Advent in 1945 12/16/45
Scripture: Luke 1: 46-55
The lovely Christmas season approaches again! The music of the Christmas carols is in the air and, via radio, “on the air.” People look forward expectantly to the Christmas service in their churches. Children prepare for their part in the Christmas programs and pageantry. Choirs rehearse Christmas anthems.
People remember their friends with joyful Christmas greetings. Gifts are prepared for loved ones. The scent of the evergreen appears in houses; wreathes and candles show in the windows; festive, colored lights give the whole community a gay appearance. It is a glad season!
It is a happy time because it is a holiday, and we love festivities. Vacation brings home many of our young people; gives the school children a recess; assembles whole families. And that is truly good.
Christmas is a happy time because it is a holy day. Above all else, it is the birthday of our Lord! It is his day! Christians every year reenact the homage paid to a babe at Bethlehem. Their rejoicing, at his coming to earth, is so great that others catch the spirit too.
Have you heard of the mother who was concerned that her little daughter catch the true meaning of Christmas? The child knew that Christmas is Jesus’ birthday. And so, in her play, she prepared an imaginary birthday party with all the realistic imagination characteristic of a normal child. Her mother was surprised and a bit disappointed, however, when the little tot started to sing,
“Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you.
But the little voice continued,
Happy birthday, dear Jesus,
Happy birthday to you.”
Perhaps she had a right idea of Christmas, after all, even though she was singing “Happy birthday” rather than “Away in a Manger.”
In this season that leads up to Christmas; “Advent,” as it is called; our thoughts turn to the Scriptural accounts that lead up to the Nativity. We read of the annunciation to Mary that she is to become the mother of a great and marvelous child to be named “Jesus.” We read that Joseph was aware of his young wife’s destiny. We read that an older cousin of Mary, Elisabeth, is to bear a son named John; that Mary went to visit her, and that they rejoiced together.
And then we read that lovely “Magnificat” of Mary which I read as a Scripture lesson this morning. She rejoices in God - in his strength, in his generosity, in his justice; and in his commission for her.
Between this Magnificat of Mary and the stories of Jesus’ birth, there is only one account - that of the birth of John the Baptist, son of Elisabeth. It is good to review the story, just as it will be good to read again the story of Jesus’ birth next week. For this is the advent season. Jesus is coming to the world - has come again and again, always in such simplicity that the world hardly knows how to receive him.
The Christ has come with a plan for splendid, peaceful living. Angels’ voices announced him with the words, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among men of good will.”
When he was grown, this Lord of the humble, sincere spirit, announced his plan in the simple sincere terms of the Scriptures already known to his people. Last Sunday I reviewed an opening incident of his ministry, in which he stood up, by invitation, to read the Scripture in his home church, and read from the prophet Isaiah: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to captives, and the recovery of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” [Luke 4: 18-21]. And then he told his home folk, quite simply, that he intended to fulfill that Scripture in his own living.
It was his purpose, his plan; and George Parker calls it the “Nazareth Plan.”
We might note that it is a Plan not alone for a new world order; but a new business order, a new family order, a new personal order; a new order of simple righteous living.
Preamble to the plan is this: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he hath anointed me” (or better in a modern translation) “he hath consecrated me.” That makes this plan different from all others. It is not just a plan of men. It is a divine plan, to be put into effect by consecrated people. The Christian approaches his task, whatever it be, with a sense of consecration and dedication. Looking about him and seeing the wreckage resulting from man’s so-called wisdom, sensing his own shortcomings and selfishness, he turns to God for guidance and leadership. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth” through me. The “Nazareth plan” begins in humility, in dedication, and with passionate faith in the righteousness of God.
Our time cries out for prophets and people of divine righteousness. We have been so intent in our concentration on the prosecution of warfare, and so relieved at its general termination, that we are hardly half awake to the awful realities we face now, and in the immediate future.
Hundreds of thousands are chilled and starving to death. Can we ignore them - the living - while we live in the past through investtigations and trials for war crimes? Justice demands the latter, but the very continuance of our civilization demands consecrated attention to the fair needs of the living.
Article I of the Nazareth plan: “To preach the gospel to the poor.” What could be more modern than that? It is as modern as the National collection of clothing; as modern as giving through the committee for War Victims and Reconstruction. “The poor ye have always with you” - certainly we have, vividly, and tragically, today.
What, as American people, are we doing at this moment, to preach the gospel to the poor? Not enough. The greatest producing nation on earth is tied up in arguments over who is going to get how much for what is made, while the goods that could relieve suffering, and produce more goods to relieve suffering comes out only in a trickle of what is possible. While we are concerned with our profits, our wages, our prosperity, our standard of living, the poor of the world continue to starve, to shiver and to perish.
Believe me, if our democratic civilization is not moved by Christian idealism and enthusiasm, it is going to be superseded by something else, ruthless and fanatical and dictatorial! Or else the whole order will be wiped out.
As for the church - our church - our first concern involves compassion for the needy, the homeless, the poor. If we ever forget them, in our concern for our own inner affairs, we are no longer a Christian church. If our heart continues to beat, it is in the loving compassion of Christ for others.
Now when Jesus set forth the Nazareth Plan, he was not so shortsighted as to talk only of poor clothes, poor homes, poor food. He was talking about the spiritual causes of poverty. He was concerned with poverty of spirit whether it existed in tenements or in our beautiful comfortable homes.
Those who try to live by bread alone may not even have bread!
We can’t get by in God’s moral order with growling and fighting over the bones of material things.
