Luke 2:6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. The whole of the world's history led up to this night. It is the hinge on which the history of man turns. The whole of mankind from Adam waited for this night. All the prophets, from righteous Enoch to John the preacher of repentance, laboured to prepare the way for Him who came on this night. The Word was made flesh to sanctity human nature. God descended to man, to raise man to God. Christmas is the feast of salvation for all mankind. The heathen were at this time celebrating their Saturnalia, in remembrance of the Golden Age, which indeed had never been since sin was in the world, an age when, they said, all the world was full of light, and joy, and innocence. But these were times for ever gone by, times from which every century was removing them further morally, as well as actually. Yet, see! how Christmas comes to turn the vain and wistful backward look into a look forwards. The evening and the morning form the day according to the Divine reckoning, not the morning and the evening. First comes darkness, and then light; first sadness, then joy; first desire, then fulfilment. Christ came to bid the old heathens turn away from contemplation of the past, and through Him look to the coming of the true Golden Age, the age when, from the new heavens and the new earth, sin and sighing shall have fled; when He, who is the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, shall reign in righteousness, and of His kingdom there shall be no end. Christ has not, indeed, founded on earth the Golden Age such as the Gentiles lusted after, any more than He came to be the Messiah such as the Jews longed for; He did not come to give peace to the world itself, but an inner peace, a peace that is hid with Christ in God — not such as the world giveth — a peace which cannot be broken and taken away, a peace to be won through conflict and storm and anguish. He came not to give earthly riches and prosperity, but the true riches, which are spiritual: The Incarnation has made that possible which before was impossible. The heathen looked back to the reign of Peace and Innocence and Plenty as something past and unattainable. Christ shows it as future, and opens the kingdom of the Golden Age to all. Earth and heaven are united. Man is made a citizen of Heaven, a member of the Golden Kingdom that is preparing and awaiting its manifestation. On earth man is subject to temptation, with the world ever striving to stamp out and destroy the spiritual kingdom, as Herod, its type, sought to destroy the infant Messiah; on earth, but not of it, man waits and prepares himself, and prays, "Thy kingdom come," knowing that the manifestation of the sons of God in the coming Golden Age cannot be till God's will is done by His subjects on earth as it is done by the denizens of heaven. At the heathen Saturnalia all distinction between slave and master was done away, to return into full force when the feast was over. Christmas shows us Him who is very God made the servant of all, taking on Him the form of a servant, made in the likeness of flesh, that He might redeem men from slavery, and set them free in the glorious liberty of childhood to God. And as on this day the birth of the visible sun was kept, because the days have been shortening, and now appear to lengthen again, Christ calls the Gentiles to look away from the sun that rules the day to Himself, who is the true Light of the world, the Sun of Righteousness, rising with healing on His wings, who comes with promise of a day eternal, in which there will be no created sun or moon, or humanly-made candle, but the Lord God will be the light, and there shall be no night more. (S. Baring-Gould, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.WEB: It happened, while they were there, that the day had come that she should give birth. |
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