Some Christmas Lessons

It is surely most fitting that between the ebbing and the flowing tides of each year, humanity should pause and think upon that great event which wrought such changes in the history of the race,—the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. In all history there is no story of such sublime simplicity as that which tells of the annunciation by the angel, of thoughts' outpouring from the pure virgin heart of Mary the blessed, and of the coming to earth's sense of the song of the heavenly host, with its message of peace and good-will. So inspiring is this story, that we wonder the whole year is not illumined by its grace, and this will surely come to pass when the spiritual conception, the birth, the life and work of Jesus the Christ are not merely believed, but are understood in their scientific relation to all humanity.

In her wonderful, though perhaps but little understood poem, "Christ and Christmas," our Leader says,—

Who can depict the glorious worth
Of that high morn?

Whether generally recognized or no, it is true that no life has been lived, but has been touched by the light which radiated from the Christ character. When in the uttermost depths of sin and misery, the sons of men have felt, though some perchance but momentarily, the uplifting influence of him who said, "I came not to judge the world, but to save the world."

As we read Luke's account of the manifestation of the Divine idea known as Christ Jesus, we may gather some pearls of thought, to be placed with our rarest treasures. One of these is the angel's assurance to Mary: "With God nothing shall be impossible;" and her responsive prayer, "Be it unto me according to thy word;" not according to human opinion, nor according to mortal law, but "according to thy word." Then the words of her song, "My soul doth magnify the Lord." It is the office of spiritual sense to magnify good always, while material sense does just the opposite. It makes material conditions, including all evil, seem very large, and separates God so far from our experiences that many have come to regard Him as we do a great planet which appears like a speck in the heavens because of its distance from the beholder. Thus does God seem to many a weary mortal, and the refrain of much of the world's thought concerning God and the spiritual universe, in this, "Far, far away." When the true conception of God and man comes to us in Christian Science we too hear the sweet words: "Fear not," and when, like the sun in its strength, the Divine presence dispels the shadows of the long night of materiality,—its sin and its sickness,—then we say as did Mary, "My soul doth magnify the Lord,"—God is indeed all.

How many there are who would rejoice to know that angelic visitations have never ceased since the Psalmist said, "He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." Our debt of gratitude to our Leader seems great indeed when we think upon all that comes to us when we read the Bible in the great light of this truth. We see in it that the holy men and women of old communed with angels, a blessing commonly believed to be long denied. Christian Science comes with no uncertain sound to declare that angels are "God's thoughts passing to men; ... the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality" (Science and Health, p. 581). If this were its only message, it would yet be a glorious hope for the race, but Science brings us more, it shows us how that "we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear." It comes also "to give knowledge of salvation," a present salvation, and "To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death."

In the ever-enlarging temple of true spiritual worship are many shrines where we may bend to pray, and many of these are lighted by the holy experiences of the past; but past and present are alike to Love divine.