It is surely not without significance that this most gracious manifestation and announcement was made to these humble Hebrew shepherds "keeping watch over their flock by night." It suggests two truths which are of frequent and perpetual illustration.

1. That God chooses for his instruments the humble rather than the high. Our human notions would have pointed to the most illustrious in the ]and for such a communication as this. But God chose the lowly shepherd, the man of no account in the estimate of the world. So did he act in the beginning of the gospel (see 1 Corinthians 1:26-29). And so has he acted ever since, choosing often for the agents of his power and grace those whom man would have passed by as unworthy of his choice.

2. That God grants his Divine favor to those who are conscientiously serving him in their own proper sphere. Not to the idle dreamer, not to the man who will do nothing because he cannot do everything of which he thinks himself capable, but to him who does his best in the position in which God's providence has placed him, will God come in gracious manifestation; and it is he whom he will select to render important service in his cause. But the main thoughts of this passage are these -

I. WELCOME TIDINGS FROM THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. "They were sore afraid." "Fear not... I bring you good tidings." Why have men always been so sore afraid in the presence of the supernatural? Why have they feared to receive communications from heaven? Something much more than a popular belief (see Judges 13:22)is required to account for so universal a sentiment. It is surely that sinful men are profoundly conscious of ill desert, and fear that any message that comes from God, the Holy One, will be a message of condemnation and punishment. What would be the expectation with which a camp of rebellious subjects, who had taken up arms against their sovereign, would receive a messenger from the court of the king? Had that guilty age known that God was about to announce "a new departure" in his government of the world, what ample, what overwhelming reason would it have had to apprehend a message of Divine wrath and retribution! How welcome, then, the words, "Fear not... I bring you good tidings"! Of what depth of Divine patience, of what boundless breadths of Divine compassion, do these simple words assure us!

II. TIDINGS OF SURPASSING VALUE. Tidings "of great joy." The birth of the Babe in Bethlehem "that day" - what did it mean? It meant:

1. Deliverance from a deadly evil. To these shepherds, if they were patriotic children of Abraham, the promise of a Savior would mean deliverance from the national degradation into which Israel had sunk - a spiritual as well as a political demoralization. To them, if they were earnest religious inquirers, it meant deliverance from the bondage and penalty of sin. This is the significance which the word has to us: in that day was born into the world a Savior, a Divine Redeemer, One who should save the souls of men from that which is the one curse of our humanity - sin.

2. The fulfillment of a great hope. To those who then learnt that "the Christ" was born, it meant that the long-cherished hope of their nation was fulfilled, and that whatever the Messiah was to bring about was at length to be accomplished. A great national expectation has passed, with us, into a glorious hope for the human race - the hope that under Christ this poor sin-stricken world will rise from its ignorance, its superstition, its godlessness, its vice, and its crime, and walk in newness of life, in the love and the likeness of its heavenly Father.

3. Restoration to our true position. That Savior is "Christ the Lord." We who have sought to rule ourselves and to be the masters of our own lives, and who have suffered so much in so many ways by this guilty dethronement and usurpation, are now to find our true rest and joy by submitting ourselves to him who is "the Lord" of all hearts and lives; in his service is abiding peace and "great joy."

III. TIDINGS OF GENERAL AND OF PARTICULAR APPLICATION. These glad tidings are for "all the people," and they were for those startled and wondering shepherds. "To you is born." As we hear the angel's words, we know that they are for all the wide world, and, whoever we may be, for us. - C.

The birthday of Christ! — a name which connects with the familiar associations of home-life the opening of the heavens to human hope, the inconceivable grace and condescension of Almighty God, the beginning of a state of things on earth in which God our Maker has united Himself for ever with humankind.

I. REVERENCE. In thinking of Christ's birthday, we are between two dangers. It may have become a mere name and word to us, conventionally accepted and repeated, but conveying no really living meaning; or it may have come with such fulness of meaning as to overwhelm and confound our thoughts, making us ask, "How can such things be?" Let us remember that "God is Love;" and that the mystery of the incarnation is the manifestation of that infinite Love. Let us try to take a true measure of the unspeakable majesty and living goodness with which we have to deal.

II. PURITY. The Incarnation was the mind and atmosphere of heaven, coming with all the height of their sanctities into human flesh — a spectacle to make us stop and be thoughtful, and consider our own experience of life and society. Let us pass from things which fashion and custom do not mind, but which do lower the tone and health of soul and character, which often tempt and corrupt it; let us turn away our eyes from what, however captivating and charming, is dangerous to know and look at, to the little child and His mother, and learn there the lesson of strength, of manliness — for purity means manliness — of abhorrence of evil.

III. HUMILITY. The human mind cannot conceive any surrender of place and claims, any willing lowliness and self-forgetfulness, any acceptance of the profoundest abasement, comparable to that which is before us in the birth, and the circumstances of the birth, of Jesus Christ. The measure of it is the measure of the distance between the Creator and the creature, and the creature in the most unregarded, most uncared-for condition, helpless, unknown, of no account for the moment among the millions of men whom He had made, and whose pride, and loftiness, and ambition filled His own world. There He was for the time, the youngest, weakest, poorest of them all; and He came thus, to show what God thinks of human pride, ambition, loftiness. He came thus, to show how God despises the untruth of self-esteem, the untruth of flattery, and to teach how little the outward shows of our present condition answer to that which, in reality and truth, it is worth while for a living soul, an immortal being, to be.

