A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas by James H. Snowden
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James H. Snowden >> A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas
A Wonderful Night
By JAMES H. SNOWDEN
Decorations by
Maud and Miska Petersham
* * * * *
Nights differ as much as days. Some nights have witnessed great events
and been charged with ethical significance in the history of the world.
One such night stands forth crowned with supreme distinction, the night
that heard angels sing, and was starred with the Birth of Bethlehem.
This book treats the various events and steps that led to the central
wonder and interprets the story in terms of its significance today and
invests it with poetic light.
* * * * *
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK
[Transcriber's note: The above text is taken from the front flap of the
dust jacket.]
A Wonderful Night
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICHAGO . DALLAS
ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
[Illustration]
A Wonderful
Night
An Interpretation of
Christmas
By James H. Snowden
Decorations by Maud and
Miska Petersham
[Illustration]
The Macmillan Company
Publishers MCMXIX
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1919.
Contents
CHAPTER
I. An Age of Wonders
II. Preparation for the Event
III. A Wonderful Fulfillment of Prophecy
IV. An Historical Event
V. Simplicity of the Narrative
VI. The Town of Bethlehem
VII. The Wonderful Night Draws Near
VIII. The Birth
IX. No Room in the Inn
X. Angel Ministry
XI. Angels and Shepherds
XII. The Concert in a Sheep Pasture
XIII. The First Visitors to Bethlehem
XIV. The Star and the Wise Men
XV. A Frightened King
XVI. An Impotent Destroyer
XVII. Splendid Gifts
XVIII. Was a Child the Best Christmas Gift to the World?
XIX. A World Without Christmas
XX. Has the Christmas Song Survived the World War?
XXI. The Light of the World
O Little town of Bethleham,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by:
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.
--Phillips Brooks.
[Illustration: A Wonderful Night]
[Illustration: A Wonderful Night]
I. An Age of Wonders
[Transcriber's note: The first letter of each chapter is in the form of
an illustrated dropped capital.]
We live in an age of wonders. Great discoveries and startling events
crowd upon us so fast that we have scarcely recovered from the
bewildering effects of one before another comes, and we are thus kept in
a constant whirl of excitement. The heavens are full of shooting stars,
and while watching one we are distracted by another. So frequent is this
experience that our nerves almost refuse to respond to the shock of a
new sensation. We are no longer surprised at surprises. The marvelous
has become the commonplace, and the unexpected is what we now expect.
Yet we are not to suppose that our age is the only one that has had its
wonders. Other times had theirs also, only these old-time wonders have
become familiar to us and ceased to be wonderful; but in their day they
were marvelous, and some of them equalled if they did not surpass any
wonders we have witnessed. The Great War was the most cataclysmic
eruption that has ever convulsed the world, but it was not more
revolutionary and sensational in the twentieth century than the French
Revolution was in the eighteenth and the Reformation was in the
sixteenth century. The discovery of America in the fifteenth century
created immense excitement and was relatively a more colossal and
startling occurrence than anything that has happened since.
The telescope and the Copernican theory were as great achievements in
their day as the spectroscope and the nebular hypothesis are in our day.
The most useful inventions and the most marvelous products of the human
brain are not the railway and telegraph after all. The art of printing,
which infinitely multiplies thought and sows it in the very air and
every morning photographs the world anew, is a more useful invention and
in its day was a great wonder. Still farther back, hidden in the mists
of antiquity, lies the invention of the alphabet that is even more
useful and marvelous. It is when we get back to the oldest tools, the
hammer and plough and loom, that we come to inventions of the greatest
fundamental utility, and we could better afford to give up all our
modern magic machines than to part with these.
The oldest literature is ever the ripest, richest and best, and Homer
and Shakespeare overtop all our modern writers as the Alps overshadow
the hills lying around their feet. What modern preacher can compare in
eloquence and power with Paul and Isaiah? Nature is ever full of new
wonders, and yet the grass was as green and the mountains as grand and
the golden nets and silver fringes of the clouds were as resplendent in
the days of Abraham as they are to-day. We are the heirs of the ages,
but wonder and wisdom were not born with us, and with us they will not
die.
