Article December 25, 1948 Issue

OF WHAT DOES THE CHRIST SPEAK?

[Of Special Interest to Young People]

RACHEL M. PRATT

The first Christmas was completely unworldly. So spiritually keen was their discernment that the shepherds watching over their flock by night perceived God's glory shining round about them; so still were their thoughts that they heard the angel message, "Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people;" and then the angelic host saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." It was their spirituality—their recognition of spiritual values—that enabled them to observe this first Christmas, for Luke tells us that "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" (Luke 2:10, 14, 15).

The shepherds brought no material gifts to the babe. Yet their reverence, their faith in his mission, their glimpsing of the universal, saving nature of the Christ, were perhaps the greatest gifts, causing them to make known abroad that unto them that day was born "in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Their gift made the spiritually-minded Mary ponder.

We may be tempted to think that the world today is farther away than ever from the spirit of this first Christmas. But is it? Are we not sharply aware of the incongruity of conflict of any kind on this day? Do not commercialism and materiality jar our sensibilities? And, on the other hand, do we not respond and see others respond to the spirit of good will and joy which generally pervades the atmosphere at the Christmas season? If the answer is "yes" to all these questions, then we have proof in ourselves of the fulfillment of Christ Jesus' own prophecy (Matt. 24:35), "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." He could make that startling statement and utter those wonderfully comforting words (Matt. 28:20), "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world," because he knew the Christ, the divinity which he expressed, to be the true spiritual idea, ever present to save men by revealing to them man's immortal nature.

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OF WHAT DOES THE CHRIST SPEAK?

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