395. The Sky Anthem

The Sky Anthem

Luk_2:14 : ’93Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’94

At last I have what I longed for, a Christmas Eve in the Holy Land. This is the time of year that Christ landed. This wintry month saw his arrival. This is the chill air through which he descended. I look up through these Christmas skies, and I see no loosened star hastening southward to halt above Bethlehem, but all the stars suggest the Star of Bethlehem. No more need that any of them run along the sky to point downward. In quietude they kneel at the feet of him who, though once an exile, is now enthroned forever.

Fresh from a visit to Bethlehem, I am full of the scenes suggested by a visit to that village. You know that whole region of Bethlehem is famous in Bible story. There were the waving harvests of Boaz, in which Ruth gleaned for herself and weeping Naomi. There David the warrior was thirsty, and three men of unheard-of self-sacrifice broke through the Philistine army to get him a drink. It was to that region that Joseph and Mary came to have their names enrolled in the census. That is what the Scripture means when it says they came ’93to be taxed,’94 for people did not in those days rush after the assessors of tax any more than they now do.

The village inn was crowded with the strangers who had come up by the command of government to have their names in the census, so that Joseph and Mary were obliged to lodge in the stables. We have seen some of those large stone buildings, in the centre of which the camels were kept, while running out from this centre in all directions there were rooms, in one of which Jesus was born. Had his parents been more showily appareled I have no doubt they would have found more comfortable entertainment. That night in the field the shepherds, with crook and kindled fires, were watching their flocks, when, hark! to the sound of voices strangely sweet. Can it be that the maidens of Bethlehem have come out to serenade the weary shepherds? But now a light stoops upon them like the morning, so that the flocks arise, shaking their snowy fleece and bleating to their drowsy young. The heavens are filled with armies of light, and the earth quakes under the harmony as, echoed back from cloud to cloud, it rings over the midnight hills: ’93Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men!’94 It seems as if the crown of royalty and dominion and power which Christ left behind him was hung on the sky in sight of Bethlehem. Who knows but that that crown may have been mistaken by the wise men for the star running and pointing downward?

My subject, in the first place, impresses me with the fact that indigence is not always significant of degradation. When princes are born, heralds announce it, and cannon thunder it, and flags wave it, and illuminations set cities on fire with the tidings. Some of us in England or America remember the time of rejoicing when the Prince of Wales was born. You can remember the gladness throughout Christendom at the nativity in the palace at Madrid. But when our glorious Prince was born there was no rejoicing on earth. Poor, and growing poorer, yet the heavenly recognition that Christmas night shows the truth of the proposition that indigence is not always significant of degradation. In all ages there have been great hearts throbbing under rags, tender sympathies under rough exterior, gold in the quartz, Parian marble in the quarry, and in every stable of privation wonders of excellence that have been the joy of the heavenly host. All the great deliverers of literature, and of nations, were born in homes without affluence, and from their own privation learned to speak and fight for the oppressed. Many a man has held up his pine-knot light from the wilderness until all nations and generations have seen it, and off his hard crust of penury has broken the bread of knowledge and religion for the starving millions of the race. Poetry, and science, and literature, and commerce, and laws, and constitutions, and liberty, like Christ, were born in a manger.

All the great thoughts which have decided the destiny of nations started in obscure corners; and had Herods who wanted to slay them, and Iscariots who betrayed them, and rabbles that crucified them, and sepulchres that confined them until they burst forth in glorious resurrection. Strong character, like the rhododendron, is an Alpine plant that grows faster in the storm. Men are like wheat, worth all the more for being flailed. Some of the most useful people would never have come to positions of usefulness had they not been ground, and pounded, and hammered in the foundry of disaster. When I see Moses coming up from the ark of bulrushes to be the greatest lawgiver of the ages, and Amos from tending the herds to make Israel tremble with his prophecies, and David from the sheepcote to sway the poet’92s pen and the king’92s sceptre, and Peter from the fishing-net to be the great preacher at the Pentecost, I find proof of the truth of my proposition that indigence is not always significant of degradation.

My subject also impresses me with the thought that it is while at our useful occupations that we have the divine manifestations. Had those shepherds gone that night into Bethlehem and left their flocks at the mercy of the wolves, they would not have heard the song of the angels. In other words, that man sees most of God and heaven who minds his own business. We all have our posts of duty, and, standing there, God appears to us. We are all shepherds or shepherdesses, and we have our flocks of cares, and annoyances, and anxieties, and we must tend them.

We sometimes hear very good people say: ’93If I had a month or a year or two to do nothing but attend to religious things, I would be a great deal better than I am now.’94 You are mistaken. Generally the best people are the busy people. Elisha was plowing in the field when the prophetic mantle fell on him. Matthew was attending to his custom-house duties when Christ commanded him to follow. James and John were mending their nets when Christ called them to be fishers of men. Had they been snoring in the sun Christ would not have called their indolence into the apostleship. Gideon was at work with the flail on the threshing-floor when he saw the angel. Saul was with great fatigue hunting up the lost asses when he found the crown of Israel. The prodigal son would never have reformed and wanted to have returned to his father’92s house if he had not first gone into business, though it was swine feeding. Not once out of a hundred times will a lazy man become a Christian. Those who have nothing to do are in very unfavorable circumstances for the receiving of divine manifestations. It is not when you are in idleness, but when you are, like the Bethlehem shepherds, watching your flocks, that the glory descends and there is joy among the angels of God over your soul, penitent and forgiven.