Where must we go to find the greatest wonder? Not to the scientist's
discoveries and the inventor's cunning devices: the greatest marvel is
not material but spiritual; and to find it we must not look into the
present or future, but go back to the first Christmas morning. On that
morning the Judean shepherds had a story to tell which all they that
heard it wondered at and which is still the wonder and song of the
world. The birth of Jesus is absolutely the greatest event of all time.
Whatever view is taken of him he has become the Master of the world.
Christ has created Christendom, silently lifting its moral level as
mountains are heaved up against the sky from beneath. The coming of such
a unique and powerful personality into the world is an infinitely
greater wonder than the discovery of a new continent or the blazing out
of a new star in the sky.
II. Preparation for the Event
Near events may have remote causes. The river that sweeps by us cannot
be explained without going far back to hidden springs in distant hills.
The huge wave that breaks upon the ocean shore may have had its origin
in a submarine upheaval five thousand miles away.
A wide circle of causes converged towards this birth; all the spokes of
the ancient world ran into this hub. When Abraham started west as an
emigrant out of Babylonia, "not knowing whither he went," he was
unconsciously traveling towards Bethlehem. Jewish history for centuries
headed towards this culmination; this was the matchless blossom that
bloomed out of all that growth from Abraham to Joseph and Mary. Priest
and prophet, tabernacle and temple, gorgeous ritual and streaming altar,
sacrifice and psalm, kingdom and captivity, triumph and tragedy were all
so many roots to this tree. These were the education and discipline of
the chosen people, preparing them as soil out of which the Messiah could
spring. The great ideas of the unity and sovereignty, spirituality and
righteousness of God, the sinfulness of sin and the need of an
atonement were in flaming picture language emblazoned before the people
and burnt into their conscience. Christ could do nothing until these
ideas were rooted in the world.
Pagan achievements, also, "the glory that was Greece and the grandeur
that was Rome," were roots to this same tree of preparation for the
coming of Christ, though they knew it not. Greece with all the glories
of its philosophy and art showed that the world never could be saved by
its own wisdom; and all the laws and legions of Rome were equally
impotent to lift it out of the ditch of sin. Neither a brilliant brain
nor a mailed fist can save a lost world. Yet both Greece and Rome made
positive contributions to the preparation for Christ. Greece fashioned a
marvelous instrument for propagating the gospel in its highly flexible
and expressive language, and Rome reduced the world to order and hushed
it into peace and thus turned it into a vast amphitheater in which the
gospel could be heard. Greece also contributed philosophy that threw
light on the gospel, and Rome gave it a rich inheritance of law.
God thus set this event in a mighty framework of preparation. He got the
world ready for Christ before he brought Christ to the world. He was in
no haste and took plenty of time before he struck the great hour. The
harvest must lie out in the showers and sunshine for weeks and months
before it can ripen into golden wheat, and the meteor must shoot through
millions of invisible miles for one brief flash of splendor. The
centuries seemed slow-footed during that long and dreary stretch from
Abraham to Mary, "but when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth
his Son."
III. A Wonderful Fulfillment of Prophecy
This birth was a wonderful fulfillment of prophecy. The Jews had
cherished the hope of the promised Messiah for thousands of years.
Through all their national vicissitudes, enslavement in Egypt,
wanderings in, the wilderness, establishment and growth in the promised
land, internal division and external captivity in Babylon, restoration,
and final subjection to the Romans, this hope burned on the horizon of
their future as a fixed star. It was this that ever led them on and held
them together and made it impossible to break or subdue their spirit.
This was the dawn that filled all their dark and bitter days with the
rosy glow of hope.
Yet the Messiah came not, and as the centuries slowly rolled along they
must have grown weary and at times have doubted. Sceptics scoffed,
"Where is the sign of his coming?" But the great heart of the nation
remained true to its trust, while prophets caught glimpses of the coming
glory and white-headed, trembling old saints prayed that they might live
a little longer and not die before he came. Perhaps this hope was never
at a lower ebb than when the Roman power was ruthlessly grinding the
nation down into the dust. But suddenly at this darkest hour a blinding
light burnt through the floor of heaven and shepherds ran about
announcing that the Messiah was born! Who can imagine the surprise, the
wonder, the overwhelming amazement this news created? How many were
eager to go to Bethlehem and see this thing which had come to pass! And
when it was found to be true, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy and
old men blessed God and said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servants
depart in peace."