IV. THE LESSON OF NOT PUTTING OUR TRUST IN THE ARM OF FLESH. Contrast the birthday of Christ with the purpose of His coming — to reform, conquer, and restore the world. Of all that mighty order which was to be, of all that overwhelming task and work before Him, here were the first steps, in the lowest paths of human life! He it was to whom was committed this great work of God. Not in the way which men understood or anticipated, not by forces and measures suggested by their experience, but in the exact way of God's perfect holiness and righteousness. He began and finished the work which the Father gave Him to do. In the utter unlikelihood of His success, there is a lesson for us. In doing His work, and in doing our own work, we are often sorely tempted to depart from His footsteps. In doing His work, in maintaining His cause, in fighting for His kingdom, it has always been too common for man to think, that all the same means are available which are used in human enterprises, that success depended on the same conditions, that it was impossible without employing weapons which were not like His. They have trusted to energy, strength, sagacity; they have distrusted the power of single-hearted obedience, prayer, patience, faith, self-sacrifice, goodness; they have thought it weak to be over-scrupulous; they have forgotten how far beyond the reach and touch of human power are the fortunes of the kingdom of the Most Holy. And so in doing our own work, it is hard for us all not to do the opposite to what our Master did; hard not to trust to the arm and the ways of flesh, instead of trusting with our eyes shut the path of duty, truth, obedience. The trader has before him the way of unflinching honesty, or the way in which custom and opinion allow him to take advantage and make shorter cuts to profit and increased business; which path will he take? Will he have faith in principle, and perhaps wait, perhaps lose; or will he do as others do, and, highly respecting principle, yet forget it at the critical moment? The young man entering into life wishes to get on. Will he trust to what he is, to his determination to do right, to straightforwardness and simplicity, to God's blessing, or what God has blessed and promised to bless, or will he push his fortunes by readiness to appear what he is not, by selfishness, by man-pleasing, by crooked paths and questionable compliances? The boy has to do his lessons and satisfy his teachers. Will he be content to appear no cleverer than he is, to be conscientious, diligent, faithful, dutiful, whatever comes of it; or will he be tempted to save himself labour and trouble by shorter and easier ways which many will tell him of, and gain credit for what he has no right to? Here, to warn us, to teach us, to comfort us, in all our varied conditions and employments, we have the beginning of Christ's conquest of the world. The footsteps of His great progress begin from the cradle of the nativity.

V. GLADNESS AND JOY. Sometimes we feel hardly in tune for the rejoicing of Christmas. It contrasts sharply with the bitterness of a recent bereavement, the sorrowful watch round a hopeless sick bed. Or it may be, while we are saluting our Lord's coming with hymns and carols of childlike exultation, and repeating the angelic welcome to the Prince of Peace, that by a terrible irony, the heavens around us are black with storm and danger: that great nations are involved in the horrible death-struggle of war; that day by day men are perishing by every form of carnage, and suffering every form of pain; and that by each other's hands. We almost ask, in such a case, whether it is not mockery to think of gladness. Yet it is in place even then; and Christmas claims it from us. Those great gospel songs which heralded the Incarnation of the Son of God — the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Song of the angels — were themselves but the prelude to the life of the "Man of Sorrows." They are followed immediately by Rachel weeping for her children at Bethlehem, and the flight from the sword of Herod. But yet in those dreadful days on earth, of blood and pain and triumphant iniquity, there was peace in heaven and the joy of the angels; for amid the cloud and storm of the conflict which men could not see through, the angels knew who was conquering. He is conquering, and to conquer still. All falsehood, cruelty, selfishness, oppression, and tyranny, are to fall before Him. Amid the darkness of our life, the hope of man is still on Him, as fixed and sure as ever it was. He will not disappoint man of his hope.

(Dean Church.)

I. How SURE IS GOD'S WORD!

II. How WONDERFUL ARE GOD'S WAYS!

III. How GLORIOUS IS GOD'S SALVATION!

(W. S. Bruce, M. A.)

I. THE FIRST COMING WAS IN WEAKNESS, the glory hidden; the second will be in power, the glory revealed.

II. THE FIRST CONING WAS INTRODUCTIVE TO AN EXPERIENCE OF LABOUR AND SUFFERING; the second will be the inauguration of coronation and triumph.

III. IN FIRST COMING CHRIST MADE SALVATION POSSIBLE; in second He will prove how His work has sped.

IV. IN FIRST COMING HE INVITED MEN TO RECONCILIATION AND PEACE; in second He shall descend to bless the believing, but judge the impenitent. Lessons: As we are sure concerning the record of the first advent, let us also be as to the prediction of the second. Have we used the first so as to be prepared for this?

(G. McMichael, B. A.)

I.

1. Consider the revelation thus delivered by the angel — "Unto you is born a Saviour." Jesus is horn a Saviour; we do not make Him a Saviour; we have to accept Him as such. Neither does salvation come from us or by us, but it is born to us.

