Magyar Egyház, 1980 (59. évfolyam, 1-10. szám)
1980-11-01 / 10. szám
MAGYAR ecyftffZ wants more than anything else—more helping hands, more sympathetic hearts, more kind words that never die, more disposition to give other people a ride, and to carry the heavy end of the load and give other people the light end, and to ascribe good motives instead of bad, and to find our happiness in making others happy. Out of that Bethlehem crib let the bear and lion eat straw like an ox. “Good-will to men.” Again, I remark that born that Christmas night in the village barn was sympathetic union with other worlds. The only scepticism I have ever had about Christianity was an astronomical scepticism which said: “Why would God out of the heavens and amid the Jupiters and Saturns of the universe have chosen our little bit of a word for the achievements of his only begotten Son when he might have had a vaster scale and vaster worlds?” But my scepticism is all gone as I come to the manger and watch its surroundings. Now I see all the worlds are sisters, and that when one weeps they all weep, and when one sings they all sing. From that supernatural grouping of the cloud banks over Bethlehem, and from the special trains that ran down to the scene I find that our world is beautifully and gloriously and magnificently surrounded. The meteors are with us, for one of them ran to point down to the birthplace. The heavens are with us, because at the thought of our redemption they roll hosannas out of the midnight sky. Oh! yes; I do not know but our world may be better surrounded that we have sometimes imagined; and when a child is born angels fetch it, and when it dies angels take it, and when an old man bends under the weight of years angels uphold him, and when a heart breaks angels soothe it. Angels in the hospital to take care of the sick. Angels in the cemetery to watch our dead. Angels in church ready to fly heavenward with the news of repentant souls. Angels above the world. Angels under the world. Angels all around the world. Rub the dust of human imperfection out of your eyes, and look into the heavens and see angels of pity, angels of mercy, angels of pardon, angels of help, angels crowned, angels charioted. The world defended by angels, girdled by angels, cohorted by angels—clouds of angels. Hear David cry out, “The chariots of God are twenty thousand. Even thousands of angels.” But the mightiest angel stood not that night in the clouds over Bethlehem; the mightiest angel that night lay among the cattle—the Angel of the new covenant. As the clean white linen sent in by some motherly villager was being wrapped around the little form of that Child Emperor, not a cherub, not a seraph, not an angel, not a world but wept and thrilled and shouted. Oh! yes, our world has plenty of sympathizers. Our world is only a silver rung of a great ladder at the top of which is our Father’s house. No more stellar solitariness for our world, no friendless planet spun out into space to freeze, but a world in the bosom of divine maternity. A star harnessed to a manger. 13. oldal Christ was born in a bare barn. Yet that nativity was the offender’s hope. Over the door of heaven are written these words: “None but the sinless may enter here.” “Oh, horror,” you say, “that shuts us all out.” No. Christ came to the world in one door, and he departed through another door. He came through the door of the manger, and he departed through the door of the sepulchre, and his one business was so to wash away our sin that one second after we are dead there will be no more sin about us than about the eternal God. I know that is putting it strongly, but that is what I understand by full remission. All erased, all washed away, all scoured out, all gone. That undergirding and overarching and irradiating and imparadising possibility for you, and for me, and for the whole race was given that Christmas night. Do you wonder we bring flowers to-day to celebrate such an event? Do you wonder that we take organ and cornet and queenly soloist to celebrate it? I find the swaddling clothes enlarging and emblazoning into an imperial robe for a conqueror. Now I fint that the star of that Christmas night was only the diamonded sandal of him who hath the moon under his feet. Now I come to understand that the music of that night was not a completed song, but only the stringing of the instruments for a great chorus of two worlds, the bass to be carried by earthly nations saved, and the soprano by kingdoms of glory won. What a glorious heaven! I shall meet you there. After all our imperfections are gone I shall meet you there. I look out to-day, through the mists of years, through the fog that rises from the cold Jordan, through the wide open door of solid pearl to that reunion. I expect to see you there as certainly as I see you here. What a time we shall have in high converse, talking over sins pardoned, and sorrows comforted, and battles triumphant! I am going in. I am going to take all my family with me. I am going to take all my church with me. I am going to take all my friends and neighbors with me. I have so much faith in manger and cross I feel sure of it. I am going to coax you in. I am going to push you in. By holy stratagem I am going to surprise you in. Yea, with all the concentrated energy of my nature—physical, mental, spiritual and immortal—I am going to compel you to go in. I like your companionship so well I want to spend eternity with you! What a Christmas morning it will make when those with whom you used to keep the holidays are all around you in heaven! Silver-haired old father young again, and mother who had so many aches and pains and decrepitudes well again, and all your brothers and sisters and the little ones. How glad they will be to see you! They have been waiting. The last time they saw your face it was covered with tears and distress, and pallid from long watching, and one of them I can imagine to-day, with one hand holding fast the shinning gate, and the other hand swung out toward you, saying:
