Though its methods differ, communism no less than Christianity seeks the salvation of the world. On October 30 Soviet communism so loved the world that it presented us with the greatest demonstration of physical power ever put on by man. In the 50 plus megaton range, 2500 times greater than what leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bomb was equal in explosive power to a train of TNT-loaded boxcars extending from New York to Los Angeles.
At such a time the Christian Church must tell abroad that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son; it must call the world to faith in the babe of Bethlehem. A world which measures both its power and its fears in terms of megatons must be summoned to acknowledge Jesus as the light of the world and as mankind’s only hope. Boldly and with great joy the Church must proclaim to all nations and to every creature that this infant is very God, that despite all appearances, all things were created by him and through him and unto him. Nothing therefore can be saved without him. The world must be asked to believe that this infant of the manger has the whole wide world in his hand. From a pulpit-by-the-manger the Church must proclaim: Behold thy God! Any lesser call is a mockery of the Christmas miracle.
Millions will celebrate the Christmas season extolling peace and goodwill and the nobility of giving, without any trembling whatever at the mystery that God is now a man, a baby, that Deity itself lies nestled in the straw of a manger.
Even some who stand in pulpits as ministers of Christ will be ashamed to proclaim that when God came in the flesh he needed to be ministered unto; that he needed a mother, and clothes, and a manger in which to lie. Suffering the offence of the Gospel, their self-pride and self-sufficiency will make them too ashamed to humbly confess this babe as their Lord and their God, their only hope for this world and the next.
Indeed, at first every man’s pride is such that he suffers the offence. This pride each man must lay aside. Else he cannot admit it was his sinful predicament that constrained God to do so extreme a thing as become man, even in the form of a baby, to provide help and deliverance from his predicament.
Who indeed shall truly see this thing that has come to pass? Not those blinded by pride or deceived by the illusion of self-sufficiency. And even the humble will need a sign, for when God came, he came as an infant, and surely not every infant is God! This was the sign for the shepherds, and is still the sign for us, “You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” The swaddling clothes, the manger—these are the signs that identify the infant that is the hope of the world, the infant that is God in the flesh. A manger! How unlike the sign of the 50 plus megatons—proud symbol that man rules the world and disposes its future. Swaddling clothes! How unlike those standard-of-living symbols by which the materialist guarantees the salvation of the world. An infant! How unlike those power symbols whereby men seek to exercise dominion over all lands and seas.
Yet these, the wrap-about clothes and the manger cradle, are the signs that God has come, that God has entered into our broken existence, delivering us from the sting of sin and death by making it his own. Indeed, these are the lowliest and humblest of signs, yet for this very reason they are the signs of the glory of God. God’s special and unique glory is not that he can make bigger bombs than the U.S.S.R. or the U.S.A.—though indeed he can. The distinctive glory of God, which distinguishes him from man as nothing else does, is his love for men and his willingness to share his life with sinners even though the Creator to do so must become part of his creation, the Most High God an infant. The divine glory revealed in the Christmas event is that willingness of God to become one of us, to be identified with our existence, to lift us out of our darkness and death into the everlasting joy and enjoyment of his own light and life. Christmas is God in Christ emptying himself, becoming poor, that we through his poverty might become rich. This loving condescension for our good, this is God’s grace, and this his glory. The infant form with its obvious weakness is therefore appropriate. The swaddling clothes and the manger—signs of lowliness and of poverty—are apt, and even more than apt, for they are part of the Incarnation itself and themselves reveal the nature of God’s glory.
It was this character of the glory of God which moved the angels to cry in praise, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good wall to men.” For if this profound and amazing act in which God stoops to become a helpless creature discloses the nature of the divine glory—that glory in which God himself glories—God should indeed be praised in the heavens above and acclaimed on the earth below.
The lowly signs were not arbitrarily selected, as though the signs of his birth could as well have been signs of wealth or glory. Had they been of the latter type, this infant would not have been “God with us.” Nor were they merely functional so that having served the purpose of identifying the infant to the shepherds, they could be forgotten. The signs of lowliness are so essentially a part of the revelational event of God’s Incarnation that had the signs been of a different order, the revelation would have been other than it was; the God revealed would not have been the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This integral aspect of lowliness present in Bethlehem must be recognized and retained since it characterized the whole revelation of God, which is to say, it characterizes God himself.
When God reveals himself in lowliness and humility, in condescending grace, he is not revealing something that he really is not. Rather he is revealing what he truly is. God in the incarnation, in the swaddling clothes and the lowly manger, is not concealing but truly revealing himself, disclosing to us his true nature.
The God of the manger of Bethlehem is not an actor assuming a role. Much less is God assuming a role which ill befits him, one really quite other than he actually is. God is not for the time being arbitrarily wearing a mask, appearing to be something that he is not. The miracle and mystery of Bethlehem is that God became man, that God is this baby, and that in being this baby God is revealing, not violating his true nature. The infant form of the divine incarnation is no pedagogical aid for children who, upon growing up, may forget the infant form and by a sartorial demythologization strip away the humble swaddling clothes. The God who comes as an infant in the meekness and lowliness of the servant form is, by so coming, revealing his true nature.
The signs therefore may never be forgotten and are, accordingly, preserved for us in the Bible. Each generation needs these no less than the shepherds to learn the nature of him whom the signs reveal: the one and only God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Because the signs are revelatory, they point to an important and essential ingredient in the entire revelation of God through Christ. Jesus is always the one who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. He is ever the Lord in servant form, even as he ever will be the Servant of the Most High. He still stands among us saying, “I am in the midst of you as one who serves.” He is ever the glory of God, the glory of the divine grace and redeeming love. Even in heaven he is still the Lamb, the Lamb that was slain, even as in the post-Resurrection appearances he appears with the nail prints in his hands and feet.
We must, therefore, ever return to Bethlehem to see this thing that is come to pass; we must ever look again at the signs of lowliness for they are of the essence of the revelation of God given at Christmas. They belong to the God whom they reveal, and they reveal that characteristic of God which we most need: the lowliness and meekness of the divine condescending love and grace for sinners, without which the world could not be saved.
The power and glory whose sign is megaton 50 plus is neither the glory of God nor the hope of the world. The glory and power of God of which the angels sang, and in which godly men hope, have their sign in the poor swaddling clothes and the humble manger.
Today when the world is boasting of the greatest power it has ever possessed, yet is beset with fear as never before in history, let men go to Bethlehem to behold their God. There let them celebrate with great joy, because there the “weakness of God is stronger than men.”
Population Explosions And The Church’S Missionary Task
Census takers count noses and add, but their method tells little about the dynamics of population growth. Populations grow not by addition but multiplication. This being true, one would expect that except for war, famine, and pestilence, the acceleration of growth would proceed with a steady, even, predictable speed. History, however, reveals a different pattern. The multiplication of mankind sometimes proceeds by spurts; some, as the current one, are of such dimensions as to be rightly called explosions.
A current estimate that 25 per cent of all the people that ever lived are alive today indicates the highly explosive character of the present increase.
Sudden, vast increases defy explanation. They occur in both poor and prosperous countries, among peoples of diverse cultures and, as in the present instance, after great depletions of manpower by war.
Population statistics in the past and in the present are not obtainable in anything approaching scientific precision. Yet, there is no doubt we today are witnessing the greatest population explosion in all history.
When the human race explodes in self-production, people face the question of what to do with people.
One thing, however, is not a problem but a challenge. If the estimate that 25 per cent of all people that ever lived are alive today is anywhere near true, the Church is under a staggering obligation to preach the Gospel to every creature. Never in history has the Church faced so tremendous a challenge.
In such a grand and awful time the Church is surely obligated to make full use of the media of mass communications, radio, television, and the printed page, to tell the story of Him who is concerned about even one sheep gone astray.
