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In the light of the Son of God becoming flesh, we dare not degrade or defile ourselves. We see how base an apostasy it is to abnegate the Divine prerogative of our being. The birth of Christ becomes to us the pledge of immortality, the inspiration of glad, unerring, life-long duty to ourselves. And no less does it bring home to us the new commandment of love to our brethren. It becomes the main reason why we should love one another. If men were indeed what Satan makes them, and makes us try to believe that they solely are — hopelessly degraded, unimaginably vile; if human life be nothing at the best but the shadow of a passing and miserable dream, I know not how we could love one another. We could only turn with loathing from all the vice and blight, the moral corruption, the manifold baseness of vile, lying, degraded lives. How is all transfigured, how is the poorest wretch earth ever bore transfigured, when we remember that for these Christ became man, for these He died I Shall we, ourselves so weak, so imperfect, so stained with evil, shall we dare to despise these whom Christ so loved that for them — yea, for those blind and impotent men, these publicans and sinners, these ragged prodigals of humanity still voluntarily lingering among the husks and swine — for these, even for these, He, so pure, so perfect, took our nature upon Him, and went, step by step, down all that infinite descent? Despise them? Ah! the revealing light of the God-man shows too much darkness in ourselves to leave any possibility for pride. If we have learnt the lesson of Christmas, the lesson of Bethlehem, let us live to counteract the works of the devil; let it be the one aim of our lives to love and not to hate; to help, not to hinder; to succour them that are tempted, not to add to and multiply their temptations; to make men better, not worse; to make life a little happier, not more deeply miserable; to speak kindly words, not words that may do hurt; to console and to encourage, not to blister and envenom with slanderous lies; to live for others, not for ourselves; to look each of us not on his own things, but on the things of others; to think noble thoughts of man as well as of God; to be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ has forgiven us.

(Archdeacon Farrar.)

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KJV: For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

WEB: For there is born to you, this day, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.