Rejoice in the Lord always.—PHILIPPIANS iv. 4.
THIS is the beginning of the Epistle for to-day, the Sunday before
Christmas. We will try to find out why it was chosen for to-day, and
what lesson we may learn from it.
Now Christmas-time was always a time of rejoicing among many heathen
nations, and long before the Lord Jesus Christ came. That was natural
and reasonable enough, if you will consider it. For now the shortest day
is past. The sun is just beginning to climb higher and higher in the sky
each day, and bring back with him longer sunshine, and shorter darkness,
and spring flowers, and summer crops, and a whole new year, with new
hopes, new work, new lessons, new blessings. The old year, with all its
labours and all its pleasures, and all its sorrows and all its sins, is
dying, all but gone. It lies behind us, never to return. The tears
which we shed, we never can shed again. The mistakes we made, we have a
chance of mending in the year to come. And so the heathens felt, and
rejoiced that another year was dying, another year going to be born.
And Christmas was a time of rejoicing too, because the farming work was
done. The last year’s crop was housed; the next year’s wheat was sown;
the cattle were safe in yard and stall; and men had time to rest, and
draw round the fire in the long winter nights, and make merry over the
earnings of the past year, and the hopes and plans of the year to come.
And so over all this northern half of the world Christmas was a merry
time.
But the poor heathens did not know the Lord. They did not know who to
thank for all their Christmas blessings. And so some used to thank the
earth for the crops, and the sun for coming back again to lengthen the
days, as if the earth and sun moved of themselves. And some used to
thank false gods and ancient heroes, who, perhaps, never really lived at
all. And some, perhaps the greater number, thanked nothing and no one,
but just enjoyed themselves, and took no thought, as too many do now at
Christmas-time. So the world went on, Christmas after Christmas; and the
times of that ignorance, as St. Paul says, God winked at. But when the
fulness of time was come, He sent forth His Son, made of a woman, to be
the judge and ruler of the world; and commanded all men everywhere to
repent, and turn from all their vanities to serve the living God, who had
made heaven and earth, and all things in them.
He did not wish them to give up their Christmas mirth. No: all along He
had been trying to teach them by it about His love to them. As St. Paul
told them once, God had not left Himself without witness, in that He gave
them rain and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with joy and
gladness.
God did not wish them, or us, to give up Christmas mirth. The apostles
did not wish it. The great men, true followers of the apostles, who
shaped our Prayer-book for us, and sealed it with their life-blood, did
not wish it. They did not wish farmers, labourers, servants, masters, to
give up one of the old Christmas customs; but to remember who made
Christmas, and its blessings; in short, to rejoice in The Lord. Our
forefathers had been thanking the wrong persons for Christmas.
Henceforward we were to thank the right person, The Lord, and rejoice in
Him. Our forefathers had been rejoicing in the sun, and moon, and earth;
in wise and valiant kings who had lived ages before; in their own
strength, and industry, and cunning. Now they were to rejoice in Him who
made sun, and moon, and earth; in Him who sent wise and valiant kings and
leaders; in Him who gives all strength, and industry, and cunning; by
whose inspiration comes all knowledge of agriculture, and manufacture,
and all the arts which raise men above the beasts that perish. So their
Christmas joys were to go on, year by year while the world lasted: but
they were to go on rightly, and not wrongly. Men were to rejoice in The
Lord, and then His blessing would be on them, and the thanks and praise
which they offered Him, He would return with interest, in fresh blessings
for the coming year.
Therefore, I think, this Epistle was chosen for to-day, the Sunday before
Christmas, to show us in whom we are to rejoice; and, therefore, to show
us how we are to rejoice. For we must not take the first verse of the
Epistle and forget the rest. That would neither be wise nor reverent
toward St. Paul, who wrote the whole, and meant the whole to stand
together as one discourse; or to the blessed and holy men who chose it
for our lesson on this day. Let us go on, then, with the Epistle, line
by line, throughout.
“Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice.” As much as to
say, you cannot rejoice too much, you cannot overdo your happiness,
thankfulness, merriment. You do not know half—no, not the thousandth
part of God’s love and mercy to you, and you never will know. So do not
be afraid of being too happy, or think that you honour God by wearing a
sour face, when He is heaping blessings on you, and calling on you to
smile and sing. But “let your moderation be known unto all men.” There
is a right and a wrong way of being merry. There is a mirth, which is no
mirth; whereof it is written, in the midst of that laughter there is a
heaviness, and the end thereof is death. Drunkenness, gluttony, indecent
words and jests and actions, these are out of place on Christmas-day, and
in the merriment to which the pure and holy Lord Jesus calls you all.
They are rejoicing in the flesh and the devil, and not in the Lord at
all; and whosoever indulges in them, and fancies them merriment, is
keeping the devil’s Christmas, and not Jesus Christ’s. So let your
moderation be known to all men. Be _merry and wise_. The fool lets his
mirth master him, and carry him away, till he forgets himself, and says
and does things of which he is ashamed when he gets up next morning, sick
and sad at heart. The wise man remembers that, let the occasion be as
joyful a one as it may, “the Lord is at hand.” Christ’s eye is on him,
while he is eating, and drinking, and laughing. He is not afraid of
Christ’s eye, because, though it is Divine it is a human, loving, smiling
eye; rejoicing in the happiness of His poor, hard-worked brothers here
below. But he remembers that it is a holy eye, too; an eye which looks
with sadness and horror on anything which is wrong; on all drunkenness,
quarrelling, indecency; and so on in all his merriment, he is still
master of himself. He remembers that his soul is nobler than his body;
that his will must be stronger than his appetite; and so he keeps himself
in check; he keeps his tongue from evil, and his stomach from
sottishness, and though he may be, and ought to be, the merriest of the
whole party, yet he takes care to let his moderation, his sobriety, be
known and plain to everyone, remembering that the Lord is at hand.
And that man—I will stand surety for him—will be the one who will rise
from his bed next morning, best able to carry out the next verse of the
Epistle, and “be careful for nothing.”
Now that is no easy matter here in England; to rich and poor, Christmas
is the time for settling accounts and paying debts. And therefore in
England, where living is dear, and everyone, more or less, struggling to
pay his way, Christmas is often a very anxious, disturbing time of year.
Many a family, for all their economy, cannot clear themselves at the
year’s end; and though they are able to forget that now and then, thank
God, through great part of the year, yet they cannot forget it at
Christmas. But, as I said, the man who at Christmas-time will be most
able to be careful for nothing, will be the man whose moderation has been
known to everyone; for he will, if he has lived the year through in the
same temper in which he has spent Christmas, have been moderate in his
expenses; he will have kept himself from empty show, and pretending to be
richer than he is. He will have kept himself from throwing away his
money in drink, and kept his daughters from throwing away money in dress,
which is just what too many, in their foolish, godless, indecent hurry to
get rid of their own children off their hands do not do.
And he will be the man who will be in the best humour, and have the
clearest brain, to kneel down when he gets up to his daily work, and “in
everything, by prayer and supplication, make his requests known to God.”
And then, whether he can make both ends meet or not, whether he can begin
next year free from debt or not, still “the peace of God will keep his
heart.” He may be unable to clear himself, but still he will know that
he has a loving and merciful Father in heaven, who has allowed distress
and difficulty to come on him only as a lesson and an education. That
this distress came because God chose, and that when God chooses it will
go away—and that till then—considering that the Lord God sent it—it had
better _not_ go away. He will believe that God’s gracious promises stand
true—that the Lord will never let those who trust in Him be confounded
and brought to shame—that He will let none of us be tempted beyond what
we are able, but will always with the temptation make a way for us to
escape, that we may be able to bear it. And so the peace of God which
passes understanding, will keep that man’s mind. And in whom? “In Jesus
Christ.” Now what did St. Paul mean by putting in the Lord Jesus
Christ’s name there? what is the meaning of “in Jesus Christ”? This is
what it means; it means what Christmas-day means. A man may say, “Your
sermon promises fine things, but I am miserable and poor; it promises a
holy and noble rejoicing to everyone, but I am unholy and mean. It
promises peace from God, and I am sure I am not at peace: I am always
fretting and quarrelling; I quarrel with my wife, my children, and my
neighbours, and they quarrel with me; and worst of all,” says the poor
man, “I quarrel with myself. I am full of discontented, angry, sulky,
anxious, unhappy thoughts; my heart is dark and sad and restless within
me—would God I were peaceful, but I am not: look in my face and see!”