Perhaps you have read that a delegation of four Christian leaders recently visited Japan and Korea. The delegation was headed by Douglas Horton, minister of the General Council or our own church. They were gone 4 weeks, spending 23 days in Japan. They went at the invitation of occupation authorities. They came back warm in their praise of General McArthur’s purposes and general policies. Most enlightening of all was their Christian fellowship with Japanese Christians. When Japanese Christians heard that they were coming, the first thing they planned was a communion service. No bread was available, so they used Army rations. And the preciousness of that act of fellowship and consecration exceeded all hopes of either party.
The delegation came back convinced that starvation now exists in parts of Japan. And that it may become far worse toward spring as rice stocks are exhausted. But did Japanese Christians ask for help in getting rice? They did say that they wanted nothing for themselves, as Japanese Christians, which would not be available to all Japanese. They did say that they did not feel ready to rebuild their destroyed church buildings until the people could build homes. And Kagawa said this, when asked what Americans can do to help Japan most now: “We need your prayers, Bibles and missionaries.” Now I’m no worshipper of Kagawa or other Japanese Christians. And I don’t believe they are of American Christians. But I think there is some evidence that the Christians of both lands may worship God sufficiently to be willing to preach the gospel to the poor both with bread and with the bread of life.
Incidentally, steps are already being taken to send hundreds of thousands of Bibles, hymnals and other pieces of Christian literature to Japan. The American Bible Society will send, as soon as possible, 100,000 New Testaments in English, which the Japanese have requested. 45,000 New Testaments and gospel portions in Japanese, are also ready.
The Nazareth Plan begins with the spirit of the gospel toward the poor, at home and abroad - everywhere.
Article II of the plan: To heal the broken hearted. They are everywhere - even exceeding the number of the poor!
In the midst of a dramatic speech, Winston Churchill suddenly stopped, and as if in lonely soliloquy, said: “We have lived through the age of the greatest weight of sorrow and suffering in all the history of mankind.” Then he abruptly pulled himself back to the business of reporting on military successes to Commons.
There has been no time or space for healing the broken-hearted. But the deepest need of men and women today is a faith that can conquer sorrow and suffering and heal the weight of heartbreak that covers the earth with tears and blood.
The Nazareth Plan begins with compassionate consideration for individual men and women. Many of the plans for a new world look very well indeed on paper. They would work well if peoples’ hearts were changed and if people were taught to want these new plans. The author of the Nazareth plan thought first of the hearts of individual people. They are the foundation from which any true new order of life at home, in business, or in the nation, arises.
Article III: “To preach deliverance to captives.” How 3 million men of France, returning from captivity, have clogged the roads as they went home! What joy there is in individual American homes over the return of every captive delivered from the prisons of war! No idle words clipped the barbed wire; no walls of stone were taken down by complacent sermons; cells were not unlocked by speeches. But the sinews of preaching are in deeds. Words, if they are worthy, but inspire the deeds.
But what is the most deadly captivity of our time? What has produced most of the very stockades and concentrations camps? Is it not the enslavement of the false and vicious creeds of our - of nazism and fascism, of exalted nationalism, of horrible racialism?
It is only the Nazareth Plan which can deliver us from these captivities. This plan brings forward the doctrine of the brotherhood of men. It brands racialism as a lie with the words: “God hath made of one blood all nations.” [Acts 17: 26]. It dares the master people with the formula that true greatness is in humble service of one another.
Article IV of the Nazareth Plan: “Recovery of sight to the blind.” We are gladdened by reports in books and magazines, which abundantly illustrate this article; pictures of men blinded in battle, now learning to walk and work and play; accounts of the new “eye bank” with tissue for damaged eyes.
But Jesus’ real business was with spiritual blindness. So is our most serious blindness today spiritual blindness. People have been blinded by hatred, poisoned so that they could no longer see aright. Men have been blinded to the interconnection of all people everywhere, and the fact that we all arise or fall together - never separately. “We are members one of another.” Only when we realize that, are our eyes opened and can our spiritual sight be restored.
The president of a great scientific company has said a while ago that: “We have passed into an era where we are more dependent on each other than ever before - an era in which none of us can live comfortably or securely unless all do.” We are not seeing unless we understand vividly that neither safety nor progress can now be had alone. We will walk right over the brim of the pit in piteous blindness, unless we understand that we must, of our own wills, adopt practical ways of living with each other!
Article V: “To set at liberty them that are bruised.” A modern translation of the same words reads: “To give freedom to the oppressed.” How we can picture that! Men dying on battlefields; conferences on the high seas and in far away lands; guerrillas blowing a bridge behind an enemy retreat; bombers racing through flack; all to pull off the heel of the oppressor. Freedom! But the Nazareth Plan advocates something deeper; that freedom can be used rightly only when accepted as something that God has loaned us to be used wisely and well. It cannot be an absolute possession.
Article VI of the Nazareth plan: “To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” There is no modern picture of this as there was in the experience of Jesus’ day. At that time there was a practice in Palestine that every 7 years debts would be forgiven, grudges forgotten and a new start made. You can readily see the possibilities to the mind of the crooked legalist as well as to the minds of those who were sincere. Spiritually it could be made something very good indeed.
In a sense that is what we are praying for now - an opportunity to begin again! This beginning can come in not other way than in the spirit of Christ! He is the first and the last. He is the beginning and the ending. His is the only plan that can work permanently, because it is right and spiritually sound.
This is still the gospel, the good news to all the world:
The spirit of the Lord is upon me,
For he hath anointed me
To preach the gospel to the poor,
He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted,
To preach deliverance to the captives,
And the recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
This is what Advent and the birth of Christ Jesus brought to the world. Let Christian men and women rally the Plan with all their devotion. We must! It, alone, is our hope!
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Dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, December 16, 1945