Luke 2:15 And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another… You all feel more or less the trials, the mystery of life, its sufferings and its sins. One and One only can alleviate for you those trials, can explain that mystery, can remove that suffering, can heal those sins. Would you understand anything either of this life or of the life beyond? You can only do so by watching the life of your Saviour, by coming to Christ's cradle, by standing behind His cross, by sitting with the deathless angel in His forsaken tomb. Follow Him with the eagle eye of faith, and then you may see the heavens open and Jesus Christ standing on the right hand of God. I ask you, then, for a moment or two to stand with me beside the cradle of your Lord, in the manger at Bethlehem, and catch something of what we there may learn. 1. Some of you are poor. How glad for you, beyond all utterance, should be the meaning of Christmas! Your Lord was, as you are, poor — as poor as any of you. The lot which He chose for His own was your lot. Look at your own little children with love and reverence, for He, too, was the child of the poor. Your rooms, in garret or in cellar, are not more comfortless than that manger at Bethlehem; nor is your labour humbler than His in that shop of the village carpenter at Nazareth. It was to the poor, to the humble, to the ignorant, to those poor shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night, that the heavens flashed forth with angel wings. They were the first to see in that cradle the Blessed Child. Cannot you, in heart or mind, go with them. Let Christ's cradle teach you to respect yourselves, to reverence with a nobler self-esteem the nature which He gave you and took upon Himself, and which, by taking upon Himself, He redeemed. 2. And some are rich. Oh I come ye also to the manger-cradle of your Lord, for rich men did come both to His cradle and to His tomb. From the far East came those three wise men — the "three kings of the East," as they are called — they came, as the rich should come, with the gifts, willing and humble gifts, not doled forth with murmurs as a burden, but lavished as a privilege with delight. First of all they gave, as we all may and must give, themselves — the gold of worthy lives, the frankincense of holy worship, the myrrh of consecrated sorrow. They might have kept their gold and their treasures for their own selfishness, for their own gratification, for the enhancement of their personal luxury, for the enrichment of their sons and daughters. They might have stamped their substance with a vulgar commonplace possession; but do not you think it was happier for them that they made their gifts immortal by offering them at the cradle of their Lord? You may do the very same thing to-day. You may give your gifts at the cradle of your Lord to-day. If you give to one of the least of these your brethren, you give it unto Him. 3. Many of you are sorrowful. So was He. Whatever be the form of your sorrow, and it may be very varied — be it loneliness, or agony of body, or anxiety of mind, or the sorrows inflicted by the vulgarity or baseness of other men — He bore it all, even to the cross. That soft and tender Child by whose cradle we stand to-day, the shadow of His cross falls even on His cradle, the crimson of His sunset flushes even His golden dawn; and, perfected by suffering, He would teach every one of us out of our sorrows to make springs of tenderness and strength and beauty. 4. All of you are sinners; and to you the news of that birth is indeed "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men." While you may see there how much God hates the sin, you may see also how tenderly, how earnestly He loves the sinner. Let us come to this cradle: let the lepers come, and let the outcasts come, and the mourners with their tear-stained cheeks, and the sinners with their broken hearts, and the young man with his selfwill and his strong unconquered passions, and the poor with their struggling lives, and the rich with their many temptations, and let them kneel and drink freely of the waters of Siloam which flow softly, and let them bathe their sick and shivering souls in the golden tide of heaven's beatitude, and stand in the circle of heaven's own free light, undarkened by any shadow; let them escape the errors what, darken the mind, the lusts which destroy the body, the sins which corrupt the soul; and so one and all wish one another a happy Christmas time, as I do from my heart to all of you today. (Archdeacon Farrar.) Parallel Verses KJV: And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. |
    |