Part 12 (2/2)

And why? That he might take on him our human nature. Not merely the nature of a great man, of a wise man, of a grown up man only: but ALL human nature, from the nature of the babe on its mother's bosom, to the nature of the full-grown and full-souled man, fighting with all his powers against the evil of the world. All this is his, and he is all; that no human being, from the strongest to the weakest, from the eldest to the youngest, but may be able to say, 'What I am, Christ has been.'

Take home with you, then, this thought, on this Christmas day, among all the rest which Christmas ought to put into your minds. Respect your own children. Look on them as the likeness of Christ, and the image of G.o.d; and when you go home this day, believe that Christ is in them, the hope of glory to them hereafter. Draw them round you, and say to them-- each in your own fas.h.i.+on--'My children, G.o.d was made like to you this day, that you might be made like G.o.d.

Children, this is your day, for on this day G.o.d became a child; that G.o.d gives you leave to think of him as a child, that you may be sure he loves children, sure he understands children, sure that a little child is as near and as dear to G.o.d as kings, n.o.bles, scholars, and divines.'

Yes, my dear children, you may think of G.o.d as a child, now and always. For you Christ is always the Babe of Bethlehem. Do not say to yourselves, 'Christ is grown up long ago; he is a full-grown man.'

He is, and yet he is not. His life is eternal in the heavens, above all change of time and s.p.a.ce; for time and s.p.a.ce are but his creatures and his tools. Therefore he can be all things to all men, because he is the Son of man.

Yes; all things to all men. Hearken to me, you children, and you grown-up children also, if there be any in this church--for if you will receive it, such is the sacred heart of Jesus--all things to all; and wherever there is the true heart of a true human being, there, beating in perfect answer to it, is the heart of Christ.

To the strong he can be strongest; and to the weak, weakest of all.

With the mighty he can be the King of kings; and yet with the poor he can wander, not having where to lay his head. With quiet Jacob he goes round the farm, among the quiet sheep; and yet he ranges with wild Esau over battle-field, and desert, and far unknown seas. With the mourner he weeps for ever; and yet he will sit as of old--if he be but invited--and bless the marriage-feast. For the penitent he hangs for ever on the cross; and yet with the man who works for G.o.d his Father he stands for ever in his glory, his eyes like a flame of fire, and out of his mouth a two-edged sword, judging the nations of the earth. With the aged and the dying he goes down for ever into the grave; and yet with you, children, Christ lies for ever on his mother's bosom, and looks up for ever into his mother's face, full of young life, and happiness, and innocence, the everlasting Christ- child in whom you must believe, whom you must love, to whom you must offer up your childish prayers.

The day will come when you can no longer think as a child, or pray as a child, but put away childish things. I do not know whether you will be the happier for that change. G.o.d grant that you may be the better for it. Meanwhile, go home, and think of the baby Jesus, YOUR Lord, YOUR pattern, YOUR Saviour; and ask him to make you such good children to your mothers, as the little Jesus was to the Blessed Virgin, when he increased in knowledge and in stature, and in favour both with G.o.d and man.

SERMON XIX. CHRIST'S BOYHOOD

LUKE ii. 52.

And Jesus increased in wisdom, and in stature, and in favour both with G.o.d and man.

I do not pretend to understand these words. I preach on them because the Church has appointed them for this day. And most fitly. At Christmas we think of our Lord's birth. What more reasonable, than that we should go on to think of our Lord's boyhood? To think of this aright, even if we do not altogether understand it, ought to help us to understand rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ; the right faith about which is, that he was very man, of the substance of his mother. Now, if he were very and real man, he must have been also very and real babe, very and real boy, very and real youth, and then very and real full-grown man.

Now it is not so easy to believe that as it may seem. It is not so easy to believe.

I have heard many preachers preach (without knowing it), what used to be called the Apollinarian Heresy, which held that our Lord had not a real human soul, but only a human body; and that his G.o.dhead served him instead of a human soul, and a man's reason, man's feelings.

About that the old fathers had great difficulty, before they could make people understand that our Lord had been a real babe. It seemed to people's unclean fancies something shocking that our Lord should have been born, as other children are born. They stumbled at the stumbling-block of the manger in Bethlehem, as they did at the stumbling-block of the cross on Calvary; and they wanted to make out that our Lord was born into the world in some strange way--I know not how;--I do not choose to talk of it here:- but they would fancy and invent anything, rather than believe that Jesus was really born of the Virgin Mary, made of the substance of his mother. So that it was hundreds of years before the fathers of the Church set people's minds thoroughly at rest about that.

In the same way, though not so much, people found it very hard to believe that our Lord grew up as a real human child. They would not believe that he went down to Nazareth, and was subject to his father and mother. People believe generally now--the Roman Catholics as well as we--that our Lord worked at his father's trade--that he himself handled the carpenter's tools. We have no certain proof of it: but it is so beautiful a thought, that one hopes it is true. At least our believing it is a sign that we do believe the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ more rightly than most people did fifteen hundred years ago. For then, too many of them would have been shocked at the notion.

They stumbled at the carpenter's shop, even as they did at the manger and at the cross. And they invented false gospels--one of which especially, had strange and fanciful stories about our Lord's childhood--which tried to make him out.

Most of these stories are so childish I do not like to repeat them.

One of them may serve as a sample. Our Lord, it says, was playing with other children of his own age, and making little birds out of clay: but those which our Lord made became alive, and moved, and sang like real birds.--Stories put together just to give our Lord some magical power, different from other children, and pretending that he worked signs and wonders: which were just what he refused to work.

But the old fathers rejected these false gospels and their childish tales, and commanded Christian men only to believe what the Bible tells us about our Lord's childhood; for that is enough for us, and that will help us better than any magical stories and childish fairy tales of man's invention, to believe rightly that G.o.d was made man, and dwelt among us.

And what does the Bible tell us? Very little indeed. And it tells us very little, because we were meant to know very little. Trust your Bibles always, my friends, and be sure, if you were meant to know more, the Bible would tell you more.

It tells us that Jesus grew just as a human child grows, in body, soul, and spirit.

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