Chapter 2

"There was no room for them in the inn." And so Jesus came into a world where there was no room for him in the habitations of men. After all this preparation through which the centuries grew into readiness for his coming, after all these types and prophecies, sacrifices and symbols, after all this weary waiting and passionate hope and all these golden dreams, when the promised One came there was no room for him and he was not wanted! "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." Was there ever a greater and sadder anticlimax and a more cruel disappointment? Let us admit that there may have been no fault in this matter, no lack of hospitality in the keeper or the guests of the inn, as the village was overcrowded, and the fact that these late arrivals were compelled to put up with a place out in the enclosure, possibly a cave, where the animals were kept, was no intended incivility or uncommon hardship. Nevertheless, whatever may have been the reason, the fact was that there was no room for Jesus in that inn the first night he spent in this world, and this fact was sadly prophetic of his reception in the world he came to save.

There were few places where he did find welcome: generally there was no room for him even in places where he had the most reason and right to expect it. And if it was no lack of hospitality that kept him out of this inn, it certainly was the lack of this grace and the positive presence of hostility that in after life excluded him from many places where he wanted to be.

Jesus was not wanted in his own country: Herod tried to leave no room for him there. He was not wanted in his own town: his neighbors tried to hurl him down a cliff to his death. He was not wanted in his own church: its ministers and doctors of divinity fell upon him in malignant fury and at last crucified him. Even his own family found it hard to make room for him in their inner circle. Small room was there in this evil world for this pure and lowly spirit. Then why did he come to it? Because he so loved it that he gave himself for it. Small room do we still leave for Jesus as we crowd him out of our hearts and lives and out of our social order and civilization with our selfishness and sin. Is it a discouraging fact that there is so little room for Christ in the world? Then let us note the fact that there is more room for him to-day than ever before, and this room is ever widening.

How much that inn missed by not having room for this mother and her babe! Its finest apartment lost a glory that fell upon the manger out of which the cattle were fed. How much shall we miss if we do not have room for Christ? There is one world where there is room for Jesus and where he is wanted: heaven. And all who are like him shall find room with him in its many mansions.

X. Angel Ministry

Jerusalem and Rome knew nothing of this event. The High Priest offered the evening sacrifice unaware that it was rendered obsolete by the coming of the true Sacrifice, and Cæsar slept that night without a dream that a Rival had been born who would uproot his empire and erect a worldwide kingdom. Earth was unconscious of this birth, but heaven knew it. There was holy ecstacy in all the shining ranks above, and "angels seem, as birds new-come in spring, to have flown hither and thither, in songful mood, dipping their white wings into our atmosphere, just touching the earth or glancing along its surface, as sea birds skim the surface of the sea."

Around all the events of the birth and ministry of Christ there are the flutter and flash of angel wings, and this story would lose much of its music and charm if it were stripped of its angel ministration. The Bible is full of angels. They appear to Zacharias the mother of John the Baptist, and they find Mary the virgin mother, as a beam of morning light finds a white-leafed flower, and reveal the mystery that has come upon her. No sooner is the infant Jesus laid in his manger than the door of heaven opens and there comes trooping forth a radiant throng, filling the midnight sky with splendor and proclaiming to earth the glad tidings. Angels ministered to Jesus in the wilderness and strengthened him in the garden. More than twelve legions of angels waited to do his bidding when he was arrested. Angels rolled away the stone from his tomb and sat by the empty grave, announcing his resurrection as they had announced his birth; and as they thronged the skies at his coming, so they hovered in the air at his going; and when he comes again he shall come in his glory with all the holy angels with him.

These angels are still in the world as the ministers of God, though invisible to mortal eyes. We see the firefly only through the little luminous section of its flight, but it still flies on after it ceases to be visible. So we see these angels only through that shining section of their path in which they waited on Jesus; but they are still flying through the world as invisible spirits. The angels of little ones are always before the face of their Father in heaven, and as they bore the spirit of Lazarus to Abraham's bosom, so they still may bear departing spirits up the shining stairway of the stars to the eternal home. We know not in what wide ways they minister to us; how there is a rush of angel wings to the cradle of every new-born babe; how they constantly pitch their tents around us in the viewless fields of air; and how often they bear us up lest we dash our feet against a stone.