2. Consider the outward sign by which the Saviour was to be known — "A babe lying in a manger!" Children are the saviours of society: the human race renewing itself perpetually in the freshness and innocence of childhood is prevented from becoming utterly corrupt. This is just the lesson the world needed. Philosophy, art, law, force, all had tried to raise mankind out of sin, and all had failed. In the fulness of time "unto us a Child is born," and in the weakness of that Childhood, the human race is renewed, its flesh comes again "as the flesh of a little child."

II.

1. What a message from heaven to a world weary of life and sick with sin — "Unto you is born a Saviour!"

2. What a message to those who are trusting in the pride of intellect, or in the pride of wealth, or in the pride of earthly position, or in the pride of character — "This shall be the sign: a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger!" The signs which betoken the presence of the Eternal are not always such as commend themselves to men's reasoning, for we are living among shadows which are not realities, although we mistake them for such.

(Canon Vernon Hutton, M. A.)

He is not a temporal Saviour: He is not a Saviour from mere temporal calamity; He is not a Saviour such as the saviours among the Jews were, who had emancipated them from their civil foes; but He is a Saviour from spiritual evils. He saves us from spiritual darkness by His Word; from the pollution and power of sin, by His merit and grace; from the bondage of Satan, by His energy; from hell, by becoming a curse for us, that we may attain eternal life. His salvation extends to the soul as well as the body; to eternity as well as to time.

(Dr. Beaumont.)

In the further prosecution of this discourse, we shall first say a few words on the principle of the gospel message — good-will: Secondly, on the object of the gospel message — men — it is a message of good-will to men: And, Thirdly, on the application of the gospel message to the men who now hear us.

I. When we say that God is actuated by a principle of good-will to you, it sounds in your ears a very simple proposition. There is a barrier in these evil hearts of unbelief, against the admission of a filial confidence in God. We see no mildness in the aspect of the Deity. Our guilty fears suggest the apprehension of a stern and vindictive character. It is not in the power of argument to do away this impression. We know that they will not be made to see God, in that aspect of graciousness which belongs to Him, till the power of a special revelation be made to rest upon them — till God Himself, who created light out of darkness, shine in their hearts. But knowing also that He makes use of the Word as His instrument, it is our part to lay the assurances of that Word, in all their truth and in all their tenderness, before you.

II. We now proceed, in the second place, to the object of the gospel message — men — a message of good-will to men. The announcement which was heard from the canopy of heaven was not good-will to certain men to the exclusion of others. It is not an offer made to some, and kept back from the rest of the species. It is generally to man. We know well the scruples of the disconsolate; and with what success a perverse melancholy can devise and multiply its arguments for despair. But we will admit of none of them. We look at our text, and find that it recognizes no outcast. Tell us not of the malignity of your disease — it is the disease of a man. Tell us not of your being so grievous an offender that you are the very chief of them. Still you are a man. The offer of God's good-will is through Christ Jesus unto all and upon all them that believe. We want to whisper peace to your souls; but you refuse the voice of the charmer, let him charm never so wisely. And here the question occurs to us — how does the declaration of God's good-will in the text consist with the entire and everlasting destruction of so many of the species? In point of fact, all men are not saved. We hold out a gift to two people, which one of them may take and the other may refuse. The good-will in me which prompted the offer was the same in reference to both. God in this sense willeth that all men shall be saved. There is no limitation with Him; and be not you limited by your own narrow and fearful and superstitious conceptions of Him.

III. But this leads us, in the last place, to press home the lesson of the text on you who are now sitting and listening around us. God, in the act of ushering the gospel into the world, declares good-will to man. He declares it therefore to you. Now, you are liable to the same fears with these shepherds. You are guilty; and to you belong all the weakness and all the timidity of guilt.

(T. Chalmers, D. D.)

At the very utterance of the name Saviour, every heart exults with a delight otherwise unknown. To the generous breast, no other object is so beautiful, no other sound so welcome. Never do we shed such rapturous tears, or feel so passionate a joy, as when we witness the heroism and the self-devotion of some act of magnanimous deliverance. Power softens into loveliness, when thus exerted. Danger and toil, encountered in such a cause, impart a stern, yet irresistible attraction. It is thus we think of the patriot, bleeding for the freedom of his country; of the philanthropist, regardless of his own security amidst pestilence, and darkness, and the ministers of death, that he may release the wretched captive, and break the yoke of the oppressor; of the advocate, defending the house of the widow or the heritage of the orphan, and turning into mockery the venality of accusation, and the menaces of vengeance; of the statesman, who stands forth single-handed, but with a dauntless heart, to turn back the flood of tyranny or faction, when threatening to engulf in common ruin the welfare of his people and the safety of mankind; and of the pilot, adventurously urging his way through the pitiless and maddening surge, that he may snatch some solitary victim from the horrors of shipwreck, and bear him, naked and shivering, to the shore. What, then, shall be the glory of Him who plunged, with all the consciousness of unsheltered peril, into the very depths of misery, to rescue the perishing soul! Or what shall be the measure, either of our admiration or our gratitude, when we celebrate, beholding its last triumphs, the emancipation of a world! Advocate, Friend, Brother, these are beloved names; and, like a grateful odour, they give life to the drooping spirit; but if the name of Saviour be more endearing than them all, then what is that ravishment of love with which the rescued sinner shall hail at length the blessed name of Jesus!

