Something New 12/26/43

Scripture: John 13: 31-35

Text: John 13: 34 “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.”

At Christmas time, we celebrate an event that has been marked for centuries, and seems to our modern minds, truly an old observance. Renewed each year, the carols, the festive joy, the adoration, all tell an old story of the advent of a babe whose life was to shake and transform the world.

Yet it should not be regarded as something belonging to the past. Christmas is new. Its message is for us, now. And its meaning is prophetic, looking to the future. The advent came in a time of danger, when the world was ruled by cruel and despotic forces. Matthew’s account of the coming of wise men to see the newborn babe, tells of the interest of Governor Herod, and how he tried to find out the place and circumstances of the child’s appearance so that he could preserve the Roman peace by putting the babe out of the way. Matthew’s story goes on to say that these wise men “returned by another way,” without making a report to the Governor. Well, that was something different.

It is possible that we may have a “let down” feeling after the excitement of Christmas. If so, perhaps we ought to “return by some other way.”

For one thing we might go back to our regular schedules and duties as the shepherds, of Luke’s story, returned - “Glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen.”

He must be dead of soul who does not find himself singing praise at heart over Christmas. To praise God is not difficult at Christmas time, and beyond. The sheer goodness of the Day and its great Gift is enough to keep every heart singing for a long time. But to “glorify God” - that is different. We make a mistake if we think that those two words, “praising” and “glorifying” God are synonymous. To “glorify” is to advance the glory of God by faithful action.

We praise God with our lips. But we glorify God, if we glorify Him at all, in our deeds from moment to moment, from day to day, from Christmas to Christmas. The shepherds went back to tending their sheep on the Judean hillsides, not only thankful, but ready to transform their lives into something glorious.

You and I are occasionally recipients of some splendid gift. It may be a tangible evidence of remembrance. Or someone may have helped to lift a load that was getting too heavy, shared loneliness or grief, stood by in suffering. And we are grateful. But each of us knows that gratitude discharges only a part of the debt we then own for the gift. The rest involves a high use for what has been given.

We think, especially as we grow more mature, of what our own parents have done for us. We cannot seriously think of their gifts of life and care, without being grateful. But only as we make a consistent effort to fulfill their hopes and dreams, do we come near discharging our indebtedness to them.

It is easy, and instinctive, to say, “thank you,” and to praise. It is more difficult, but indispensable, to glorify, to live worthily in response to the given goodness in the world.

I think that, as we pass another Christmas season, we may remind ourselves that something new came into our world with the advent of Jesus. It is a serious danger to our faith to suspect that there is nothing new or significant about it. A cause, a great ideal, to which we can devote our full energy is man’s greatest need. Men and women will die or live for a cause gladly. They will forego home comforts and plans for their own career. They will go where living is hard, uncomfortable, demanding in every detail - when a cause demands it.

A cartoonist pictured it humorously when he pictured several soldiers, on K.P., peeling potatoes from a huge pile, and one of them turning to the officer in charge saying, “Sergeant, we are making history, aren’t we?”

Is there something new about Christianity? Yes, there is. And we find it stemming from an utterance of the babe of Bethlehem now grown to manhood - indeed only a short time before the end of his life. In the intimacy of a few friends, after Judas had left that last supper, Jesus used that fine fellowship to convey this single command, unique and new: “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.”

These words came from One who was never at loss to know what to do. From the beginning of his ministry, when his fellow townsmen in a burst of mob hysteria were going to throw him over a cliff, to the end of that ministry when he stood in self-possession before Pilate, Jesus was in command of his life’s situations.

Even though he was decisive, however, the word “command” was seldom on his lips. A Samaritan village refused to hear his preaching. Two of his disciples asked if fire might be commanded to come down and burn the town. Instead of rebuking the villagers, Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of; for the Son of Man came not to destroy men’s lives but to save them.” He did say to his friends, “Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you” - but his commands were few and like this: “These things I command you, that ye love one another.” He commanded his disciples to do good works, to go and preach and heal. Three times he commanded one of his disciples to “be a shepherd” - to care for the Master’s human flock.

One reason why it is hard to take this new command, which is centrally important to Christianity, is that the word “love” as we commonly use it, is not adequate to convey the breadth and depth of Jesus’ meaning. We think of love as very nice, and sentimental, and perhaps romantic.

But what Jesus was talking about is a tremendous force - a universal, natural force. Jesus did not toss the word around. He used it with reserve. But he meant something all important when he did use it.

“God is love,” says the divine Word. Merely that this love is not universally known is as much beside the point as to protest that electricity is not known. Only in recent generations has electricity been sufficiently understood so that man could be on its side, thereby multiplying his possibilities, through its use or misuse, for good or evil. In centuries to come, men will probably still be searching further for the secrets of electricity’s resource and power.

A few great souls (some of them in humble stations) have know how great is this power called “Love.” The world awaits further discovery and practice of this knowledge.

One good definition of what Jesus seems to have meant by “love” is to call it “goodwill.” It is the kind of thing that will make a worshipper pause in bringing his gifts to God, leaving his gift short of the altar of sacrifice until he has settled some festering difference between himself and his brother. That difference settled, he can then complete his act of worship before God.

Love is the spirit and the truth about life that God yearns to reveal to his children. Our partial structure of knowledge, pyramided upon knowledge, is incomplete and a very hazard unless builded in a design whose architectural principle is active, initiating, constant good will. Do you want to know what will bring permanent peace to the world? This kind of goodwill will do it: and nothing else will! I wish every Christian would put that down and work upon it and struggle by it, and live and die for it. It is basic; and no permanent peace can be built without it!

Love is the one new thing in Christianity. Its active goodwill is unique in Jesus’ revelation. And it is not passive, but active going forth to share and seek and save; it is “missionary” in its approach. This new thing in Christianity, repudiated by other faiths such as Shinto, Buddhism, Mohammedanism and by others, is central in the gospel of the babe of Bethlehem and the Man of Nazareth.

No people will master it in a generation, nor in a century, nor in many centuries, unless man moves far faster, spiritually, than he has in the last 2,000 years. But our children’s children will inquire into its power for healing the nations. No age will outgrow its program for it is struck into humanity from the mind of God. It is not only by faith that we perceive it, but by God’s own insistence. A poet puts it thus:

“As grass grows slowly up the hill

With faith the torrent cannot kill ----

---So toils an undiscouraged God

And covers barren fields with sod.”

A dead and barren soil blows away in the wind or washes to lower levels with the rain - always going down. But the grass grows up, and the tree line struggles higher - because they are not deal or inanimate, but are struggling life!

So must Love, God’s Good Will, this thing that is new, continue to grow against all the blasts.

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Dates and Places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, December 26, 1943