Christ, the Savior 12/24/40

Scripture: Luke 1: 46-55

There is an air of expectancy in the season leading up to Christmas. One may be tempted to say that the anticipation is for the arrival of the traditional Santa Claus and that the expectancy is chiefly concerned with “what will I get.” I have know of cases of that among young and old alike.

But, on the whole, the expectancy at Christmas is much more than that. There is the anticipation of renewed contact with friends from whom one hears at hardly any other time. There is the expected singing of familiar carols and the telling of the familiar stories of Christmas which warm the heart partly because they are old friends. There is the joy of renewing and deepening friendships in extending the Greetings of this happy season.

But, again, I think that the expectancy at Christmas is even more than this joy at the approach of a familiar season. There is something exciting about the coming of the Lord, Jesus, into the world!

You remember some of the circumstances in the world into which he came over 1900 years ago. People felt unbearably oppressed by the tyrannical rule of a foreign emperor. Taxes were heavy; freedom was greatly restricted; leaders were unsympathetic and pharisaic. Any expressions of dissent or attempts at revolt were promptly and forcibly put down.

There had long been a hope that a Messiah, a Savior, would appear to bring to an end the tyranny, the injustice, the other evils under which the people of Palestine so unwillingly lived. It was the hope, not of one or two individuals alone, but of many people throughout an oppressed nation.

When Mary, the espoused wife of Joseph of Nazareth, felt an assured hope that the child of whom she was to become the mother was to be a Savior of his people, she burst into singing, “My spirit hath rejoiced in God!” [Luke 1: 47]. And she recounted God’s might and greatness, his justice and his mercy, his help and his assurance, for sheer joy at the expectancy that she was to have a part in helping to save people from the oppression of evil.

Amid the crises of our personal lives and of the whole world in which we live today, we again long for deliverance. From the lonely unhappiness of selfish living, we truly and deeply long to be saved. From the persistent and haunting sense of shame over our sins into which we fall, even when we would not, we long to be delivered. From the pangs of pain, the threat of sickness, the fear of death, we long to escape. From the tragedy and colossal evil of warfare, involving not only a few willful killers, but multitudes of well-meaning and innocent people, we pray for deliverance.

Is there a source of hope that can fill our hearts, crowding out the unhappy shadows of fear and uncertainty? Is there salvation from evil? Is there guidance and help anywhere? Can we look for a Savior who shall deliver us from the mire into which we get in our own blindness and who will lead us into contentment and joy and righteous enthusiasm?

The message of Christmas is a recurring answer, each year, to this deep sense of expectancy in our human hearts. The angelic message came to simple shepherds, on duty at their post of watchfulness by night; “Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” (Surely that means us, too) “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior (a Savior) which is Christ the Lord.” So the message, so old and yet always so new, still comes, and comes to us and to all mankind - “a Savior which is Christ the Lord.”

Into our world of excitement and uncertainty, of want amid plenty, of human stubbornness and blindness and selfishness and insufficiency, is born a Savior. Let men and angels sing aloud the glad news again.

There is a strange and great power in the very recognition that we have such a Savior. Some of us have had the privilege of singing in the choruses of Handel’s great composition, “The Messiah.” In many communities it is sung regularly every year. (I heard a portion of it again this week as recorded and played on a fine victrola at the YMCA, under Mr. Bowen’s direction.) Whenever I hear it I feel the same expectation and joy which I am sure others feel at the chorus number “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” There is inspiration in the very words, there is poetry in the music, there is hope in the thought, and there is power in the reality.

When Christ enters the world, enters the home, enters the heart, things are changed.

Do you remember the story called “a few bars in the key of G?” A man and his young wife had quarreled seriously. He had left her only a few months after their wedding and had gone West, trying to forget the quarrel, the marriage, the hopes-everything. For some months he tried, as a nameless cowboy on an out-of-the-way ranch, to escape from his miseries by the running away from his wife and from his better self. No one knew his true name or what he had been before he came there. He was reasonably pleasant among the ranch hands but he never talked of his past.

One day a postcard came in the mail from someone who had managed to find his address.

Rode his horse mercilessly

Caught a train in the open country

Conductor let him ride

In city a merchant trusted him for a suit of clothes

What was on the card? A few bars from the key of G. Just musical notes, that was all. They had puzzled him at first. Then it flashed over him - “Handel’s Messiah!” “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” The young couple had loved music together. It was the wife’s message to her absent husband that he was a father. In a distant city, even as her husband sped back to her, she murmured over the sleeping infant’s head, “his name is John.”

A little child brought two people together again, forgetting the darkness and the differences of the past.

A child greater than them all has come into the world - to call all mankind again to forget all hatred and malice; to put aside foolish fears and suspicion; to seek brotherhood and friendship; to live in peace and fellowship, sacrificially, if need be; to trust God the Father anew; to forget small self in serving great humanity.

O that the song of the angels might again be the song of our hearts at this Christmas tide.

Let bitterness and grudging melt away and disappear. Let misunderstanding be forgotten; let grief give way to praise of our Lord; let resentment be foreign to our hearts; let the healing of glad tidings be upon the wounds of the whole world tonight.

For unto us is born again this day a Savior which is Christ the Lord, and he shall save all earnest people from their sins.

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dates and places delivered:

Pilgrim Church, Honolulu, December 24, 1939 AM

Wisconsin Rapids, December 24, 1940