(S. McAll.)

Like the sunshine that falls with magical flicker on pearl and ruby, lance and armour, in the royal hall, yet overflows the shepherd's home, and quivers through the grating of the prisoner's cell; pours glory over the mountain-range; flames in playful splendour on the wave; floods the noblest scenes with day, yet makes joy for the insect; comes down to the worm, and has a loving glance for the life that stirs in the fringes of the wayside grass; silvers the moss of the marsh and the scum of the pool; glistens in the thistle-down; lines the shell with crimson fire, and fills the little flower with light; travels millions and millions of miles, past stars, past constellations, and all the dread magnificence of heaven, on purpose to visit the sickly weed, to kiss into vividness the sleeping blooms of spring, and to touch the tiniest thing with the gladness that makes it great: so does the Saviour's love, not deterred by our unworthiness, not offended by our slights, come down to teach and bless the meanest and the lowliest life in the new creation. He restores the bruised reed; the weakest natures share His visits, and revive beneath His smile.

(Charles Stanford, D. D.)

I. A Saviour is BORN.

II. A SAVIOUR is born.

III. A Saviour is born unto you.

IV. THIS DAY.

(Van. Doren.)

I know not how, but when we hear of saving, or mention of a Saviour, presently our mind is carried to the saving of our skin, of our temporal state, of our bodily life; further saving we think not of. But there is another life not to be forgotten, and greater the dangers, and the destruction there more to be feared than of this here, and it would be well sometimes we were reminded of it. Besides our skin and flesh, a soul we have, and it is our better part by far, that also hath need of a Saviour; that hath her destruction out of which, that hath her destroyer from which she would be saved, and those would be thought on. Indeed, our chief thought and care would be for that; how to escape the wrath, how to be saved from the destruction to come, whither our sins will certainly carry us. Sin will destroy us all. And to speak of a Saviour, there is no person on earth has so much need of a Saviour as has a sinner. Nothing so dangerous, so deadly unto us, as is the sin in our bosom; nothing from which we have so much need to be saved, whatsoever account we make of it. From it comes upon us all the evil of this life, and of the life to come, in comparison whereof these here are not worth speaking of. Above all, then, we need a Saviour for our souls, and from our sins, and from the everlasting destruction which sin will bring upon us in the other life not far from us. Then if it be good tidings to hear of a Saviour, where it is but a matter of the loss of earth, or of this life here; how then, when it comes to the loss of heaven, to the danger of hell, when our soul is at stake, and the well-doing or un-doing of it for ever? Is not such a Saviour worth hearkening after?

(Bp. Lancelot Andrews.)

What does that word Christ mean, and what does it teach us? To the Jew of that day, and even to the Pagan, there could have been no doubt as to the meaning of this word Christ, the Christos, the Anointed, one representing to him some person who had been publicly set apart to some great office among men. Anointing was that act by which, especially among the Jews, a man was set apart to some Divinely appointed office among the people; the prophet who was to speak to the people from God, the priest who was to minister to the people in holy things for God, the king who was to rule in God's glory over God's own people, were solemnly set apart by anointing to their office. What they would have called anointing we now call consecration — the publicly and divinely ordered sanctioning and setting apart of a man for an office in which he is to minister unto men and for God. This is anointing, and more than this, it implies that with the appointment and consecration came a power and a grace to fit a man for the office he received. When our Lord, then, is called the Anointed One, the Christ, it means that He is the One of all humanity, who is divinely consecrated and set apart to noble office and high service, and whose whole life and being is filled with the Divine light necessary for doing the work of that office — the Anointed, consecrated One, in whom all consecration and Divine unction centres for the performance of all offices. And every one of these offices, observe, was in the service of mankind. The prophetic office was His, and He claims it as His own when He says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, for He hath anointed Me" — what for? "to preach the gospel to the poor." The prophet's office was an office to serve mankind as their teacher, their guide, and their counsellor. The priestly office was His, and for what? That He might offer Himself as a Lamb without spot or blemish to God, and, having entered by a new and living way with His own blood, should live for intercession and sacrifice, coming forth with blessings for God's people. God made Him king over them, and gave Him heaven for an inheritance — for what? That He might rule them in righteousness and peace. Prophet, Priest, King: in each one of these He was the servant of mankind, and so He says of Himself, "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." King of kings and Lord of lords He is, but Servant of servants to His brethren, and the lordship and the kingdom that He won was won by faith and suffering, won by faithful service, and He served that He might reign, and through it all He was sustained by the in. dwelling power of the Spirit of God, who gave not the Spirit by measure unto Him. This is the idea of the Christ, the consecrated One. It means One whose whole life on earth, whose whole life ever since He has left this earth, was devoted, is devoted, to the service of mankind.

(Bishop W. C. Magee.)