True, my friend, but on Christmas-day the Son of God was born into the
world, a man like you.
“Well,” says the poor man, “but what has that to do with my anxiety and
my ill-temper?”
It would take the whole year through, my friend, to show you all that it
has to do with you and your unhappiness. All the Lessons, Epistles, and
Gospels of the year are set out to show you what it has to do with you.
But in the meanwhile, before Christmas-day comes, consider this one
thing: Why are you anxious? Because you do not know what is to happen to
you? Then Christmas-day is a witness to you, that whatsoever happens to
you, happens to you by the will and rule of Jesus Christ, The perfect
man; think of that. _The perfect man_—who understands men’s hearts and
wants, and all that is good for them, and has all the wisdom and power to
give us what is good, which we want ourselves. And what makes you
unhappy, my friends? Is it not at heart just this one thing—you are
unhappy because you are not pleased with yourselves? And you are not
pleased with yourselves because you know you ought not to be pleased with
yourselves; and you know you ought not to be pleased with yourselves,
because you know, in the bottom of your hearts, that God is not pleased
with you? What cure, what comfort for such thoughts can we find?—This.
The child who was born in a manger on Christmas-day, and grew up in
poverty, and had not where to lay his head, went through all shame and
sorrow to which man is heir. He, Jesus, the poor child of Bethlehem, is
Lord and King of heaven and earth. He will feel for us; He will
understand our temptations; He has been poor himself, that He might feel
for the poor; He has been evil spoken of, that He might feel for those
whose tempers are sorely tried. He bore the sins and felt the miseries
of the whole world, that He might feel for us when we are wearied with
the burden of life, and confounded by the remembrance of our own sins.
Oh, my friends, consider only Who was born into the world on
Christmas-day; and that thought alone will be enough to fill you with
rejoicing and hope for yourselves and all the world, and with the peace
of God which passes understanding, the peace which the angels proclaimed
to the shepherds on the first Christmas night—“On earth peace, and good
will toward men”—and if God wills us good, my friend; what matter who
wishes us evil?
V.
CHRISTMAS-DAY.
He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a
slave.—PHILIPPIANS ii. 7.
ON Christmas-day, 1851 years ago, if we had been at Rome, the great
capital city, and mistress of the whole world, we should have seen a
strange sight—strange, and yet pleasant. All the courts of law were
shut; no war was allowed to be proclaimed, and no criminals punished.
The sorrow and the strife of that great city had stopped, in great part,
for three days, and all people were giving themselves up to merriment and
good cheer—making up quarrels, and giving and receiving presents from
house to house. And we should have seen, too, a pleasanter sight than
that. For those three days of Christmas-time were days of safety and
merriment for the poor slaves—tens of thousands of whom—men, women, and
children—the Romans had brought out of all the countries in the
world—many of our forefathers and mothers among them—and kept them there
in cruel bondage and shame, worked and fed, bought and sold, like beasts,
and not like human beings, not able to call their lives or their bodies
their own, forced to endure any shame or sin which their tyrants required
of them, and liable any moment to be beaten, tortured, or crucified at
the mercy of cruel and foul masters and mistresses. But on that
Christmas-day, according to an old custom, they were allowed for once in
the whole year to play at being free, to dress in their masters’ and
mistresses’ clothes, to say what they thought of them boldly, without
fear of punishment, and to eat and drink at their masters’ tables, while
their masters and mistresses waited on them. It was an old custom, that,
among the heathen Romans, which their forefathers, who were wiser and
better than they, had handed down to them. They had forgotten, perhaps,
what it meant: but still we may see what it must have meant: That the old
forefathers of the Romans had intended to remind their children every
year by that custom, that their poor hard-worked slaves were, after all,
men and women as much as their masters; that they had hearts and
consciences, and sense in them, and a right to speak what they thought,
as much as their masters; that they, as much as their masters, could
enjoy the good things of God’s earth, from which man’s tyranny had shut
them out; and to remind those cruel masters, by making them once every
year wait on their own slaves at table, that they were, after all, equal
in the sight of God, and that it was more noble for those who were rich,
and called themselves gentlemen, to help others, than to make others
slave for them.