Yet why should they have wondered at God's faithfulness in keeping his
promise, as though he could ever have forgotten it or failed to bring it
to pass? Why should we ever wonder at the faithfulness of God? Doubtless
in some degree because of our human infirmity. Our sense of unity with
God and trust in him have been weakened by sin until we are ready to
doubt him as though he were one of ourselves. His promises also are so
far-reaching and great, splendid and blessed, they so far surpass our
thoughts of wisdom and mercy, that, even though they have been repeated
to us until we are familiar with them, when they are fulfilled we wonder
at the faithfulness that will bring so great things to pass.
IV. An Historical Event
The story starts with the place and time of the Saviour's birth. Jesus
was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king. There are
many myths and legends floating through the world that are often
beautiful and useful, but they hang like gorgeous clouds in the air and
are ever changing their shape and place. They are growths of the
imagination and lack historic roots and reality. They are chary of names
and dates and hide their origin in far-away mists. However powerfully
and pathetically they may reflect the needs and hopes of the human
heart, they are unsubstantial as dreams and afford no foundation on
which to build our faith. Heathen religions are generally woven of this
legendary stuff. The Greek and Roman divinities were all mythical. But
the scientific spirit has swept these imaginary deities out of our sky
and rendered belief in them impossible. Our religion must be rooted in
reality and cannot live in clouds, however beautifully they may be
colored. We refuse hospitality to anything but fact. Give us names and
dates, is our demand.
The Bible responds to this requirement. Christianity is an historical
religion. The gospel narrative begins with no such indefinite statement
as "Once upon a time," but it starts in Bethlehem of Judea. The town is
there and we can stand on the very spot where Jesus was born. The
narrative places the time of his birth, in the days of Herod the king.
History knows Herod; there is nothing mythical about this monster of
iniquity. These statements are facts that no keenest critic or scholarly
unbeliever can plausibly dispute. So the gospel sets its record in the
rigid frame of history; it roots its origin down in the rocky ledge of
Judea. Christ was not born in a dream, but in Bethlehem. We are not,
then, building our faith on a myth, but on immovable matters of fact.
This thing was not done in a corner, but in the broad day, and it is not
afraid of the geographer's map and the historian's pen. The Christmas
story is not another beautiful legend in the world's gallery of myths,
but is sober and solid reality; its story is history. Our religion is
truth, and we will worship at no other altar.
V. Simplicity of the Narrative
Though surcharged with such tremendous meaning, carrying a heavier
burden of news than was ever before committed to human language, yet the
simplicity with which the story is told is one of the literary marvels
of the gospels. This event has inspired poets and painters and has been
embroidered and illuminated with an immense amount of ornamentation.
Genius has poured its splendors upon it and tried to give us some worthy
conception of the scene. But the evangelists had no such purpose or
thought, and their story is told with that charming artlessness that is
perfect art. They were not men of genius, but plain men, mostly tax
collectors and fishermen untrained in the schools, with no thought of
skill or literary art. Yet all the stylists and artists of the world
stand in wonder before their unconscious effort and supreme
achievement. No attempt at rhetoric disfigures their record, not a word
is written for effect, but the simple facts are allowed to tell their
own eloquent and marvelous tale. The inspired writers mixed no
imagination with their verities, for they had no other thought than to
tell the plain truth; and this gives us confidence in the
trustworthiness of their narrative. These men did not follow cunningly
devised fables when they made known unto us the power and coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ, for they were eye-witnesses of his glory.
