For the penitent he hangs for ever on the cross;
and yet with the man who works for God 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. God 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
God and man.
Luke ii. 52.
And Jesus increased in wisdom, and in stature, and
in favour both with God 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 Godhead 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.