Not so long ago the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands were sorely smitten and plagued by leprosy. They resolved at last to gather all the lepers from the islands round about, all tainted with the slightest symptoms of leprosy, and banish them to one island, where they should dwell and perish slowly, while the rest of their fellow. citizens were saved from the plague — and they did so. And this band of pilgrims, on a pilgrimage of death, were gathered on the shore of one of these islands, about to depart by a ship which would carry them away for life, and standing on the shore was a priest, a Roman Catholic priest, and he saw this multitude going away without a shepherd to care for their souls, and he said, "Take me, let me go amongst them; I will dwell amongst these lepers, and will give them the ministrations of religion which otherwise they would be without." He went, and for some time his courage sustained, and his ministrations blessed that people amongst whom he had cast his lot for life, for he might never leave that place; and then we hear in a letter, written by himself calmly and cheerfully, how that the disease has at last assailed himself, and that his hours of labour are numbered, and before him lies the death of slow and hideous decay to which he had doomed himself that he might save others. In that man was the heart of the priest; in that man was to be seen a manifestation of the Spirit of Christ, the Anointed One; full surely on that soul rested the Divine unction that strengthens and blesses men for noble deeds of sacrifice; and there is not one of us who, in our boasted Protestantism, might be disposed to look down upon "the benighted priest," there is not one of us who might not say, "Let my soul be with his soul in the day when men will have to give an account before the judgment seat of God."

(Bishop W. C. Magee.)

It is very pleasant to hear good tidings for all the rest of the world; but it is pleasanter to know that we have a personal share in the benefits of which those tidings tell. There may be safety to others who are endangered, and not to us. The lifeboat may come and go, and we be left on the wreck. Bread may be distributed to the hungry, and we fail of a share which shall keep as from starving. The physician may bring health to many, and pass us by unnoticed. All of our condemned fellows might be pardoned, and we have no release. Unless the good tidings are to us also, we cannot welcome them with boundless joy, however glad we are that there is help for others. The writer found himself, in the fortunes of war, a prisoner in the Libby, at Richmond. One evening, as the prisoners lay down to sleep, the story was whispered among them that a flag-of-truce boat had come up the river, and that some one of their number was to be released the next day. That was glad tidings for all. But the question in every prisoner's mind was, "Am I to be released?" There were many dreams of home that night on that prison floor. In the early morning, after roll-call, there was breathless expectancy for the name of the favoured prisoner. It was the name of Chaplain Trumbull. Those glad tidings had a meaning for him they could not have for any of his companions. To him there came that day the message of deliverance from bondage, and he passed out from the prison-house thanking God that the message was to him. "Unto you" is a Saviour born. Whoever you are, whatever are your sins there is salvation for you.

(H. C. Trumbull.)

— He is the most joyful man who is the most Christly man. I wish that some Christians were more truly Christians: they are Christians and something else; it were much better if they were altogether Christians. Perhaps you know the legend, or perhaps true history of the awakening of St. . He dreamed that he died, and went to the gates of heaven, and the keeper of the gates said to him, "Who are you?" And he answered, "Christianus sum," I am a Christian. But the porter replied, "No, you are not a Christian, you are a Ciceronian, for your thoughts and studies were most of all directed to the works of Cicero and the classics, and you neglected the teaching of Jesus. We judge men here by that which most engrossed their thoughts, and you are judged not to be a Christian but a Ciceronian." When Augustine awoke, he put aside the classics which he had studied, and the eloquence at which he had aimed, and he said, "I will be a Christian and a theologian;" and from that time he devoted his thoughts to the Word of God, and his pen and his tongue to the instruction of others in the truth. Oh I would not have it said of any of you, "Well, he may be somewhat Christian, but he is far more a keen money-getting tradesman." I would not have it said, "Well, he may be a believer in Christ, but he is a good deal more a politician." Perhaps he is a Christian, but he is most at home when he is talking about science, farming, engineering, horses, mining, navigation, or pleasure-taking. No, no, you will never know the fulness of the joy which Jesus brings to the soul, unless under the power of the Holy Spirit you take the Lord your Master to be your All in all, and make Him the fountain of your intensest delight. "He is my Saviour, my Christ, my Lord," be this your loudest boast. Then will you know the joy which the angel's song predicts for men.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

In the light of the Son of God becoming flesh, we dare not degrade or defile ourselves. We see how base an apostasy it is to abnegate the Divine prerogative of our being. The birth of Christ becomes to us the pledge of immortality, the inspiration of glad, unerring, life-long duty to ourselves. And no less does it bring home to us the new commandment of love to our brethren. It becomes the main reason why we should love one another. If men were indeed what Satan makes them, and makes us try to believe that they solely are — hopelessly degraded, unimaginably vile; if human life be nothing at the best but the shadow of a passing and miserable dream, I know not how we could love one another. We could only turn with loathing from all the vice and blight, the moral corruption, the manifold baseness of vile, lying, degraded lives. How is all transfigured, how is the poorest wretch earth ever bore transfigured, when we remember that for these Christ became man, for these He died I Shall we, ourselves so weak, so imperfect, so stained with evil, shall we dare to despise these whom Christ so loved that for them — yea, for those blind and impotent men, these publicans and sinners, these ragged prodigals of humanity still voluntarily lingering among the husks and swine — for these, even for these, He, so pure, so perfect, took our nature upon Him, and went, step by step, down all that infinite descent? Despise them? Ah! the revealing light of the God-man shows too much darkness in ourselves to leave any possibility for pride. If we have learnt the lesson of Christmas, the lesson of Bethlehem, let us live to counteract the works of the devil; let it be the one aim of our lives to love and not to hate; to help, not to hinder; to succour them that are tempted, not to add to and multiply their temptations; to make men better, not worse; to make life a little happier, not more deeply miserable; to speak kindly words, not words that may do hurt; to console and to encourage, not to blister and envenom with slanderous lies; to live for others, not for ourselves; to look each of us not on his own things, but on the things of others; to think noble thoughts of man as well as of God; to be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ has forgiven us.

(Archdeacon Farrar.)

The Esquimaux have no word in their language to represent the Saviour, and I could never find out that they had any direct notion of such a Friend. But I said to them, "Does it not happen sometimes when you are out fishing that a storm arises, and some of you are lost and some saved?" They said, "Oh yes, very often." "But it also happens that you are in the water, and owe your safety to some brother or friend who stretches out his hand to help you." "Very frequently." "Then what do you call that friend?" They gave me in answer a word in their language, and I immediately wrote it against the word Saviour in Holy Writ, and ever afterwards it was clear and intelligible to all of them.

(Colemeister.)

Those who have travelled in mountainous countries know how the highest crest of the mountain range is always known by seeing from that point, and that point only, the streams dividing on either side. Even so it is with the event of this day. The whole, or nearly the whole, history of the ancient world, and specially of the Israelite people, leads us up to it as certainly on the one side, as the whole history of later times, especially of the Christian world, leads us up to it from the other side: Other events there are which explain particular portions of history; other birthdays can be pointed out; other characters have arisen which contain within themselves the seed of much that was to follow. There is none which professes like this to command both views at once, and thus, even if we knew no more concerning it, we should feel that a life and character which so explains two dispensations comes to us with a double authority. Either would be enough to constitute a claim to our reverence; both together make a claim almost irresistible.

(Dean Stanley.)

A poor casket to contain so great a Jewel. "Thou Bethlehem," says the Prophet Micah, "the least among the princes of Judah;" yet big enough to contain the Prince of heaven and earth. Little Zoar, says Lot, and yet Zoar was big enough to receive him and his children safe out of the fire of Sodom. Mean Bethlehem, unless the angel had spoke it, the prophet foretold it, and the star had showed it to the wise men, who would not have gainsaid that the Saviour of all men could be laid in such a village? The Roman historian made a marvel that so noble an emperor as Alexander Severus was, could come out of Syria, Syrus Archisynagogus, as they called him in scorn. Behold that emperor's Lord, comes not only out of Syria, but out of the homeliest corner in Syria, out of the despicable tributary city of David.

(Bishop Hacker.)

— But that the name may not be an empty sound to us as it was to them, consider these three things.

1. With what honour it was imposed.

2. What excellency it includes.

3. What reverence it deserves.

(Bishop Hacker.)His words, His actions, His miracles, His prayers, His sacraments, His sufferings, all did smell of the Saviour. Take Him from His infancy to His death, among His disciples and among the publicans, among the Jews, or among the Gentiles, He was all Saviour.

(Bishop Hacker.)The sun enlightens half the world at once, yet none discern colours by the light but they that open their eyes; and a Saviour is born unto us all, which is Christ the Lord: but enclasp Him in thine heart as old Simeon did in his arms, and then thou mayest sing his "Nune Dimittis," or Mary's "Magnificat," "My spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour.

(Bishop Hacker.)

— The Athenians were proud of Pompey's love, that he would write his name a citizen of their city. For a princely person to accept a freedom in a mean corporation is no little kindness; how much more doth it aggravate the love of Christ to come from heaven, and be made a citizen of this vile earth, to be born after a more vile condition than the most abject of the people.

(Bishop Hacker.)

For, as we say of the sin of Adam, the act passed away at the first, but the guilt remains upon his posterity: so our Saviour was born upon one particular day which is passed, but the merit and virtue of it is never passed, but abides for ever.

(Bishop Hacker.)

1. Then with reverend lips and circumcised ears let us begin with the joyful tidings of a Saviour.

2. Here's our participation of Him in His nature, natus, He is born, and made like unto us.

3. It is honourable to be made like us, but it is beneficial to be made for us; "unto you is born a Saviour."

4. Is not the use of His birth superannuated, the virtue of it long since expired? No, 'tis fresh and new; as a man is most active when he begins first to run — He is born this day.

5. Is He not like the king in the Gospel who journeyed into a far country, extra orbem solisque vias, quite out of the way in another world? no — the circumstance of place points His dwelling to be near — He is "born in the city of David.

6. Perhaps to make Him man is to quite unmake Him; shall we find Him able to subdue our enemies, and save us, since He hath taken upon Him the condition of human fragility? Yes, the last words speak His excellency and power, for He is such a "Saviour as is Christ the Lord."

(Bishop Hacker.)

It comprehends all other names of grace and blessing; as manna is said to have all kind of supers in it to please the taste. When you have called Him the glass in which we see all truth, the fountain in which we taste all sweetness, the ark in which all precious things are laid up, the pearl which is worth all other riches, the flower of Jesse which hath the savour of life unto life, the bread that satisfieth all hunger, the medicine that healeth all sickness, the light that dispelleth all darkness; when you have run over all these, and as many more glorious titles as you can lay on, this one word is above them, and you may pick them all out of these syllables, "a Saviour which is Christ the Lord."

(Bishop Hacker.)

Let us consider the message itself, the foundation of all our spiritual joy.

I. WHAT IS HE WHO IS BORN? He is "a Saviour," a Deliverer. Good indeed are the tidings of a saviour. Delightful to one languishing On a bed of pain and sickness is He that comes with power and skill to heal and to restore. Most joyful to the wretch condemned to die for his crimes, is the sound of pardon.

II. WHAT ARE THE TITLES GIVEN TO THIS SAVIOUR?

1. He is "Christ." As His name, Jesus, signifies a saviour, so Christ signifies the anointed. He is an anointed Saviour. Thus is He distinguished from all other saviours. The title "Christ" also teaches us His office.

2. He is "the Lord." High and glorious name I He is Jehovah. He is "Lord" by right of creation, in His Divine and eternal nature. He is "Lord" by right of inheritance; man, as Mediator between God and man. He is more particularly our "Lord" by redemption. These names, then, "Christ, the Lord," show Him, an all-sufficient Saviour; show Him, God and man united in one Person: as man to suffer, as God to redeem.

(E. Blencowe, M. A.)

Anna, Aser, Asher, Augustus, Cyrenius, David, Jesus, Joseph, Mary, Phanuel, SimeonBethlehem, Galilee, Jerusalem, Judea, Nazareth, Rome, SyriaAnointed, Birth, Born, Christ, David, David's, Savior, Saviour, To-day, Town1. Augustus taxes all the Roman empire.
6. The nativity of Jesus.
8. An angel relates it to the shepherds, and many sing praises to God for it.
15. The shepherds glorify God.
21. Jesus is circumcised.
22. Mary purified.
25. Simeon and Anna prophesy of Jesus,
39. who increases in wisdom,
41. questions in the temple with the teachers,
51. and is obedient to his parents.

Luke 2:11

     1513   Trinity, mission of
     2018   Christ, divinity
     2078   Christ, sonship of
     2324   Christ, as Saviour
     2369   Christ, responses to
     2423   gospel, essence
     5104   Moses, foreshadower of Christ

Luke 2:1-20

     2515   Christ, birth of

Luke 2:1-40

     5652   babies

Luke 2:4-16

     5099   Mary, mother of Christ

Luke 2:8-11

     8289   joy, of church

Luke 2:8-12

     5426   news

Luke 2:8-15

     4170   host of heaven

Luke 2:8-18

     5433   occupations

Luke 2:8-20

     4112   angels, messengers

Luke 2:9-11

     4140   angel of the Lord

Luke 2:10-11

     2039   Christ, joy of
     2428   gospel, descriptions
     7725   evangelists, identity

Luke 2:10-12

     2421   gospel, historical foundation
     6650   finding

Luke 2:10-14

     6704   peace, divine NT
     8665   praise, reasons

December 25. "I Bring You Glad Tidings" (Luke ii. 10).
"I bring you glad tidings" (Luke ii. 10). A Christmas spirit should be a spirit of humanity. Beside that beautiful object lesson on the Manger, the Cradle, and the lowly little child, what Christian heart can ever wish to be proud? It is a spirit of joy. It is right that these should be glad tidings, for, "Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy which shall be to all people." It is a spirit of love. It should be the joy that comes from giving joy to others. The central fact of Christmas is …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Was, Is, is to Come
'... The babe lying in a manger...'--LUKE ii. 16. '... While He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven...'--LUKE xxiv. 51. 'This same Jesus... shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go...'--ACTS I. 11. These three fragments, which I have ventured to isolate and bring together, are all found in one author's writings. Luke's biography of Jesus stretches from the cradle in Bethlehem to the Ascension from Olivet. He narrates the Ascension twice, because it has two …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

The Boy in the Temple
'And He said unto them, How is it that ye sought Me! wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?' --LUKE ii. 49. A number of spurious gospels have come down to us, which are full of stories, most of them absurd and some of them worse, about the infancy of Jesus Christ. Their puerilities bring out more distinctly the simplicity, the nobleness, the worthiness of this one solitary incident of His early days, which has been preserved for us. How has it been preserved? If you will look over …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Simeon's Swan-Song
'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word: 30. For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.'--LUKE ii. 29,30. That scene, when the old man took the Infant in his withered arms, is one of the most picturesque and striking in the Gospel narrative. Simeon's whole life appears, in its later years, to have been under the immediate direction of the Spirit of God. It is very remarkable to notice how, in the course of three consecutive verses, the operation of that divine Spirit …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Shepherds and Angels
'And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid. 10. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 12. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

The Angel's Message and Song
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the LORD came upon them, and the glory of the LORD shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the LORD . And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

December the Nineteenth the Sun of Righteousness
"A light to lighten the Gentiles." --LUKE ii. 25-40. That was the wonder of wonders. Hitherto the light had been supposed to be for Israel alone; and now a heavenly splendour was to fall upon the Gentiles. Hitherto the light had been thought of as a lamp, illuming a single place; now it was to be a sun, shedding its glory upon a world. The "people that sat in darkness" are now to see "a great light." New regions are to be occupied; there is to be daybreak everywhere! "The Sun of Righteousness …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