VI. The Town of Bethlehem
The land of Palestine is divided from north to south by a central range
of mountains which runs up through this narrow strip of country like a
spinal column. About five miles south of Jerusalem a ridge or spur
shoots off from the central range towards the east. On the terminal
bluff of this ridge lies the town of Bethlehem. On the west it is shut
in by the plateau, and on the east the ridge breaks steeply down into
the plain. Vineyards cover the hillsides with green and purple, and
wheatfields wave in the valleys. In the distant east, across the Dead
Sea, the mountains of Moab are penciled in dark blue against the sky.
At the present time the town has eight thousand inhabitants. Its
flat-roofed houses are well built and its narrow streets are clean. It
is a busy place, its chief industry being the manufacture of souvenirs
of olive wood which are sold throughout the Christian world. Its
principal church is the Church of the Nativity, which is built over a
cave that is one of the most sacred and memorable spots on the globe. It
is believed that this cave is the place where Christ was born, and a
silver star inlaid in the stone floor is intended to mark the exact
spot. It was then used as the stable of the adjoining inn, and in its
stone manger the infant Jesus may have been laid.
At the time of this event Bethlehem was a mere village of a few hundred
people. It might have been thought that Jerusalem, the historic
metropolis and proud capital of the country, the chosen city of God and
seat of the temple and center of worship, a city beautiful for
situation, magnificent in its architecture, sacred in its associations
and world-wide and splendid in its fame, should have been honored with
this supreme event in the history of the Jews. But an ancient prophet,
while noting its comparative insignificance, had yet put his finger on
this tiny point on the map and pronounced upon it a blessing that caused
it to blaze out like a star amidst its rural hills. "But thou, Bethlehem
Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of
thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose
goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." And so proud
Jerusalem was passed by, and this supreme honor was bestowed upon the
humble village.
Great men, as a rule, are not born in cities. They come up out of
obscure villages and hidden nooks and corners. They originate closer to
nature than city-born men and seem to spring from the very soil. The
most noted birthplace in Scotland is that of Burns: it is a humble
cottage with a thatched roof and a stable in one end of it. The most
celebrated birthplace in England is that of Shakespeare, and again it is
a plain cottage in a country village. Lincoln was born in a log hut in
the wilds of Kentucky, Mohammed was the son of a camel driver, and
Confucius the son of a soldier. The city must go to the country for its
masters, and the world draws its best blood and brains from the farm. It
was in accordance with this principle that the Saviour of the world
should be born, not in a city and palace, but in a country village, and
that his first bed should be, not a downy couch, but a slab of stone.
VII. The Wonderful Night Draws Near
"Now it came to pass in those days, there went out a decree from Caesar
Augustus, that all the world should be enrolled." This is the point at
which the orderly and scholarly Luke opens his account of the birth of
our Lord. It seems like going a long way off from and around to the end
in view. But there are no isolated facts and forces in the world and all
things work together. When we see providence start in we never can tell
where it is going to come out. If God is about to bless us, he may start
the chain of causation that shall at length reach us in some far-off
place or land; or if he is about to save a soul in China he may start
with one of us in the contribution we make to foreign missions. Caesar
Augustus, master of the world, from time to time ordered a census to be
taken of the empire that he might know its resources and reap from it a
richer harvest of taxes. It was probably between the months of December
and March, B.C. 5-4, that such a census was being taken in the province
of Syria.
In accordance with ancient Jewish usage, all citizens repaired to the
tribe and village from which they were descended, and were there
enrolled. In the town of Nazareth in the north lived Joseph, a village
carpenter, and Mary, his espoused wife, who though a virgin was great
with child, having been overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and the mystery
having been revealed to her and her betrothed husband. They were both
descended from the royal line of David, and therefore to Bethlehem they
must go. With us such a journey of eighty miles would mean no more than
stepping on a railway car at nine o'clock in the morning and stepping
off at noon. But with them it meant a toilsome journey on foot of
several days. Slowly they wended their way southward, led on by the
irresistible hand of Caesar, far away on his throne. The ancient Hebrew
prophecy of Micah and the imperial decree of Caesar thus marvelously
fitted into each other and worked together. Mary must have known of this
prophecy, and we know not with what a sense of mystery and fear and joy
she drew near to the predicted place where the Messiah was to be born.
