J Philip Bible Readings

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,

for he has visited and redeemed his people

and has raised up a horn of salvation for us

Luke 1:68-69

May the hallowed season bring every possible Christian blessing into your hearts and homes.

 Even to write these words – and it would be a cold heart that did not express some such wish at Christmas – makes one realize that they can be fulfilled in a real way only as the significance of the story of Christ's birth is understood and grasped.  

Not that there is not something unutterably beautiful about it – it would be strange if the story of God's salvation was not the most beautiful thing in all the world; but its beauty is more than sentiment.  It has meaning, and in the meaning we see other things than beauty.  It is very significant that all the 'words' spoken in the Christmas story by those characters in it whose reactions are recorded for us - people like Zacharias, Mary, Simeon - are full of deep theology and doctrine.  Not that they were ‘theologians’, for they were humble, ordinary folk like ourselves: yet for them the first Christmas had a profound doctrinal significance, and it was this, not the beauty, that blessed them and made them rejoice.

There is a doctrine, then, of Christmas, and until and unless we see this, Christmas can be no more than an empty name to us.  What does it mean?

Well, Zacharias understood it to mean that the Lord God of Israel had 'visited and redeemed His people'  (Luke 1:68, 78).  On any understanding of these words, this visitation was something that happened to them, and, when we read the New Testament, we can hardly doubt that this is what the fact of Christ's coming meant to those who came to believe on His Name.  Something had happened - something so decisive, so overwhelming, so glorious, that the only terms in which they could adequately describe it were those which spoke of a new birth, a new creation, and the dawning of a new day.  Wesley was simply echoing this New Testament conviction when he wrote that Christ was ‘Born to raise the sons of earth; Born to give them second birth’, and it is intended to mean no less than this today, in our frightened world.

The dawning of a new day  (the word 'Dayspring' means 'sunrise') - this is the realism of God that seeks to break through the beauty, the sentiment and - let us be honest - the wistfulness of the festive season, to the hearts of men.  It is the message of a glorious possibility for every kind of need.  

• To the lonely and solitary, it speaks of an ineffable Companionship, Emmanuel, God with us, and what a wonderful sunrising that can be! 
• To the old and frail, it brings gentle hands and kind, and the strength of the everlasting Arms.  
• To the sorrowing and the heartbroken it pledges the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.  
• And to those who have failed, and been a disappointment to themselves and to those who love them, beauty for the ashes of their burnt-out lives - even here, nay especially here, the promise of a new day.