How little we know of the world in which we live! We weigh its rocks and grind them up and melt them in our crucibles; we fling our nets through all space and catch the stars; and when we can find nothing more to measure and analyze we think we have found and explained all. But the finest and best things cannot be grasped by these coarse processes. Sunbeams cannot be weighed on hay-scales, and gorgeously-colored bits of cloud cannot be caught in a crucible. We can weigh the new-born baby, but not the mother's love for her child. A telescope cannot see an angel, though millions of them may be flying across its field of vision. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. In our blind materialism we need to have our eyes opened that we may know that this universe, which often seems so empty and dark to us, is a blazing sea of spiritual splendor in which burning suns float as black specks and which is thronged with troops of angels that do the will of God and wait on us.

XI. Angels and Shepherds

The Christ-child was born, and now the problem was to get the wonderful news out into the world. There were no newspapers to announce it in startling headlines and cry it out upon the morning air, and, if there had been, their reporters would not have been keen enough to discover it and probably would have had no interest in it. God used other means. An angel came from heaven to proclaim the great event to earth. Where shall he begin, what human ears shall first have the privilege of hearing the glad tidings? Let the angel go to Jerusalem, we would have said, and call upon the High Priest and first take him into his confidence, and then let him go to the Temple and stand amidst the splendors of that holy sanctuary and announce to the assembled priests and scribes that prophecy had been fulfilled and their long-expected Messiah had come. Shall not some respect be paid to official places and persons? Has not God ordained priests and presbyters through whom he dispenses his grace and administers his kingdom?

Yet history witnesses that at times few men stand in God's way more than ecclesiastics. They are rarely the men that earliest hear a new message: God must usually tell it to some one else first. One of the most startling things in the Bible is the fact that the announcement of the birth of Christ was made, not to priests, but to shepherds, and the gospel was first preached, not in a church, but in a pasture field where there were more sheep than men to hear.

What a rebuke is this to our ecclesiastical pretension and pride! God can easily dispense with us, and may pass us by to speak to some humbler soul. The great people up in the Temple have no monopoly of his grace, and it may break out in some wholly unexpected place. The gospel is no respecter of places and persons. It may be preached in a costly church or stately cathedral, but it is equally at home in a country school house, or in a wooden tabernacle, or in a sheep pasture. In simplicity and catholicity it is adapted to all classes and conditions of life. It has the same message for priest and people, prince and peasant, scholar and shepherd, and all receive from it an equal welcome and blessing.

XII. The Concert in a Sheep Pasture

In the night of the Nativity the shepherds were in the field keeping watch over their flocks, for those faithfully engaged in the lowliest duties may receive a splendid visitation from heaven. The night did not seem different from other nights. The skies were as serene and the stars burned as calm as in all the past. The shepherds were as unconscious of any coming wonder as the sleeping sheep that lay like drifted snow on the ridges. Yet the heavens were strained tense with expectation and were on the point of being shattered into song. Flocks of angels were flying downward from the stars, and as their white wings struck earth's atmosphere they kindled it into radiance with heavenly glory, and from the gallery of the skies they chanted their song, accompanied with all the golden harps and deep-toned organ pipes of the celestial choir. Never before or since was such a concert heard in this world, and yet only shepherds and sheep were present to hear it. The encircling hills were the grand amphitheater in which it was rendered, the grassy slopes were the only seats, and there were no tickets of admission, but, like the gospel itself, it was given without money and without price. Musical artists are often sensitive and critical and exclusive people, chary of a free exercise of their gifts and particular as to their audience, but angels will sing for anybody.

The simple-minded shepherds were sore afraid at this outburst of heavenly music, as wiser people would have been. An angel voice sang the solo:

Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.

"Be not afraid!" Sin has wrought such disorder in this world that the thought of spirit visitors frightens us and heaven itself must not come too near. There are great reasons for fear in this darkened world, but the coming of Jesus into it is not one of them. His only mission is to release us from the bondage and bitterness of sin and let us out into the glorious liberty and joy of the sons of God. And Christ has in a marvelous degree cast fear out of the world and poured joy through all its channels, as the sun disperses the night and spills its splendor over hills and vales.

The good tidings announced the birth of a Saviour, and this is the best news this sin-stricken world can hear, for sin is the root of all our fear and misery. Back of every bitter tear lies a guilty thought or deed. This connection is often visible upon the surface and stabs us in the face, and then it may lie hidden under many generations, but it is always there. Sin is the disease that poisons all our blood and blights our physical and moral and spiritual health and happiness. Cut this ugly tree up by the roots and all its scarlet fruits and poisonous leaves will wither; cure this disease and our human world will be transformed into a new Paradise of God. A Saviour is the supreme need of the world, and his birth was news good enough to bring singing angels to earth and fill all the centuries with song.

