Article December 23, 1967 Issue

The Humility of Christ's Appearing

RONALD GRAY WALKER

The circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus of Nazareth have long touched the heart and stirred the imagination of the Christian world. Christ, the Son of God, who was destined to bring salvation to the world for all time, appeared to human sense in the form of a child born in a stable in a remote, hilly village in Judea. This humble advent holds practical meaning for us today.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, describes the spiritual significance of this wondrous event in these words in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "So shone the pale star to the prophet-shepherds; yet it traversed the night, and came where, in cradled obscurity, lay the Bethlehem babe, the human herald of Christ, Truth, who would make plain to benighted understanding the way of salvation through Christ Jesus, till across a night of error should dawn the morning beams and shine the guiding star of being."^{Science and Health, Pref., p. vii;}

The birth of Jesus fulfilled Scriptural prophecy. For centuries Christ had been eagerly awaited. But many were unable to pierce the veil of material sense to understand the meaning of spiritual power and leadership. They had clothed their vision of the coming Messiah in a manner befitting an earthly potentate. They were unprepared for Christ, which appeared, not in accordance with human preconceptions, but unseen to the world and "in cradled obscurity."

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