God So Loved The  World                                                   12/12/48

 

Scripture:  Matthew 2: 1-8;  John 3: 14-17.

 

Text:  Matthew 2: 1;  “...behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.”

 

How lovely are the Christmas stories!  We quicken to them as their season comes each year.  The familiar references to shepherds and wise men, mother and child, Joseph and the inn-keeper, angels and despots, are as exhilarating as a yearly return to a favorite spot.  As Matthew tells it, the story of the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem begins with the coming of wise men from the east to seek, see and worship this new-born babe.

 

We are all familiar, too, with the famous passage from John’s gospel, sung by the choir this morning and read from the Scriptures:  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  These words are the first that I ever memorized from the Bible.

 

The visit of wise men from the east dramatizes this passage.  The coming of these kingly Magi from distant eastern lands is a demonstration of the truth that the Christ came to all people and that God is interested alike in all persons.  His beloved son was sent to mortal earth that whosoever might believe on him should be saved to immortality.

 

Whatever you choose to emphasize, when reading John 3: 16 & 17, you will note that it is to the world that God sent his Son.  It is the world that God loves --- not just you and me, or our community, or our race, but the whole world of people.  The story of the coming of these wise men to Bethlehem underlines the truth:  God loves the world.

 

The wise men came of their own wish and for their own information.  But they symbolize every race and creed and condition.  For they were foreigners -- different; they were not of Jesus’ creed or nationality or social level.  They were not Jews or Palestinians or humble craftsmen.  Who knows their religion, or their nationality, or their color?  But Christ had come for those men from distant places and differing circumstances as well as for those who felt themselves God’s chosen people.  All people have the same blessed opportunity of receiving his love.  To everyone goes the joyous news of his birth, his teaching, his sacrifice, his love.

 

Nothing is more splendid in the whole Bible record.  Nor is there anything that we need more repeatedly impressed upon us than this glorious truth.  The Jews of Jesus’ day were not generally aware of the universality of God’s love and grace.  Though they knew so much of God’s grace as to feel themselves his special people, they were not the only ones capable of receiving the blessings of God.  To a chosen people was given the opportunity of being servants of a world-wide message.  But the lesson was unheeded, and the words of the prophets were forgotten.  Many Israelites despised all others.  Gentiles were not permitted in Hebrew worship.  One who was not a Jew had little chance among them.  How like the Jews of 2000 years ago are some of us modern people today!

 

But Jesus came!  As a little child, he appeared in Bethlehem.  Into the midst of a favored people he came, and his own received him not.  The wise men, “contemptible gentiles” from the east, in whose learned halls he had not been born, came to him and fell down before his manger and worshipped.

 

How often have you thought, as I have, that most of the sins we commit are sins of omission?  The things that we do not do weigh so heavily against us -- failure to show affection and love to others who could be lifted to joy and hope by something so simple; failure to heal the carelessness that causes misunderstanding and hurt; neglect of the opportunity to say or do something that will strengthen and comfort.

 

There is no place in our faith for omitting the service of love.  There is no reason for withholding mercy.  When those wise men came from the east, their presence became a testimony that the Christ-child had come for Jew and for Gentile alike, for Greek and Hebrew and Roman alike, for slave and prince, for the Peters and the Johns and even the Judases alike.

 

Let none of us remain indifferent to this great light that shone over the fields of the shepherds, and in the souls of faithful then, and that shines in the darkness of 1948 as well.  In a world where the same human bitterness and anguish, the same arrogance and pride exist as they existed 2000 years ago; in a world where material considerations overshadow considerations of purpose and human worth; in a world where moral practice too often skates along the edge of the thinnest ice; we need the constant reminder that God’s Son came to earth - our world - to call people to repentance, to goodness, to the salvation, freely given of God, for those who prepare themselves for his purposes. 

 

We ought not to judge men so much by what they have been and are as by what they can become through the love of God.

 

Where shall we look for the light that shone over Bethlehem?  I wonder how many little children -- and “children” not so little! --- scan the sky each Christmastide to see if they can tell which of the stars is the one that shone over Bethlehem!  There is a star which can be the guide of the wise men and shepherds of our time; of the inn-keepers and the rulers, and of the anxious and the miserable and the hopeful folk of today.  It is in the Bible.

 

We are made aware of its light by the reminder that today, December 12th, is Universal Bible Sunday this year.  The place to look for the light of God is in the library of books that have come to be known as the Word of God.  “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”  [Psalm 119: 105].  It is worth a faithful search, like the search of the wise men who took the time and trouble to look for the truth.

 

I do not mean to  say that we can, by our effort, lay hold on the saving grace of God, -- the peace that passes all understanding.  “Men are healed, not by their own struggles for integrity or by mystical rapture, but by the truthful acceptance of what is done for them by God.”  [Nichols].  God is frustrated by the hardness of people, the doors we keep closed to him and his Christ.  But God comes to those who, by their sincerity and their searching, are ready for his grace.  The Bible is the treasure of that grace.  It is full of the fruits of peace and love and joy.  It is full of warnings and judgment of the ways of mankind.  It is full of the glory of the Eternal.  It is as much a guiding light for us as was the star for the wise men.  And we can return to it as often as we will for more light!

 

We commit another sin of omission when we neglect to return to its pages with mind open and alert, with courage to follow its light, with spirit ready to be led.  To follow its light may mean doing some things we had never thought of doing -- didn’t suppose we could do.  That is the kind of change that has come over the life of many a man or woman who searched for the light and was given more than he or she had ever dreamed of.

 

Once having given ourselves to the light, we find ourselves in a broader company than we had known.  My mother, all her life a member of the Methodist church, has frequently said that she finds the finest sense of Christian fellowship among the delegates and ministers and missionaries, the men and the women, who gather for a few days at the annual conference of the church in her state.  They not only know how to struggle but to laugh, not only how to laugh but how to worship.  They know the tremendous addition that God can give to life that is dedicated to his purposes.

 

A man in another state told me this past week of his experience as a member of the American occupation force in Japan. He made a point of going to a Japanese Christian church.  He didn’t understand the language, but he very quickly understood the spirit of worship and of fellowship.  And he was delighted to find that they sang the hymns, in their tongue, that he had sung in his tongue from childhood.

 

It is by looking for the light, and following its guidance, that the love of God is born in our hearts.  The Christ goes where his righteous purposes are; not where we think we want to put him.  By searching for his light, and following it when we see it, we find where he is.  If he is in a manger, his presence can bring new joy.  If he is moving through the crowd, the touch of his hem can bring healing to the sick soul.  If he stands before some Pilate, his steadfastness strengthens our Peter-like wavering to Peter-like steadfastness.  If he hangs on a cross, his agony testifies to the power of a great redemption.  If he be transfigured or resurrected, his glory opens the hope of eternal life.

 

Fit it together, piece by piece, until your puzzle becomes a picture illumined by his light.  God has loved his world; loved it so that he sent his Son into the world, that whosoever believeth -- you and me and everyone else -- might know eternal life.

 

Wise men still come from the east and from the west, the north and the south, to Jerusalem, to Bethlehem, to the place where the Christ is.  And filled with what they find in him, they go their way home, avoiding the evil Herods, with a song for their living.  Are you one of their company?

 

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, December 12, 1948.