IN the entirely unique days of Bethlehem there were strong commotions in the world of spirits. This you observe with respect to the good angels, who appear in vast hosts, as never before, and no less with respect to demons or evil angels, who possessed person after person, and sometimes in great companies entered into a single human soul. Call to mind the terrible case of the man with the legion of devils.
So the missions of angels were forceful, emphatic and manifold. Think of the quiet family of priest Zacharias at Hebron and of the virginal Mary of Nazareth.
And what likewise indicates this mighty undulation, is the inspiring pressure to song, that went out from the Holy Ghost. For centuries together sacred psalmody had been silent. No song was evoked from the harp. But now that the Child Jesus comes, yea, before He comes, that sacred impulse to song also returns. Zacharias, Mary, presently Simeon, each receives from the Holy Spirit his song of praise and sings it out in notes of highest exultation, that God’s church might sing it after them.
Messiah was about to come, and it must needs be, that now every false imagination be cut off.
In unholy hands the “Babe in the manger” might so easily become a plaything for emotional feeling and for the entertainment of a sentimental world.
And this could not be.
For this the appearance of our great God and Savior in the flesh was too strikingly serious and too divinely great.
And therefore before Jesus came, through Zacharias the priest the Holy Spirit proclaimed with such deep earnestness, that Immanuel should be “the dayspring from on high, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” (Luke 1:79.)
Who are they, that sit in this darkness and shadow of death?
No one of us outside of Christ who does not sit in it.
Our artificial light does not affect this in the least, and the glow of the fireworks we ignite at times only makes that deep gaping background stand out the more terribly real in its darkness.
There rests upon our human life, upon our human heart, upon the eye of our human soul nothing but darkness. And though some gleam of a common grace penetrates through that darkness, it still remains dark, and the look that peers through that twilight still breaks upon ever deeper darkness.
And notice carefully, what is added to it of that “shadow of death”, for this does not mean, that there is darkness and shadow of death, but, that this darkness springs from the fact, that death casts its terrible shadow upon our life, and covers our whole existence with that shadow.
Thus when Immanuel comes, His coming in that general sense is a salvation of our whole existence.
With Him comes the Light, and that Light breaks through, and shines forth with His beams and is not held back by that darkness. And so He came to give light to them that sat in darkness and in the shadow of death.
But this word has a still deeper significance.
Darkness all about you blinds at length even your eye. Martyrs who in times past spent long years in a dark hole, could, when finally liberated from their chains, no more endure the light, and the stronger the light shone, the more convulsively they closed their eyes.
And such Jesus found us people, when He came to the manger of Bethlehem.
In darkness and ourselves inwardly darkened, and therefore seeking darkness as our element. Approximately like nightbirds, which blind by day stare into the light and see nothing, but in nightly darkness discover their prey.
Such a nightbird is the sinner by nature.
So long as it remains night, he sees something, but as soon as the light comes he no longer sees anything. Paul, the holy apostle, says it so strikingly: The selfsame Light is to one a savor of life, and a savor of death to the other.
And therefore it is not a mere coming of Jesus to people who sit in darkness and shadow of death, but an appearing to such wretched ones.
Jesus appears to a sinner, only when that sinner becomes aware of the fact that He is there and that he sees Him, and can not bear that look.
And so salvation limits itself; not because Jesus is not full and rich of grace (for no light can shine save as it shines upon all, so that the Light in Immanuel could not rise above the horizon, but was bound to cast its rays upon all) but because it had to give light to persons, and all persons do not stand in the same attitude toward that Light.
Herod undergoes an entirely different operation of that Light from the Wise men of the East. The men with stave and sabre, who presently murder in Bethlehem, are altogether differently disposed towards it from the shepherds in Bethlehem.
Laud and praise with the one, hatred and evil passion with the other.
With Mary the Light entered most deeply into the soul, far more than with Joseph. She felt a sword go through her soul, and the mighty workings of an Omnipotent God had taken hold of her.
And, with every return of that manger of Bethlehem, it is so still.
With each returning Christmas that Dayspring from on high beams forth anew its glow of grace and life-bringing compassion, and will appear where He did not appear before, but always to such as sit in darkness and shadow of Death.
Therefore a poor person is always more happy with the manger than a rich person. A child is far more charmed by it than a great man. One who is sick is more refreshed by it than he who is well. For over all littleness and weakness and human need and misery there beams from that manger a friendly Light that comforts.
But yet, this is not the deepest working of Bethlehem’s Light.
It truly counts, even as it delighted those shepherds and those wise men from the East, and this lower utterance of Christmas happiness and Christmas joy must not be cut off.
But, it is not the deepest working of that wondrous and beautiful Light.
This wondrous Light not merely intends to break through the clouds, to cast a friendly light on forests and on fields, but wants to penetrate to branch and stem, there as by magic to produce twig and bud, and from that bud presently to unfold a flower, and from that flower to let fragrance exhale, for the delight of Him Who created it.
And so it is in the world of the soul.
That Light of the Dayspring from on high must penetrate through the eye of your soul into the very center of your soul, and life-breathing and life-quickening in that innermost part of your soul, make what is barren green and fresh and on your stem cause a flower to unfold to the glory of God.
But for this very reason it is needful that you not merely sit in darkness, but that you know that you are in the shadow of Death.
The nightbird is not troubled by darkness because it is his element, and an unconverted sinner is not disturbed by the shadow of Death, because like the unwashed sow he knows no better than that wallowing in the mire belongs to his nature.
And so long as such is the case with you, Bethlehem is nothing to you. Then no beam of its Light breaks through in your heart. Then that Light can form no flower-bud in you nor cause it to unfold on your stem.
No, no, your darkness must oppress and distress you; being seated in the shadow of Death must make you anxious and afraid.
You must not be able to endure that darkness and terrible shadow any longer.
It must make you uneasy and concerned in your soul.
And then, when you cry by reason of your need, and as a child that is afraid in the dark, calls and cries for light and to be taken out of that fearsome darkness; O, then when the Light comes, and through those darknesses sends out toward you His first light-beams, then your eye drinks in that first faint ray of light, even as one athirst in hell asks for a drop of water at a fingertip to cool his burning tongue.
Then that Little Child is become glorious to you.
Then with you also it comes to laud and praise and love.
Jerusalem, you hear the joyful sounds!
O, might they be overheard by the angels of God from your soul!
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