My subject also strikes at the delusion that the religion of Christ is dolorous and grief-infusing. The music that broke through the midnight heavens was not a dirge, but an anthem. It shook joy over the hills. It not only dropped upon the shepherds, but it sprang upward among the thrones. The robe of a Saviour’92s righteousness is not black. The Christian life is not made up of weeping and cross-bearing and war-waging. Through the revelation of that Christmas night I find that religion is not a groan, but a song. In a world of sin, and sick beds, and sepulchres, we must have trouble; but in the darkest night the heavens part with angelic song. You may, like Paul, be shipwrecked, but I exhort you to be of good cheer, for you who are trusting on Christ shall all escape safe to the land. Religion does not show itself in the elongation of the face and the cut of the garb. The Pharisee who puts his religion into his phylactery has none left for his heart. Fretfulness and complaining do not belong to the family of Christian graces which move into the heart when the devil moves out. Christianity does not frown upon amusements and recreations. It is not a cynic, it is not a shrew, it chokes no laughter, it quenches no light, it defaces no art. Among the happy, it is the happiest. It is just as much at home on the playground as it is in the church. It is just as graceful in the charade as it is in the psalm-book. It sings just as well in Surrey Gardens as it prays in St. Paul’92s. Christ died that we might live. Christ walked that we might ride. Christ wept that we might laugh.

Again, my subject impresses me with the fact that glorious endings sometimes have very humble beginnings. The straw pallet was the starting-point, but the shout in the midnight sky revealed what would be the glorious consummation. Christ on Mary’92s lap, Christ on the throne of universal dominion’97what an humble starting! What a glorious ending! Grace begins on a small scale in the heart. You see only men as trees walking. The grace of God in the heart is a feeble spark, and Christ has to keep both hands over it lest it be blown out. What an humble beginning! But look at that same man when he has entered heaven. No crown able to indicate his royalty. No palace able to signify his wealth. No sceptre able to symbolize his power and dominion. Drinking from the fountain that drips from the everlasting Rock. Among the harpers harping with their harps. On a sea of glass mingled with fire. Before the throne of God, to go no more out forever. The spark of grace that Christ had to keep both hands over lest it come to extinction, having flamed up into honor, and glory, and immortality. What humble starting! What glorious consummation!

The New Testament Church was on a small scale. Fishermen watched it. Against the uprising walls crashed infernal enginery. The world said, Anathema. Ten thousand people rejoiced at every seeming defeat, and said: ’93Aha! aha! so we would have it.’94 Martyrs on fire cried: ’93How long, O Lord, how long?’94 Very humble starting, but see the difference at the consummation, when Christ with his almighty arm has struck off the last chain of human bondage, and Himalaya shall be Mount Zion; and Pyrenees, Moriah; and oceans, the walking place of him who trod the wave-cliffs of stormed Tiberias; and island shall call to island, sea to sea, continent to continent, and, the song of the world’92s redemption rising, the heavens, like a great sounding-board, shall strike back the shout of salvation to the earth until it rebounds again to the throne of God, and all the immortals of heaven, rising on their thrones, beat time with their sceptres. Oh, what an humble beginning! What a glorious ending! Throne linked to a manger, heavenly mansions to a stable.

My subject also impresses me with the effect of Christ’92s mission upward and downward. Glory to God, peace to man! When God sent his Son into the world, angels discovered something new in God, something they had never seen before. Not power, not wisdom, not love. They knew all that before. But when God sent his Son into this world then the angels saw the spirit of self-denial in God, the spirit of self-sacrifice in God. It is easier to love an angel on his throne than a thief on the cross, a seraph in his worship than an adulteress in her crime. When the angels saw God’97the God who would not allow the most insignificant angel in heaven to be hurt’97give up his Son, his only Son, they saw something that they had never thought of before, and I do not wonder that when Christ started out on the pilgrimage the angels in heaven clapped their wings in triumph, and called on all the hosts of heaven to help them celebrate it, and sang so loud that the Bethlehem shepherds heard it: ’93Glory to God in the highest.’94

But it was also to be a mission of peace to man. Infinite holiness’97accumulated depravity. How could they ever come together? The Gospel bridges over the distance. It brings God to us. It takes us to God. God in us, and we in God. Atonement! Justice satisfied, sins forgiven, eternal life secured, heaven built on a manger.

