Editorial December 20, 1930 Issue

The Nativity

Clifford P. Smith

For about eight centuries before the birth of Jesus, the people Israel had been subjected to conquest, dispersion, exile, or tyranny by one despotic power after another—Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Macedonia, Egypt, Syria, Rome. During this long time, subjection had been relieved only by comparatively short intervals of actual independence. The callous rule of Rome over Palestine had begun about sixty years before the Nativity, and seemed likely to be permanent. The Jews there and elsewhere had ceased to hope that their national and religious aspirations could be realized in any ordinary or usual way. Those who continued loyal to the God of Israel had no other hope for their nation and religion than through the coming of the prophesied Messiah or Saviour. Hence, the most devout girl or woman among this loyal remnant may have hoped and prayed that she might be the mother of him who should come divinely anointed for the Messianic work.

The foregoing paragraph is intended as a preface to the reading of Luke 1:26—56; 2:1—40, where the birth of Jesus is related in terms which are at once beautiful, explanatory, and deeply impressive.

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 581), Mrs. Eddy has defined "angels" as "God's thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality." This definition elucidates the first of the above-cited passages from Luke. Even more explanatory is the half page or more extending from line 14 on page 29 of the same book, from which the following excerpts are taken: "The illumination of Mary's spiritual sense put to silence material law and its order of generation, and brought forth her child by the revelation of Truth, demonstrating God as the Father of men. ... Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self-conscious communion with God."

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