December the Twenty-Fifth Christmas Cheer
"Good will toward men!" --LUKE ii. 8-20. The heavens are not filled with hostility. The sky does not express a frown. When I look up I do not contemplate a face of brass, but the face of infinite good will. Yet when I was a child, many a picture has made me think of God as suspicious, inhumanly watchful, always looking round the corner to catch me at the fall. That "eye," placed in the sky of many a picture, and placed there to represent God, filled my heart with a chilling fear. That God was …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

Religious Joy.
"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."--Luke ii. 10, 11. There are two principal lessons which we are taught on the great Festival which we this day celebrate, lowliness and joy. This surely is a day, of all others, in which is set before us the heavenly excellence and the acceptableness in God's sight of that state which …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

The Wilderness: Temptation. Matthew 4:1-11. Mark 1:12, 13. Luke 4:1-13.
The University of Arabia: Jesus' naturalness--the Spirit's presence--intensity, Luke 2:45-51.--a true perspective--- the temptation's path--sin's path--John's grouping, 1 John 2:16.--the Spirit's plan--why--the devil's weakness--the Spirit's leading--a wilderness for every God-used man, Moses, Elijah, Paul. Earth's Ugliest, Deepest Scar: Jesus the only one led up to be tempted--the wilderness--its history, Genesis 13:10-13. 18:16-19:38.--Jesus really tempted--no wrong here in inner response--every …
S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks about Jesus

Joy Born at Bethlehem
In our text we have before us the sermon of the first evangelist under the gospel dispensation. The preacher was an angel, and it was meet it should be so, for the grandest and last of all evangels will be proclaimed by an angel when he shall sound the trumpet of the resurrection, and the children of the regeneration shall rise into the fullness of their joy. The key-note of this angelic gospel is joy--"I bring unto you good tidings of great joy." Nature fears in the presence of God--the shepherds …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

"Nunc Dimittis"
We shall note, this morning, first, that every believer may be assured of departing in peace; but that, secondly, some believers feel a special readiness to depart now: "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace;" and, thirdly, that there are words of encouragement to produce in us the like readiness: "according to thy word." There are words of Holy Writ which afford richest consolation in prospect of departure. I. First, then, let us start with the great general principle, which is full of comfort; …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

Christ About his Father's Business
But now I shall invite your attention, first, to the spirit of the Saviour, as breathed in these words, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" and then, secondly, I shall exhort the children of God, with all the earnestness which I can command, with all the intensity of power which I can summon to the point, to labour after the same spirit, that they too may unfeignedly say, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? " I. First, then note THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. It was …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 3: 1857

The First Christmas Carol
Let us turn aside, having just thought of angels for a moment, to think rather of this song, than of the angels themselves. Their song was brief, but as Kitto excellently remarks, it was "well worthy of angels expressing the greatest and most blessed truths, in words so few, that they become to an acute apprehension, almost oppressive by the pregnant fulness of their meaning"--"Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men." We shall, hoping to be assisted by the Holy Spirit, …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858

Christ's Boyhood
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; …
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

The Christ Child (Christmas Day. )
LUKE ii. 7. And she brought forth her first-born Son, and wrapt him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger. Mother and child.--Think of it, my friends, on Christmas day. What more beautiful sight is there in the world? What more beautiful sight, and what more wonderful sight? What more beautiful? That man must be very far from the kingdom of God--he is not worthy to be called a man at all--whose heart has not been touched by the sight of his first child in its mother's bosom. The greatest …
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

Music (Christmas Day. )
LUKE ii. 13, 14. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. You have been just singing Christmas hymns; and my text speaks of the first Christmas hymn. Now what the words of that hymn meant; what Peace on earth and good-will towards man meant, I have often told you. To-day I want you, for once, to think of this--that it was a hymn; that these angels were singing, even as …
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

Of Having Confidence in God when Evil Words are Cast at Us
"My Son, stand fast and believe in Me. For what are words but words? They fly through the air, but they bruise no stone. If thou are guilty, think how thou wouldst gladly amend thyself; if thou knowest nothing against thyself, consider that thou wilt gladly bear this for God's sake. It is little enough that thou sometimes hast to bear hard words, for thou art not yet able to bear hard blows. And wherefore do such trivial matters go to thine heart, except that thou art yet carnal, and regardest …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

The Birth of Jesus.
(at Bethlehem of Judæa, b.c. 5.) ^C Luke II. 1-7. ^c 1 Now it came to pass in those days [the days of the birth of John the Baptist], there went out a decree [a law] from Cæsar Augustus [Octavius, or Augustus, Cæsar was the nephew of and successor to Julius Cæsar. He took the name Augustus in compliment to his own greatness; and our month August is named for him; its old name being Sextilis], that all the world should be enrolled. [This enrollment or census was the first step …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Circumcision, Temple Service, and Naming of Jesus.
(the Temple at Jerusalem, b.c. 4) ^C Luke II. 21-39. ^c 21 And when eight days [Gen. xvii. 12] were fulfilled for circumcising him [The rite was doubtless performed by Joseph. By this rite Jesus was "made like unto his brethren" (Heb. ii. 16, 17); that is, he became a member of the covenant nation, and became a debtor to the law--Gal. v. 3] , his name was called JESUS [see Luke i. 59], which was so called by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. [Luke i. 31.] 22 And when the days of their …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

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