I do not mean, of course, that those old heathens understood all this
clearly. You will see, by the latter part of my sermon, why they could
not understand it clearly. But there must have been some sort of dim,
confused suspicion in their minds that it was wrong and cruel to treat
human beings like brute beasts, which made them set up that strange old
custom of letting their slaves play at being free once every
Christmas-tide.
But if on this same day, 1851 years ago, instead of being in the great
city of Rome, we had been in the little village of Bethlehem in Judæa, we
might have seen a sight stranger still; a sight which we could not have
fancied had anything to do with that merrymaking of the slaves at Rome,
and yet which had everything to do with it.
We should have seen, in a mean stable, among the oxen and the asses, a
poor maiden, with her newborn baby laid in the manger, for want of any
better cradle, and by her her husband, a poor carpenter, whom all men
thought to be the father of her child. . . . There, in the stable, amid
the straw, through the cold winter days and nights, in want of many a
comfort which the poorest woman, and the poorest woman’s child would
need, they stayed there, that young maiden and her newborn babe. That
young maiden was the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that poor baby was the Son
of God. The Son of God, in whose likeness all men were made at the
beginning; the Son of God, who had been ruling the whole world all along;
who brought the Jews out of slavery, a thousand years before, and
destroyed their cruel tyrants in the Red Sea; the Son of God, who had
been all along punishing cruel tyrants and oppressors, and helping the
poor out of misery, whenever they called on Him. The Light which
lightens every man who comes into the world, was that poor babe. It was
He who gives men reason, and conscience, and a tender heart, and delight
in what is good, and shame and uneasiness of mind when they do wrong. It
was He who had been stirring up, year by year, in those cruel Romans’
hearts, the feeling that there was something wrong in grinding down their
slaves, and put into their minds the notion of giving them their
Christmas rest and freedom. He had been keeping up that good old custom
for a witness and a warning that all men were equal in His sight; that
all men had a right to liberty of speech and conscience; a right to some
fair share in the good things of the earth, which God had given to all
men freely to enjoy. But those old Romans would not take the warning.
They kept up the custom, but they shut their eyes to the lesson of it.
They went on conquering and oppressing all the nations of the earth, and
making them their slaves. And now He was come—He Himself, the true Lord
of the earth, the true pattern of men. He was come to show men to whom
this world belonged: He was come to show men in what true power, true
nobleness consisted—not in making others minister to us, but in
ministering to them: He was come to set a pattern of what a man should
be; He was the Son of Man—THE MAN of all men—and therefore He had come
with good news to all poor slaves, and neglected, hard-worked creatures:
He had come to tell them that He cared for them; that He could and would
deliver them; that they were God’s children, and His brothers, just as
much as their Roman masters; and that He was going to bring a terrible
time upon the earth—“days of the Son of Man,” when He would judge all
men, and show who were true men and who were not—such a time as had never
been before, or would be again; when that great Roman empire, in spite of
all its armies, and its cunning, and its riches, plundered from every
nation under heaven, would crumble away and perish shamefully and
miserably off the face of the earth, before tribes of poor, untaught,
savage men, the brothers and countrymen of those very slaves whom the
Romans fancied were so much below them, that they had a right to treat
them like the beasts which perish.
That was the message which that little child lying in the manger there at
Bethlehem, had been sent out from God to preach. Do you not see now what
it had to do with that strange merrymaking of the poor slaves in Rome,
which I showed you at the beginning of my sermon?
If you do not, I must remind you of the song, which, St. Luke says, the
shepherds in Judæa heard the angels sing, on this night 1851 years ago.
That song tells us the meaning of that babe’s coming. That song tells us
what that babe’s coming had to do with the poor slaves of Rome, and with
all poor creatures who have suffered and sorrowed on this earth, before
or since.
“Glory to God in the highest,” they sang, “and on earth peace, good will
to men.”