But it was also to be the pacification of all individual and international animosities. What a sound this word of peace had in the Roman Empire, that boasted of the number of people it had massacred; that prided itself on the number of slain; that rejoiced at the trembling provinces. Gaul, and Britain, and Sicily, and Corsica, and Sardinia, and Macedonia, and Egypt had bowed to her sword, and crouched at the cry of her war-eagles. She gave her chief honor to Scipio, and Fabius, and C’e6sar’97all men of blood. What contempt they must have had there for the penniless, unarmed Christ in the garb of a Nazarene, starting out to conquer all nations! There never was a place on earth where that word of peace sounded so offensively to the ears of the multitude as in the Roman Empire. They did not want peace. The greatest music they ever heard was the clanking chains of their captives. If all the blood that has been shed in battle could be gathered together it would upbear a navy. The club that struck Abel to the earth has its echo in the butcheries of all ages. Edmund Burke, who gave no wild statistics, said that, even up to his day, there had been spent in slaughter thirty-five thousand million of dollars, or what would be the equivalent of that; but he had not seen into our times, when, in our own day, in America, we expended three thousand millions of dollars in civil war.

Oh, if we could now take our position on some high point and see the march of the world’92s armies. What a spectacle it would be! There go the hosts of Israel through a score of Red Seas’97one of water, the rest of blood. There go Cyrus and his army, with infuriate yell, rejoicing over the fall of the gates of Babylon. There goes Alexander, leading forth his hosts and conquering all the world but himself, the earth reeling with the battle-gash of Arbela and Persepolis. There goes Ferdinand Cortes, leaving his butchered enemies on the table-lands once fragrant with vanilla and covered with groves of flowering cacao. There goes the great Frenchman, leading his army down through Egypt like one of its plagues, and up through Russia like one of its own icy blasts. Yonder is the grave-trench under the shadow of Sebastopol. There are the ruins of Delhi and Allahabad, and yonder are the inhuman Sepoys committing their outrages, and the brave regiments under Havelock avenging the insulted flag of Britain; while cut right through the heart of my native land is a trench in which there lie one million Northern and Southern dead. Oh, the tears! Oh, the blood! Oh, the long marches! Oh, the hospital wounds! Oh, the martyrdom! Oh, the death! But brighter than the light which flashed on all these swords, and shields, and musketry is the light that fell on Bethlehem, and louder than the bray of the trumpets, and the neighing of the chargers, and the crash of walls, and the groaning of the dying armies, is the song that unrolls this moment from the sky, sweet as though all the bells of heaven rung a jubilee, ’93Peace on earth, good will toward men.’94

Oh, when will the day come’97God hasten it!’97when the swords shall be turned into plowshares, and the fortresses shall be remodeled into churches, and the men of blood battling for renown shall become good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and the cannon, now striking down whole columns of death shall thunder the victories of the truth? When we think of the whole world saved we are apt to think of the few people that now inhabit it. Only a very few, compared with the populations to come. And what a small part cultivated. Do you know it has been estimated that three-quarters of Europe is yet all barrenness, and that nine hundred and ninety-one one-thousandth parts of the entire globe are uncultivated? This is all to be cultivated, all inhabited, and all gospelized. Oh, what tears of repentance when nations begin to weep! Oh, what supplications when continents begin to pray! Oh, what rejoicing when hemispheres begin to sing! Churches will worship on the places where this very hour smokes the blood of human sacrifice, and wandering through the snake-infested jungles of Africa, Christ’92s heel will bruise the serpent’92s head. Oh, when the trumpet of salvation shall be sounded everywhere, and the nations are redeemed, a light will fall upon every town brighter than that which fell upon Bethlehem, and more overwhelming than the song that fell on the pasture fields where the flocks fed; there will be a song louder than the voice of the storm-lifted oceans, ’93Glory to God in the highest,’94 and from all nations, and kindred, and people, and tongues will come the response, ’93And on earth peace, good will toward men!’94

On this Christmas Eve I bring you tidings of great joy. Pardon for all sin, comfort for all trouble, and life for the dead. Shall we now take this Christ into our hearts? The time is passing. This is the closing of the year. How the time speeds by. Put your hand on your heart’97one, two, three. Three times less it will beat. Life is passing like gazelles over the plain. Sorrows hover like petrels over the sea. Death swoops like a vulture from the mountains. Misery rolls up to our ears like waves. Heavenly songs fall to us like stars.

I wish you a merry Christmas, not with worldly dissipations, but merry with Gospel gladness, merry with pardoned sin, merry with hope of reunion in the skies with all your beloved ones who have preceded you. In that grandest sense a merry Christmas.

And God grant that in our final moment we may have as bright a vision as did the dying girl when she said: ’93Mother’94’97pointing with her thin white hand through the window’97’94Mother, what is that beautiful land out yonder beyond the mountains, the high mountains?’94 ’93Oh,’94 said the mother, ’93my darling, there are no mountains within sight of our home.’94 ’93Oh, yes,’94 she said; ’93don’92t you see them’97that beautiful land beyond the mountains out there, just beyond the high mountains?’94 The mother looked down into the face of her dying child, and said: ’93My dear, I think that must be heaven that you see.’94 ’93Well, then,’94 she said, ’93father, you come, and with your strong arms carry me over those mountains into that beautiful land beyond the high mountains.’94 ’93No,’94 said the weeping father, ’93my darling, I cannot go with you.’94 ’93Well,’94 she said, clapping her hands, ’93never mind, never mind; I see yonder a shining one coming. He is coming now, in his strong arms to carry me over the mountains to the beautiful land’97over the mountains, over the high mountains!’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage