12/14/52

Scripture - John 1: 1-18; R.S.V.

Text - John 1: 14; "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father." R.S.V.

There are some tremendously satisfying aspects in the foreign mission service of the Christian churches. Those who have never known the good news of Christ have their eyes opened to spiritual freedom and responsibility under God. Many are helped to find new ways of living together, and earning their daily bread (so desperately essential to the majority of the earth’s people) in Christian enlightenment.

But missionary service has its hard spots. To present the Christian gospel in proper, acceptable form without having it unduly bound up with the national culture of the country from which the missionary comes is a major testing. The missionary may be unconscious of the degree to which he seems to represent his own country - whether England, Holland, Canada, Germany or the United States - rather than the universal good news of Christ’s coming to all peoples in their own country and civilization.

One consideration that is definitely hard for missionary families is the necessity of separation from their children, early and long, during the education of the young folk. Often the boys and girls of a missionary home must have part of their education in the home with mother, and occasionally father, as teacher. Then they may have early, to be sent away from home to boarding school. When it comes time for advanced education, the children of American missionaries are usually sent great distances back to the colleges of the United States.

Being used to the customs, dress, expression and ideas of people with whom they grew up abroad, they are soon sensitive to the differences they find in American life. Some are quickly and successfully adjusted to the people and surroundings they find at college. Others find it hard at first to fit in. For most of them, it means at least four years of uninterrupted separation from parents and family who stay at work on the mission field.

One such missionary son who came to America for his advanced education was particularly lonely for his father. He kept his dad’s picture over his desk and looked at it often. Shortly before Christmas, one of his teachers visited him in his room; and they had a fine chat together. During their conversation the teacher asked the missionary’s son what he wanted most for Christmas. The student turned toward the picture over his desk and said, "I want my father to step down out of that frame into this room."

It is no exaggeration to say that, throughout history, mankind has had a similar longing that God might reveal Himself to human understanding.

A benediction, used repeatedly in Jewish worship, voiced this longing in these words: "Blessed are Thou, O Lord our God and the God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, the great, mighty and revered God, the most revered God, who bestowest loving kindness and possesseth all things, who rememberest the Patriarchs, and in love wilt bring a redeemer to their children’s children for thy name’s sake."

For Christians, Christmas celebrates the fulfillment of that hope. The Gospel writer, John, confirms the realization of this hope when he says, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

Christmas is at hand for another year. We are filled with its hurry and excitement, its secrets and gifts and greetings, its festive and holiday significance. We are also exhorted to be sure to "put Christ back in Christmas;" and the community sing next Sunday afternoon is annually heralded as one way of doing it.

The chief cause for rejoicing at Christmas time should be that God, the Great and Mighty God, the Infinite and Awful, God the Creator, revered of His creatures, has become the known God; the loving and loved Father who seeks His own.

And this tremendous truth is incarnate -- embodied -- in a person, Jesus of Nazareth, born at Bethlehem during a trip taken by his earthly household, and become our Christ and our salvation.

A man of Jewish ancestry and faith became interested in Christianity. Somewhat dissatisfied with the faith of his father, and of inquiring mind toward this faith of his Christian friends, he attended services in a Christian church and sought out the minister. During several conferences, no particular progress was made. Then he came again one evening, by appointment. When he arrived at the minister’s study he said flatly: "Tonight I decide one way or the other. When I walk out the door, I will either have decided to become a Christian or will close my door on Christianity forever."

During the conversation that followed, the inquirer seemed little convinced until the minister declared: "Christianity is not simply the acceptance of a set of ideals and teachings -- it is surrender to a person." The Jewish man was almost startled, and exclaimed, "That idea appeals to me." Before the interview had ended, he had decided to become a Christian and to join the church of Christ.

The church has its greatest appeal when it is fully aware that Christ is its center. We are easily distracted from this recognition. Most of us are born into homes which belong to the Christian household of faith. We accept the Christmas observance with such familiarity that we thrill but lightly to the idea of God becoming known to us. It was not so with Simeon, who, having seen the Christ-child brought to the temple, felt that he could depart his aging life in peace, having seen the fulfillment of a soul’s hope and the beginning of a new era in man’s experience with God. It was no matter-of-fact news to him. [Luke 2: 21-35].

The world, since the first Christmas, has been a changed world. For all its heartache, wars and deep wrongs, this is a better world with Christ than it was without him.

An Englishman was passing through a mill town at night. Through the train window, he could see sparks shooting up into the sky from the factory chimneys. He fell to meditation on that sight. He said later that those flying sparks were evidence to him of titanic furnaces hidden from his sight. More than evidence, they were tiny samples from which he could deduce something of the nature of the fire beneath.

So do the luminous personalities of the race show us something of the nature of Reality hidden behind the material universe -- a Shakespeare, a Schweitzer, an Einstein, a Kagawa or a Curie.

And among the sparks is one like the brilliance of the morning star -- the personality of Jesus Christ.

God’s mercy dawned on the consciousness of mankind with the coming of Christ. In Christ we have the evidence that God takes the initiative. Not only do we long for God, as did the ancients, but we now see, in Christ, God coming to us.

Theology is a valuable study for systematic Christian minds. But one does not need to be a theologian to know that Christ’s coming has made a difference for our present life.

In 1928, during battles between the then-powerful war lords of China, The English preacher Maude Royden heard of the dreadful sufferings of wounded Chinese soldiers. Brought back from battlefields they were laid out on a station platform and left there through a cruelly cold autumn night. Many of them were found dead in the morning. But by then, others were removed to hospitals.

Miss Royden asked who took pity on the wounded soldiers at last. She was told that it was a philanthropic Buddhist society. Her face must have fallen a little, for her Chinese informer, seeming to read her feelings, said: "You wish it had been a Christian society?" Miss Royden admitted that she did so wish. He said, "You needn’t mind - it is only the impact of Christian teaching on Chinese life that has created a Buddhist philanthropic society at all."

And what an astounding difference has been made in the position of human dignity! Was it not Lowell who said that if anyone could find a place ten square miles on this earth where (1) womanhood was honored and highest concepts of (2) justice and (3) love cherished and yet the place could be proved not to have been influenced by Christ, he would abandon his faith.

In our time of wars and rumors of war, cold, hot or any kind, the Christmas observance, with angelic announcement of peace, may seem incongruous.

But let us not confuse security with peace. Actually, security is the one thing we can’t have. Our Lord didn’t find it, either. But the incarnation did bring peace to the inward man, peace to the hearts of folk who lived in a very insecure time, peace to those who became followers of Christ, who have the assurance that God not only rules the world but that Christ revealed God’s love and compassion on his children in the world.

One more thing needs to be said, and remembered, as we recognize the fulfillment of the ancient hope in the coming of Christ. And this is that his coming into the life of the earth is permanent. Jesus himself said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away."

What happened on the first Christmas needs to be associated with what followed, right through the passion, crucifixion and resurrection of the same Lord. You may have read, as I have, of one church that keeps the trunk of its Christmas tree each year as a symbolic reminder , and at Easter time fashions a cross of it -- remembering that the giving of God at Christmas, and the supreme giving of his Son at Easter are inseparably connected.

We cannot do better at Christmas than to re-commit our lives to the Savior whose birth we sing, and whose wholeness is given for us.

For in his coming, it is as though God stepped down out of our "picture-frame" ideas of Him, and walks into the rooms where we are, to give us the peace of His living presence. And, despite all the turmoil around us and over us, we are able to say "with Him, all is now well with us."

------------

Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, December 14, 1952

Wisconsin Rapids, December 4, 1955