THE BIRTH OF THE MESSIAH.
Reflections on the Time and Manner of the Appearance
upon Earth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was at this period, when the gloom was the heaviest, the night
darkest, that the Sun of Righteousness arose with healing on His
wings—that the long-expected, much-desired Messiah at length was born
upon earth.
Not that this was the first time that the Lord had condescended to
appear to His people. As God the Father, robed in inaccessible glory,
has never at any time been seen by man,—as we, who are dust and ashes,
could not look upon His face and live,—it is evident that, on the
various occasions on which the Lord became manifest to mortals, it
was the Eternal Son who deigned to shroud His glory by assuming a
visible form. Thus it was the Divine Son who pronounced the sentence
upon Adam in the garden of Eden, and who held out to the trembling Eve
the merciful promise of a future offspring who should both suffer and
triumph. It was the Divine Son who listened graciously to the pleadings
of Abraham for the guilty cities of the plain, doomed to a terrible
destruction. It was the Divine Son who, in the likeness of a man of
war, appeared unto Gideon, and by a single look bestowed upon him
irresistible might.
But this was to be no brief appearance—no passing glimpse of a present
Deity. The Holy One was to become incarnate,—to wear the throbbing
flesh, to assume the mortal nature of the creatures whom He himself had
created. Well might the heavens wonder, and the earth rejoice, at so
transcendent an act of condescension.
But may we not marvel that, when the Lord stooped to become man, He
chose not a time when the faith of His people was strong—when their
obedience was earnest? How would the devoted Nehemiah have welcomed
his Masters coming!—with what joy would Judas Maccabeus have laid his
conquering sword at the feet of his King! And may we not marvel that
when He whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, condescended to wear
a mortal body, He did not choose to appear as a mighty monarch, cradled
in a magnificent palace, and adored by all the nations of the earth!
[Illustration: BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOUR.]
We must remember that the Redeemer of the world had a threefold office
to perform: He had to save man, satisfy God, and subdue the power of
Satan.
All men were under sentence of death. Eternal Truth had declared, “THE
SOUL THAT SINNETH, IT SHALL DIE;” and Eternal Justice was engaged to
execute that awful sentence. _All_ had sinned and come short of the
glory of God. Even the babe that died when but a few hours old, born of
the corrupted, inherited a corrupt nature. Who can bring a clean thing
out of an unclean?—pure water from a fountain that is tainted?
Before guilty man could be saved, Eternal Justice must be satisfied. A
victim must be found of worth so priceless as to outweigh in the sight
of the Almighty all the countless transgressions of mankind. It was not
possible that the blood of bulls and goats could wash away a single
sin. They were offered by the saints of old to show their faith in,
and to make them partakers of the benefits of the one great Sacrifice,
which was to atone for the guilt of a world.
And the Son of God came not only to save and to suffer, but also to
subdue. He would meet the enemy, Satan, on his own ground. Where man
had fallen under the power of temptation, the God-man would rise
triumphant over every temptation which the Evil One could offer. One
born of woman would, by his spotless obedience, fulfil the whole
law which Adam and Adam’s race had broken, and in His own strength
conquering the conqueror, trample Satan under His feet.
We thus behold the Redeemer in His threefold office. To save man, He
must assume man’s nature; to satisfy God’s justice, He must suffer and
die. His whole life must be an example of obedience under each form of
sorrow and trial. He must bear the weight of poverty, endure the sting
of contempt. It was by enduring that He triumphed—it was by suffering
that He saved! The lamb bleeding beneath the sacrificial knife; the
rock smitten, that its gushing waters might give life to the perishing
people; Isaac bound by his own father on the altar;—such were the types
of Him who, sinless, bore the punishment of sin, and who passed to His
everlasting kingdom from the torments of the cross and the darkness of
the grave.
As this work is merely a sketch of the history of the Jews, I shall
not attempt to introduce into its pages any account of the life of our
Redeemer, or the miracles of mercy which He wrought. My office is to
describe the political state of the land in which He deigned to appear;
to record the crimes of its rulers; to place the dark background of
history behind that glorious form which inspired pens have delineated
in the Gospels.
The tyrant Herod had reigned about thirty-three years, when his court
was startled by the tidings of the arrival of sages from the East,
who had received from a heavenly sign notice of the birth of a mighty
Ruler. “Where is He that is born King of the Jews?” was the anxious
question of the pious travellers; “for we have seen His star in the
east, and have come to worship Him.”
[Illustration: THE WISE MEN BEFORE HEROD.]
The monarch of Judea well knew that the expectation of his people was
eagerly fixed upon the coming of the Messiah; he must also have known
that prophecy pointed towards this time for the Holy One’s appearance.
The conduct of the tyrant showed that in the mysterious babe, born
at Bethlehem, he dreaded a rival. He sought information of the sages
regarding the child, that he might quench in blood this dawning light
of Israel. Being frustrated by the secret return of the sages to their
own land, Herod determined to make sure of his horrible object by a
more sweeping act of cruelty. He sent forth and slew all the children
in Bethlehem and in the neighbouring coasts, from two years old and
under, ruthlessly tearing the innocent little ones from the arms of
their agonized mothers, and filling the land with the lamentations of
parents weeping over their slaughtered offspring.
[Illustration: BETHLEHEM.]
But it is in vain for man to fight against the decrees of God. An angel
had appeared in a dream to Joseph, the babe’s reputed father, and
warned him to flee into Egypt with the Virgin Mary, and her infant
son. Thus every babe in Bethlehem was slain by the cruelty of Herod,
save the one whose life he aimed at—the only one whom he cared to
destroy.
[Illustration: THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.]