Side by side with these evidences of His Divinity the infancy and
childhood of Jesus revealed His dependence and weakness; that is, _the
reality of His human nature_.
The first recorded act of His mother shows us one aspect of that weakness
after a fashion which appeals to the tenderest recollections of the whole
human family, "_She wrapped Him in swaddling clothes_"; and then, as
though to mark for ever the perfection of dependence, the history goes on,
"_and laid Him in a manger_." There are other equally striking
incidents teaching just as clearly that the Babe was a babe, and that the
Child was really a child. It is the perfect union of Him "Who was, and is,
and is to come," with him who flourisheth as the flower of the field; the
wind passeth over him, and he is gone.
Even so may Christ be formed in you. The purity and dignity of His life
will be all the more wonderfully glorious in the eyes of men and angels
because it is linked with dependence and trial, and weakness and sorrow.
As it was at Nazareth, so it is now. Hand in hand with Divinity walked
hunger and weariness, poverty, disappointment, and toil. Did we think it
would be otherwise? Did we, do we, sometimes wonder why the road is so
rough, and the burden so heavy, and the sky so dark? Are we found asking
the old question about sitting on the twelve thrones, judging those around
us, and sharing in some way the royal glory of a King? and is there an
echo of murmuring at these bonds and infirmities and drudgeries of daily
duty and common sorrow? So did the Rabbis of old, and, in consequence,
refused Him.
Ah! the answer to it all is in the one word, it was because "He was made
perfect through suffering;" it was because He learned obedience by the
things He suffered that He must do it again through you--in you. Every
energy of your being may thus be sanctified. Every pain, every sorrow,
every joy, every purpose will be--not taken away; not crushed and hardened
into a series of unfeeling forms and empty signs; not passed over as
having no relation to his life, but touched and purified and ennobled with
the love and power of an indwelling God.
Yes, it is _man_ whom He came to restore--it is _man_, whose
beauty and power were the glory of creation, that drew Him with infinite
attractions from the centre of His Father's heaven, and plunged Him into
the centre of a very hell of suffering and shame. It was man whose nature,
passing by the angels, He took upon Him. It was man He swore to save. He
loves our manhood--its will--its intelligence--its emotions--its passions;
and it is our manhood He has redeemed. He designs to make men really men,
to cleanse--to restore--to indwell in them, and finally to present every
one in the beauty of a perfected character before the presence of His
Father, without spot or blemish or any such thing.
It is this great principle of Redemption that has found expression in The
Salvation Army. We are of those who see in every human being the ruins of
the Temple of God; but ruins which can be repaired and reconstructed, that
He may fit them for His own possession, and then return and make them His
abode.
Never listen to that fatal lie, that to be a man means of necessity to be
always a sinner; that humanity is only another word for irreclaimable
desert or irreparable despair. When the enemy of your soul whispers to you
out of his lying heart that because sin has found one of its strongholds
in the appetites and propensities of your poor body, or in the original
perversity of a rebellious spirit, and that you cannot be expected to
triumph over that evil nature because it _is_ your nature, remember
Bethlehem, and answer him with the promise of God, "_I will dwell in
you, and walk in you_." It was because He purposed to cleanse wholly,
body and soul and spirit, that He came, taking the body, soul, and spirit
of a man, and that He will come again, taking your body, soul, and spirit
as His dwelling-place.