Definite directions were given for finding the new-born Saviour in the city of David, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the manger. The angelic message was not simply a song in the air, a halo of celestial light, a splendid but fading vision, but it bound itself down to definite places and circumstances and left something solid. Again we note that this thing, was not done in a corner and is not afraid of facts. Jesus was a true human child and took upon him our form down to his infant clothes. The Christ is a great wonder in his divine personality, ever transcending our utmost comprehension, but we can understand his swaddling bands. Christianity is not all mystery, but it also comes down close around us and embodies itself in many plain facts and duties. "Ye shall find the babe." The shepherds were not left to wander around in uncertainty, but sent direct to the place. Christ is not hidden from us, clear directions point out the place where he is, and every soul that seeks him shall find him.

The angel solo broke out into a heavenly chorus which gave a broad interpretation of the meaning of the birth of Christ:

Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.

This chorus first ascribes glory to God, for all things good and beautiful come from him and express his glory, as all rays of daylight shoot from the sun and are its splintered splendor. The gift of Christ manifests the glory of God in that it displays the divine wisdom in devising the plan of salvation, the divine power in executing it, and the divine love as its mighty motive. The glory of God, that streams through the heavens as through a dome of many-colored glass, is concentrated and burns with the interest brightness in the person of his Son.

The chorus next pronounces peace upon men. Divine glory and human good will are related as cause and effect. When men get right with God they at once get right with one another, as the center of a circle, when truly located, pulls every point on the circumference into its proper place in the curve; but when men are at variance with God they are at enmity among themselves. Divine glory is the sun shining in the heavens; human good will is a garden and orchard all abloom with flowers and laden with fruit. As the glory of the sun is transformed into rosy buds and sweet fruit, so is the glory of God transformed into human good will. The glory of God and the peace of men are never in antagonism, but are always complementary and harmonious, they are the two sides of the same gospel, two parts of the same song. They cannot be separated and must go together; in glorifying God we make peace among men, and in making peace among men we glorify God.

XIII. The First Visitors to Bethlehem

The angels' song died away in the solemn silence, and the shepherds were left alone. It was a critical hour with them. Would they follow this vision and turn it into victory, or would they let it vanish with the last echo of the song and relapse into the old dull routine? No, they did not let it pass, and life was never the same to them again. "Let us now go," they said, "even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us." They translated vision into action and presently were climbing the rocky slope to Bethlehem. Had these shepherds not followed up the message their knowledge of their Messiah would have immediately been cut short. We hear divine messages and see heavenly visions enough, but too often we let them fade into forgetfulness and pass into nothingness. A message does us no good until it becomes action, the grandest vision that ever swept through our brain or illuminated our sky leaves no vestige of worth unless it is turned into conduct and character. "Let us now go and see this thing." We do not know Christ until we see him as our Saviour. Seeing is believing, this is the simplicity of faith, and when we see Christ through the direct vision and personal experience of faith and obedience we are transfigured into his likeness.

"And they came with haste, and found both Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger." Were they disappointed at the humble mother, wife of a workingman, and at the manger cradle? These did not match the desire and expectation of the Jews. They had long cherished the passionate hope of an earthly prince who would come wearing purple robes and marshaling armies to trample hated oppressors under feet and make Jerusalem the mistress of the world. They would have said that the Christ should be born in a palace and laid on softest down and covered with silken robes. What a surprise was this manger to their thoughts and shock to their feelings. Were ever deep-seated, long-cherished hopes treated with more cruel irony? But God's ways are not as our ways. Christ was brought into the world at the very point where he could get the deepest strongest hold upon it and most powerfully swing it starward from the dust. He was born among neither the very rich nor the very poor, but in the great middle class at the center of gravity of humanity, by lifting which he would lift the world. Had he come as a pampered child of wealth he would never have got hold of the great heart of humanity; but he came as one of the people, knitting himself into humble relations, growing up among plain folk of the countryside and toiling as a common workingman. And so when he began to preach the common people heard him gladly.

