Calvin Synod Herald, 1979 (79. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1979-11-01 / 11-12. szám
4 CALVIN SYNOD HERALD But the wise men persisted. The record suggested that they went through the city asking everybody about the newborn King, and telling them that they had seen His star. They wanted to find Him so that they could present their gifts and worship Him. That must have sounded like nonsense to the people of Jerusalem. Even King Herod and the priests and scribes couldn’t understand what the wise men were talking about. They had to look up the ancient prophecies before they could direct the visitors to Bethlehem as the likely place to look for the infant King. All of Jerusalem was ignorant of the birth of Christ — the capitol city of the nation where it happened, only a few miles from Bethlehem. It is a very disturbing thought that this great event, the Incarnation of the Son of God the greatest thing that had ever happened in the world, was not even noticed by the people to whom it happened. They missed it completely. You couldn’t find Christmas anywhere in Jerusalem. These people had been schooled in the promise of the coming Messiah. They had been looking for Him for centuries. The promise had been dinned into the ears of every passing generation. They knew it so well that they could give explicit directions to the wise men who came searching for the King. They could even tell them where to find Him. But they did not know He was bom. They had not made a journey to Bethlehem to see Him. When they heard about Christmas from the wise men, who had been told about it by a star, they were upset. The record says: “When Herod the king heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” The situation is somewhat different today. But we have essentially the same problem. The people of Jerusalem were ignorant of the birth of Christ; they d'd not know it had happened. We know about it, but do we know its meaning? There was no celebration of Christmas in Jerusalem. We have one today, but what are we celebrating? For many of us Christmas is a pure’y secular event; it has no real spiritual significance. For many others it may be a religious event, but only in a very superficial sense; it is not a recognition of the basic fact of Christmas, the Incarnation of the Son of God. So the wise men if they were to appear in our cities might very well ask the same question: where is the Kine whose birthday you are supposed to be celebrating? They would go looking for Him in every direction, inquiring about Him from all kinds of people. But how many would be able to answer their question? There would be government officials, like Herod of old, who would not be able to tell them about Christ, the real Christ, because they do not know what Christmas is all about. Judging by the public statements of some of our leaders, Christmas is no longer what the Bible says it is, and what historic Christianity proclaims it to be. They talk in vague terms about peace and good will among men, not about the crucial fact of Christmas, namely that the Son of God came here to save us from our sins, and to save our world too. No, government today would never do what Herod did. He was afraid that this new King would take his throne, and so he was determined to kill Him. This is what his ignorance of Christmas led to: the mass murder of infants in Bethlehem. Our ignorance of Christmas would never permit us to do anything like that. But we have another way of getting rid of that King, which is just as effective. We say in effect, that the King of kings has nothing to do with the great decision which must be made these days at home and abroad. We believe that religion must have its freedom, of course, but this means that it must have its own place in our culture, apart from everything else, where it can live in a world of its own. There would also be religious leaders today, like those chief priests and scribes in Jerusalem, who would not be able to answer that question of the wise men. Some of them too, speak in very vague terms when they talk about Christmas. A prevailing theological opinion these days is that the story of the virgin birth of Christ is only a myth, not a statement of fact. And so this opinion would direct the wise men to look for the real meaning of Christmas in the life and work of one who was only a man, not the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of the living God. No, religion today would never do to Christ what religion did in Jerusalem two thousand years ago. It took sides against Him, it pursued Him with criticism through His ministry, it conspired to kill Him and it finally demanded His crucifixion. This is what religious ignorance of Christmas led to. Our ignorance of Christmas would never permit us to do a thing like that. Instead we just hide the real Christ under a lot of religion that has nothing to do with His solemn purpose in coming into this world. We call Him our great example, we give Him the highest place in our history, we say He was the greatest man who ever lived. And so we actually get rid of Him — we get rid of the real Christ, the Son of God in human flesh, who came to rebuke us for our sins, to demand that we repent and turn to Him in true faith, trusting that we can be saved only by His grace. We would never crucify Him, but we simply refuse to accept the true meaning of His cross; it is only a symbol to us, not the sacrifice of the Son of God for our sins. The wise men would have great difficulty finding the real Christmas in many of our homes, and in modern business and in our way of life. Like the people in Jerusalem long ago, many of us are ignorant of the true meaning of Christmas. Where is Christ to be found in the commercialism of this season which not only takes over our stores but also our houses? Where will you find Him in the wordly entertainment and amusement centers to which people flock? Even the spirit of good will and cheer and festivity and charity seems to hide the basic fact of Christmas from many people. They simply do not know, or they do