Bethlehem sits like a crown on its rocky ridge. At length its walls and
towers loomed in the distance, and then presently up the steep road
climbed the carpenter and his espoused wife and passed through the gate
into the village. When they came to the inn, it was already crowded with
visitors, driven thither by the decree of Caesar that had set all
Palestine in commotion. In connection with the inn, generally the
central space of its four-square inclosure, but probably in this case a
cave in the limestone rock, was a stable, or place for the camels and
horses and cattle of the guests. Among these oriental people it was (and
is) no uncommon thing for travelers, when the chambers of the inn were
fully occupied, to make a bed of straw and spend the night in this
place. In this stable, possibly the very cave where now stands the
Church of the Nativity, Mary and Joseph found lodgings for the night. It
was not a mark of degradation or social inferiority for them to do this,
though it was an indication of their meager means, as wealthy visitors
would doubtless have found better accommodations.
VIII. The Birth
In that cave Mary brought forth her first-born son; and as there appears
to have been no woman's hand there to minister to her, she herself
wrapped the new-born babe in swaddling clothes; and as there was no
other cradle or bed to receive it, she laid the child in the trough from
which the camels were fed. This is all we know of what took place on
that memorable night from which the history of the Christian world is
now dated. The apocryphal gospels, legends that afterwards grew up, fill
the chamber with supernal light so that visitors had to shade their eyes
from the splendor of the child; and the painters portray the holy child
and mother with halos of glory around their heads. But this is all
imagination and myth. Jesus was born as other human beings are born, and
looked just like a human child. No one seeing him could have guessed
that a unique birth had ruptured the continuity of nature and brought a
divine Man into the world. There was no glory streaming from his person,
and no spectacular display of pageantry and pomp such as attended the
birth of a Caesar. The Son of Man did not come with observation, but
stole into the world silently and unseen. If we could have gazed upon
the Christ-child as it lay in its manger, we would have been
disappointed and thought that nothing extraordinary had happened. But a
great event rarely seems great at the time; long centuries may elapse
before it looms into view and is seen in its central place as the axis
of history. Outward size and circumstance do not measure inward power
and possibility. God brought only a child into the world that night, but
in that Child were sheathed omnipotent wisdom and mercy and might to
save the world.
IX. No Room in the Inn
"There was no room for them in the inn." And so Jesus came into a world
where there was no room for him in the habitations of men. After all
this preparation through which the centuries grew into readiness for his
coming, after all these types and prophecies, sacrifices and symbols,
after all this weary waiting and passionate hope and all these golden
dreams, when the promised One came there was no room for him and he was
not wanted! "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." Was
there ever a greater and sadder anticlimax and a more cruel
disappointment? Let us admit that there may have been no fault in this
matter, no lack of hospitality in the keeper or the guests of the inn,
as the village was overcrowded, and the fact that these late arrivals
were compelled to put up with a place out in the enclosure, possibly a
cave, where the animals were kept, was no intended incivility or
uncommon hardship. Nevertheless, whatever may have been the reason, the
fact was that there was no room for Jesus in that inn the first night he
spent in this world, and this fact was sadly prophetic of his reception
in the world he came to save.
There were few places where he did find welcome: generally there was no
room for him even in places where he had the most reason and right to
expect it. And if it was no lack of hospitality that kept him out of
this inn, it certainly was the lack of this grace and the positive
presence of hostility that in after life excluded him from many places
where he wanted to be.
Jesus was not wanted in his own country: Herod tried to leave no room
for him there. He was not wanted in his own town: his neighbors tried
to hurl him down a cliff to his death. He was not wanted in his own
church: its ministers and doctors of divinity fell upon him in malignant
fury and at last crucified him. Even his own family found it hard to
make room for him in their inner circle. Small room was there in this
evil world for this pure and lowly spirit. Then why did he come to it?
Because he so loved it that he gave himself for it. Small room do we
still leave for Jesus as we crowd him out of our hearts and lives and
out of our social order and civilization with our selfishness and sin.
Is it a discouraging fact that there is so little room for Christ in the
world? Then let us note the fact that there is more room for him to-day
than ever before, and this room is ever widening.