Christ our Consolation

 

His name shall be called Emmanuel ... God with us. - Matt 1:23

The Prince of Peace - Isa 9:6

“There’s a song in the air!  

There’s a star in the sky!  

There’s a mother’s deep prayer,  

And a baby’s low cry!  

And the star rains its fire  

While the beautiful sing,  

For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King.”

A few years ago a striking Christmas card was published, with the title, “If Christ had not come.” It was founded upon our Saviors’ words, “If I had not come.” The card represented a clergyman falling into a short sleep in his study on Christmas morning and dreaming of a world into which Jesus had never come.

In his dream he found himself looking through his home, but there were no little stockings in the chimney corner, no Christmas bells or wreaths of holly, and no Christ to comfort, gladden and save. He walked out on the public street, but there was no church with its spire pointing to Heaven. He came back and sat down in his library, but every book about the Savior had disappeared.

A ring at the door-bell, and a messenger asked him to visit a poor dying mother. He hastened with, the weeping child and as he reached the home he sat down and said, “I have something here that will comfort you.” He opened his Bible to look for a familiar promise, but it ended at Malachi, and there was no gospel and no promise of hope and salvation, and he could only bow his head and weep with her in bitter despair.

Two days afterward he stood beside her coffin and conducted the funeral service, but there was no message of consolation, no word of a glorious resurrection, no open Heaven, but only “dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” and one long eternal farewell. He realized at length that “He had not come,” and burst into tears and bitter weeping in his sorrowful dream.

Suddenly he woke with a start, and a great shout of joy and praise burst from his lips as he heard his choir singing in his church close by:

“O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,  

O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;  

Come and behold Him, born the King of Angels,  

O come let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord.”  

Let us be glad and rejoice today, because “He has come.” And let us remember the annunciation of the angel, “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 Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10, 11).

“He comes to make His blessing flow,  

Far as the curse is found.”

May our hearts go out to the people in heathen lands who have no blessed Christmas day. “Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and SEND PORTIONS TO THEM FOR WHOM NOTHING IS PREPARED.” (Neh. 8:10).

Quiet Time with God

 

And Isaac went out to meditate in the fields at eventide - Gen 24:63

We should be better Christians if we were more alone; we should do more if we attempted less, and spent more time in retirement, and quiet waiting upon God. The world is too much with us; we are afflicted with the idea that we are doing nothing unless we are fussily running to and fro; we do not believe in “the calm retreat, the silent shade.” As a people, we are of a very practical turn of mind; “we believe,” as someone has said, “in having all our irons in the fire, and consider the time not spent between the anvil and the fire as lost, or much the same as lost.” Yet no time is more profitably spent than that which is set apart for quiet musing, for talking with God, for looking up to Heaven. We cannot have too many of these open spaces in life, hours in which the soul is left accessible to any sweet thought or influence it may please God to send.

“Reverie,” it has been said, “is the Sunday of the mind.” Let us often in these days give our mind a “Sunday,” in which it will do no manner of work but simply lie still, and look upward, and spread itself out before the Lord like Gideon’s fleece, to be soaked and moistened with the dews of Heaven. Let there be intervals when we shall do nothing, think nothing, plan nothing, but just lay ourselves on the green lap of nature and “rest awhile.”

Time so spent is not lost time. The fisherman cannot be said to be losing time when he is mending his nets, nor the mower when he takes a few minutes to sharpen his scythe at the top of the ridge. City men cannot do better than follow the example of Isaac, and, as often as they can, get away from the fret and fever of life into fields. Wearied with the heat and din, the noise and bustle, communion with nature is very grateful; it will have a calming, healing influence. A walk through the fields, a saunter by the seashore or across the daisy-sprinkled meadows, will purge your life from sordidness, and make the heart beat with new joy and hope.

“The little cares that fretted me,  

I lost them yesterday,  

… Out in the fields with God.”

Christmas Eve

BELLS ACROSS THE SNOW

O Christmas, merry Christmas,  

Is it really come again,  

With its memories and greetings,  

With its joy and with its pain!  

There’s a minor in the carol  

And a shadow in the light,  

And a spray of cypress twining  

With the holly wreath tonight.  

And the hush is never broken  

By laughter light and low,  

As we listen in the starlight  

To the “bells across the snow.”  

O Christmas, merry Christmas,  

’Tis not so very long  

Since other voices blended  

With the carol and the song!  

If we could but hear them singing,  

As they are singing now,  

If we could but see the radiance  

Of the crown on each dear brow,  

There would be no sigh to smother,  

No hidden tear to flow,  

As we listen in the starlight  

To the “bells across the snow.”  

O Christmas, merry Christmas,  

This never more can be;  

We cannot bring again the days  

Of our un shadowed glee,  

But Christmas, happy Christmas,  

Sweet herald of good will,  

With holy songs of glory  

Brings holy gladness still.  

For peace and hope may brighten,  

And patient love may glow,  

As we listen in the starlight  

To the “bells across the snow.”  

—Frances Ridley Havergal

God's Refreshment

The journey is too great for thee     ( 1 Kgs - 19:7)

And what did God do with His tired servant? Gave him something good to eat, and put him to sleep. Elijah had done splendid work, and had run alongside of the chariot in his excitement, and it had been too much for his physical strength, and the reaction had come on, and he was depressed. The physical needed to be cared for. What many people want is sleep, and the physical ailment attended to. There are grand men and women who get where Elijah was—under the juniper tree! and it comes very soothingly to such to hear the words of the Master: “The journey is too great for thee, and I am going to refresh you.” Let us not confound physical weariness with spiritual weakness.

“I’m too tired to trust and too tired to pray,  

Said one, as the over-taxed strength gave way.  

The one conscious thought by my mind possessed,  

Is, oh, could I just drop it all and rest.  

“Will God forgive me, do you suppose,  

If I go right to sleep as a baby goes,  

Without an asking if I may,  

Without ever trying to trust and pray?  

“Will God forgive you? why think, dear heart,  

When language to you was an unknown art,  

Did a mother deny you needed rest,  

Or refuse to pillow your head on her breast?  

“Did she let you want when you could not ask?  

Did she set her child an unequal task?  

Or did she cradle you in her arms,  

And then guard your slumber against alarms?  

“Ah, how quick was her mother love to see,  

The unconscious yearnings of infancy.  

When you’ve grown too tired to trust and pray,  

When over-wrought nature has quite given way:  

“Then just drop it all, and give up to rest,  

As you used to do on a mother’s breast,  

He knows all about it—the dear Lord knows,  

So just go to sleep as a baby goes;  

“Without even asking if you may,  

God knows when His child is too tired to pray.  

He judges not solely by uttered prayer,  

He knows when the yearnings of love are there.  

“He knows you do pray, He knows you do trust,  

And He knows, too, the limits’ of poor weak dust.  

Oh, the wonderful sympathy of Christ,  

For His chosen ones in that midnight tryst,  

“When He bade them sleep and take their rest,  

While on Him the guilt of the whole world pressed—  

You’ve given your life up to Him to keep,  

Then don’t be afraid to go right to sleep.”