until the conviction is born that beyond the veil of things seen there is One who still has fire in His eyes and swift feet and lips of unsilenced music.
This is the Advent message which comes to our hopes and needs. It is of little help for us to sing that Christ came in the days of old until we have dared to make the connection between His cradle and His throne. In the old days men's hearts sang the song of expectation that Christ was coming, but when He did come they, did not recognise Him. It is equally possible to sing that Christ has come, and still to have eyes that are blind to Him in the world of the present. This whole spirit and inspiration of our faith depends upon making the connection, so that we neither lose Christ amid the clouds nor among the centuries, but on the firm basis of history build our confidence that Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever."
Oh! sense bound heart and blind,
Is nought but what we see?
Can time undo what once was true?
Can we not follow Thee?