how human beings ought to live and what they ought to think.
Or they might have gone to any of the centers of religion of their day. And Bethlehem was certainly no such place. They might have tried one after another of the famous cults which were spreading through the world, and tried to find peace and satisfaction in them. They might have gone to the Temple of Jerusalem, and found what they wanted in the great words of the prophets and the laws of the Old Testament.
But they didn’t. They came to Bethlehem. They came to Jesus. And the first thing I have to say is the simple reiteration, so simple we laugh at it—come to Jesus. True enough, it is simple, but I wish that the crowds of people who are very busy, trying to do infinitely more complicated things would do it. For the mainstream of the world’s traffic, by now, has built a bypass around Bethlehem. It isn’t interested. It still goes to Rome. To the ideal of brute strength and vitality of empire and domination. As soon as I speak of that sort of ideal, we all think of one thing, I know. But I want you to think of something else as well, of the each person for themselves attitude that there is in business and industry and even in our homes.
There are still people who go to Athens to find wisdom. It is true that the real Athens would be rather ashamed to own some of the people we know who boast of their cleverness, but at least they think of themselves as superior people. And there are still people in this country I mean, that worship at other altars. I am thinking of the people who tell us that they can worship God better in the country or in their gardens than in our stuffy Churches.
I have not the least doubt they are right. It all depends on what god you are talking about. What they mean is that they have a vague religious feeling in them that is stirred and exercised by the beauty of nature. True; but the god they are worshipping there is not the God who came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and who was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. It is a heathen god, a god who is no god at all, whom they worship in the open air—Pan the god who is everywhere, and everything and nothing in particular. By and large, they do neglect Him. They do not come to Bethlehem. Let me say therefore to you come to Jesus—for real power, which though it lay hidden in things that were not, brought to naught even the power of Rome, the power of love. God’s power walking on earth, encased in limbs of flesh, and offered to us who live the same life.
Come to Jesus—for true wisdom, that right vision and understanding of life, the gift of perspective and comprehension of life. For here only can you see the love that makes sense of life, the redeeming purpose that makes a cross into a standard of victory, that wears it as a crown. Come to Jesus—for finding God, not inside yourself, not in your imagination, in redeeming newness and vitality. Follow a good example then, and come to Bethlehem, come to Jesus.
THEY WORSHIPPED
Here is the hard core of the doctrine that lies at the heart of the Christmas story and redeems it from the charge of sentimentality. Christmas is not just a pretty story with a good dose of goodwill and peace on earth thrown in. It is not just an annual exercise in childishness and jolliness that we could no more stand every day than we could stand the excess amount of pudding and so forth that we eat. Let us see clearly what it does mean.
They worshipped him. Now you cannot worship a man unless you have reached the very lowest stages of paganism. The Bible utterly revolts against any such idea. Yet here are these men worshipping—a baby. It can only mean that this baby is no ordinary baby; in fact, explain it as you will, this baby is in some sense God. Now that is not merely novel and surprising, to anyone who has anything to think with in his or her head, it must be positively staggering. God who made everything that is, including us and Bethlehem, now appears in the form of a newborn baby. Still God, but at the same time a human being.
Now if this is not the most immense tomfoolery, then it is the most immense thing that ever happened in the world’s history, an event that means something for you and for me. All history may repeat itself again and again, but not this time. This is the place God came into redeeming contact with our life and by our relation to this we must be judged or saved. And it seems to me in the face of this that the only correct attitude for us is to be on our knees, worshipping. And this, let there be no mistake about it, is the center of Christianity, not in any thoughts, fancies, feelings of our own but in our simple and humble submission to the God who in his amazing pity stooped down from his throne to live among and for us.
This is plain enough and simple enough for any of us. It is the faith that saves and justifies us. The question for us is whether you can offer this man, this God your devotion and your life. Winifred Holtby went to a service of dedication for a friend of hers who was going to China as a missionary, and she could feel the power there was in the simple gift of life to a cause, in the huge crowd of people believing and willing one thing and she wanted to share it. But “the difficulty is,” she said, “to what can one dedicate oneself?” I am making one suggestion to you. Do you find it worthwhile to dedicate yourself to this man, this God, to put your trust in him and what he has done, for this moment and for eternity? If you will, you may go on looking for someone, something else, or here and now you may find your faith in Christ, and fall before him in worship. This leads immediately to the third thing.
THEY GAVE
That follows doesn’t it? If worship is not to be an empty thing, it must involve giving. In the last 2,000 years a good many people have found it easy enough to pay lip service to Christ; and they have taken good care to make sure it didn’t cost them much more than their breath they used. It is easy enough, dangerously easy, to come to Church and sing “crown him with many crowns” and then go home and press down a crown of thorns upon the patient, buffeted head; a crown of bitterness, impatience, anger, envy, covetousness, lying. It is easy to worship with your tongue. But real worship means more than that. It may not always be expressed in words. Jesus you will remember was not taken in by long prayers with nothing behind them when he was on earth, and I don’t suppose he is taken in by them now. It may not mean words, but it will mean life, love, and serving his Church, and serving his hungry suffering people, giving our gifts to Christ through them. The gifts very rarely will be words, they will not often be money, because many of us haven’t got money to give; they can be help, love, sympathy, a strong arm, a push up a steep hill.
Tertullian was a stern old Roman lawyer who became a Christian towards the end of the second century AD. A stern old lawyer he remained to the end, and he was always pointing out to Christian people what claims their faith laid on them. They were not all made of the same stuff as he, and some of them remonstrated with him “But Tertullian,” they said, “we must live.” Answered Tertullian simply “Why?” Why? What on earth is the use of living if you are not serving Christ to the uttermost, if you are not giving him, not the trappings of life but life itself?
The odd thing that has been in my mind is that you could turn this sermon around. It is a sort of palindrome. They came. Yes, but he came first. That is the essence of it all, the mainspring. We simply could not come to him if he could not come to us. They worshipped, they believed. But Christian faith is not a thing that we do, but something that God does for and in us. They gave, but he had given first, and their giving was at the same time an acceptance of a gift. “God commends his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” “We love, because he first loved us.”
“A SHOCKING CHAPTER”—Matthew 3
[Preached fourteen times between 5/21/96 at St. John’s College Durham and 6/8/08 at Esh Winning]
In the list of this term’s college chapel sermons, this one has an odd title—“The Kingdom and the River.” What has the Kingdom to do with a river? But the chapter from which we start, and I had read it through before you heard the New Testament lesson, is surely far worse, a very shocking chapter. In case you haven’t noticed it, let me point it out to you.
First it takes us to the wrong place. The river again. John the Baptist was embarking on a campaign for the moral and spiritual renewal of his people. Good: an excellent thing to do. But the people were not lacking institutions and agencies which existed for