Glory to God in the highest. That little babe, lying in the manger among
the cattle, was showing what was the very highest glory of the great God
who had made heaven and earth. Not to show His power and His majesty,
but to show His condescension and His love. To stoop, to condescend, to
have mercy, to forgive, that is the highest glory of God. That is the
noblest, the most Godlike thing for God or man. And God showed that when
He sent down His only-begotten Son—not to strike the world to atoms with
a touch, not to hurl sinners into everlasting flame, but to be born of a
village maiden, to take on Himself all the shame and weakness and sorrow,
to which man is heir, even to death itself; to make Himself of no
reputation, and take on Himself the form of a slave, and forgive sinners,
and heal the sick, and comfort the outcast and despised, that He might
show what God was like—show forth to men, as a poor maiden’s son, the
brightness of God’s glory, and the express likeness of His person.
“And on earth peace” they sang. Men had been quarrelling and fighting
then, and men are quarrelling and fighting now. That little babe in the
manger was come to show them how and why they were all to be at peace
with each other. For what causes all the war and quarrelling in the
world, but selfishness? Selfishness breeds pride, passion, spite,
revenge, covetousness, oppression. The strong care for themselves, and
try to help themselves at the expense of the weak, by force and tyranny;
the weak care for themselves in their turn, and try to help themselves at
the expense of the strong, by cunning and cheating. No one will
condescend, give way, sacrifice his own interest for his neighbour’s, and
hence come wars between nations, quarrels in families, spite and grudges
between neighbours. But in the example of that little child of
Bethlehem, Jesus Christ the Lord, God was saying to men, “Acquaint
yourselves with Me, and be at peace.” God is not selfish; it is our
selfishness which has made us unlike God. God so loved the sinful world,
that He gave His only-begotten Son for it. Is that an action like ours?
The Son of God so obeyed His Father, and so loved this world, that He
made Himself of no reputation, and took on Him the likeness of a slave,
and became obedient to death, even to the most fearful and shameful of
all deaths, the death of the cross; not for Himself, but for those who
did not know Him, hated Him, killed Him. In short, He sacrificed Himself
for us. That is God’s likeness. Self-sacrifice. Jesus Christ, the babe
of Bethlehem, proved Himself the Son of God, and the express likeness of
the Father, by sacrificing Himself for us. Sacrifice yourselves then for
each other! Give up your own pride, your own selfishness, your own
interest for each other, and you will be all at peace at once.
But the angels sang, “Good will toward men.” Without that their song
would not have been complete. For we are all ready to say, at such words
as I have been speaking, “Ah! pleasant enough, and pretty enough, if they
were but possible; but they are not possible. It is in the nature of man
to be selfish. Men have gone on warring, grudging, struggling,
competing, oppressing, cheating from the beginning, and they will do so
to the end.”
Yes, it is not in the _nature_ of man to do otherwise. In as far as man
yields to his nature, and is like the selfish brute beasts, it is not
possible for him to do anything but go on quarrelling, and competing, and
cheating to the last. But what man’s nature cannot do, God’s grace can.
God’s good will is toward you. He loves you, He wills—and if He wills,
what is too hard for Him?—He wills to raise you out of this selfish,
quarrelsome life of sin, into a loving, brotherly, peaceful life of
righteousness. His spirit, the spirit of love by which He made and
guides all heaven and earth, the spirit of love in which He gave His only
Son for you, the spirit of love in which His Son Jesus Christ sacrificed
Himself for you, and took on Himself a meaner state than any of you can
ever have—the likeness of a slave—that spirit is promised to you, and
ready for you. That little baby in the manger at Bethlehem—God
sacrificing Himself for you in the spirit of love—is a sign that that
spirit of love is the spirit of God, and therefore the only right spirit
for you and me, who are men and women made in the image of God. That
babe in the manger at Bethlehem is a sign to you and me, that God will
freely give us that spirit of love if we ask for it. For He would not
have set us that example, if He had not meant us to follow it, and He
would not ask us to follow it, if He did not intend to give us the means
of following it. Therefore, my friends, it is written, Ask and ye shall
receive. If your heavenly Father spared not His own Son, but freely gave
Him for you, will He not with Him likewise freely give you all things?
Oh! ask and you shall receive. However poor, ignorant, sinful you may
be, God’s promises are ready for you, signed and sealed by the bread and
wine on that table, the memorial of Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem. Ask,
and you shall receive! Comfort from sorrow, peaceful assurance of God’s
good will toward you, deliverance from your sins, and a share in the
likeness of Him who on this day made Himself of no reputation, and took
on Him the form of a slave.
VI.
TRUE ABSTINENCE.