Promise was exactly matched by fulfillment. "Ye shall find a babe," was the promise of the angel, and now the record reads, "And they found the babe." When did God ever lead us to expect anything and then disappoint us? He gave us thirst that urges us to find water, and matching this need he has created bubbling springs and sparkling streams. He gave us hunger that seeks bread, and it finds fields of golden grain and orchards of rosy fruit. He gave us minds that seek truth, and they find it; he gave us a craving for love, and heart matches heart. He set eternity in our hearts and gave us deep instincts that reach after the Infinite, hearts that cry, "Shew, us the Father and it sufficeth us." Shall all lower needs be satisfied and this supreme search and cry of the soul be disappointed and mocked? "And they found the babe," is the answer to this need and promise. God sends us with all our deep needs and mysterious longings to that cradle in Bethlehem, where they will be exactly and fully matched and satisfied. He that hath seen this Child hath seen the Father.

The shepherds, having seen for themselves, immediately began to make known abroad the saying which was told them concerning the Child. The gospel is a social and expansive blessing and cannot be shut up in the individual heart. We are saved to serve, we are told the good news that we may tell it to others, we get it that we may give it. And the more we give it the more we get it, for this bread multiplies in our own hands as we share it with others, as did the loaves beside the Galilean sea. Great souls have ever grown rich by the lavish prodigality with which they bestowed their gifts on others, and because Jesus gave himself God hath highly exalted him.

First angels and then shepherds: how startling the contrast. Jesus has deep affinities with both: on his divine side he is related to heaven, and on his human side he is related to earth. And the first men he drew to his side were shepherds, representatives of the common people. He did not come as a member of any special class, especially of the upper class. No one can ever save the world by winning over the rich and the great. Society cannot be lifted from the top. Whoever would raise the level of society must get his lever under its foundation stones. Taking hold of the carved cornice will tear the roof off and lift it away from the building, but raising the lowest stone will also push up the spire's gilded point. He who elevates the peasant will also in time elevate the prince. Jesus did not begin with Cæsar, but with shepherds, and then in three hundred years a Christian Cæsar sat on the throne.

The gospel still works from beneath; going down into the slums of Christian cities; working among the poor and degraded of heathen lands; and seeking the lowest tribes of men from whom have been defaced almost the last vestige of humanity and restoring them to the image of God. Christ is saving the world as a whole. He is not slicing the loaf of society horizontally, cutting off the upper crust, but he is slicing it vertically from top to bottom.

How wonderful is the simplicity and beauty of this gospel that shepherds are drawn by it. It takes some brain to read Plato. Shepherds would not get much out of Sir Isaac Newton, or a child out of Shakespeare, or a sorrowing heart out of Emerson. But every one can get milk and honey for his soul out of the gospel of Jesus. His wonderful words of life have the same sweetness and saving power for shepherd and scholar, peasant and prince. However lowly and unlettered one may be there is wide room for him around the manger of this Child.

XIV. The Star and the Wise Men

The birth of Jesus created a new center for the world and set heaven and earth revolving around his cradle. All things began to gravitate towards him as by a new and more powerful attraction. Angels sang, shepherds wondered, a new star glittered upon the blazing curtain of the night, and wise men came from afar to worship him. These wise men were Persian priests, scholars, scientists, astrologers, students of the stars. Rumors of a coming King or Saviour were widespread in the ancient world and doubtless had reached these worshipers of the sun to whom the stars were embodiments of deity. A new star in their sky, whatever it may have been, would instantly attract their attention and receive from them a religious interpretation. The celestial messenger was a fulfillment of their hope and a guide to their feet. They were obedient to the heavenly vision, and across long burning stretches of desert sand they came and appeared in Jerusalem with their inquiry concerning the new-born King of the Jews.

They were therefore broad-minded men whose horizon was wider than their own deserts, or they never would have overleaped their national piety and patriotism and prejudice into search and reverence for a Jewish king. But something told them that the new King, though born a Jew, was of universal interest and was more than human; they forefelt his divinity. Therefore they were come to the King, not to gratify their curiosity, not to speculate and debate and frame a new creed, but to worship him. There was no war between the science and the theology of these wise men. Their science did not kill their religion, and their religion did not strangle their science. The stars, according to their simple-minded way of thinking, did not crowd God out of his universe. Knowledge and reverence made one music in their minds as both science and faith grew from more to more.

A religion that could not stand the most searching and pitiless light of scholarship could not live. Science kills pagan faiths as with a stroke of lightning. But the gospel lives, because wise men go to Bethlehem and find there, not fiction, but fact. It welcomes and inspires the profoundest science and philosophy. God in his Word is not afraid of God in his works. The tallest intellects in all these centuries have bowed at the side of this manger.

XV. A Frightened King