1026. Joy Born at Bethlehem

A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, December 24, 1871, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. *8/28/2011

And the angel said to them, “Do not fear: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be for all people. For to you is born today in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign to you; You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” (Lu 2:10-12)

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1. We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas: first, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it is said or sung in Latin or in English; and, secondly, because we find no scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Saviour; and, consequently, its observance is a superstition, because it is not instituted by divine authority. Superstition has fixed most positively the day of our Saviour’s birth, although there is no possibility of discovering when it occurred. Fabricius gives a catalogue of 136 different learned opinions upon the matter; and various divines invent weighty arguments for advocating a date in every month in the year. It was not until the middle of the third century that any part of the church celebrated the nativity of our Lord; and it was not until very long after the Western church had set the example, that the Eastern church adopted it. Because the day is not known, therefore superstition has fixed it; while, since the day of the death of our Saviour might be determined with much certainty, therefore superstition shifts the date of its observance every year. Where is the method in the madness of the superstitious? Probably the fact is that the holy days were arranged to fit in with heathen festivals. We venture to assert, that if there is any day in the year, of which we may be pretty sure that it was not the day on which the Saviour was born, it is the twenty-fifth of December. Nevertheless since the current of men’s thoughts is led this way just now, and I see no harm in the current itself, I shall launch the bark of our discourse upon that stream, and make use of the fact, which I shall neither justify nor condemn, by endeavouring to lead your thoughts in the same direction. Since it is lawful, and even laudable, to meditate upon the incarnation of the Lord upon any day in the year, it cannot be in the power of other men’s superstitions to render such a meditation improper for today. Not regarding the day, let us, nevertheless, give God thanks for the gift of his dear Son.

2. In our text we have before us the sermon of the first evangelist under the gospel era. The preacher was an angel, and it was appropriate 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 fulness of their joy. The keynote of this angelic gospel is joy — “I bring to you good tidings of great joy.” Nature fears in the presence of God — the shepherds were very afraid. The law itself served to deepen this natural feeling of dismay; seeing men were sinful, and the law came into the world to reveal sin, its tendency was to make men fear and tremble under any and every divine revelation. The Jews unanimously believed that if any man beheld supernatural appearances, he would be sure to die, so that what nature dictated, the law and the general beliefs of those under it also abetted. But the first word of the gospel ended all this, for the angelic evangelist said, “Do not fear, behold I bring you good tidings.” After this, it is to be no dreadful thing for man to approach his Maker; redeemed man is not to fear when God unveils the splendour of his majesty, since he appears no more as a judge upon his throne of terror, but as a Father bending down in sacred familiarity before his own beloved children.

3. The joy which this first gospel preacher spoke of was no insignificant one, for he said, “I bring you good tidings” — that alone would be joy: and not good tidings of joy only, but “good tidings of great joy.” Every word is emphatic, as if to show that the gospel is above all things intended to promote, and will most abundantly create the greatest possible joy in the human heart wherever it is received. Man is like a harp unstrung, and the music of his soul’s living strings is discordant, his whole nature wails with sorrow; but the son of David, that mighty harpist, has come to restore the harmony of humanity, and where his gracious fingers move among the strings, the touch of the fingers of an incarnate God produces sweet music as that of the spheres, and melody as rich as a seraph’s canticle. Oh that all men felt that divine hand.

4. In trying to preach about this angelic discourse this morning, we shall notice three things: the joy which is spoken of; next, the people to whom this joy comes; and then, thirdly, the sign, which is for us a sign as well as for these shepherds — a sign of the birth and source of joy.

5. I. First, then, THE JOY, which is mentioned in our text — from where does it come, and what is it?

6. We have already said it is a “great joy” — “good tidings of great joy.” Earth’s joy is small, her mirth is trivial, but heaven has sent us joy immeasurable, fit for immortal minds. Inasmuch as no note of time is appended, and no intimation is given that the message will ever be repealed, we may say that it is a lasting joy, a joy which will ring all down through the ages, the echoes of which shall be heard until the trumpet brings the resurrection; indeed, and onward for ever and ever. For when God sent out the angel in his brightness to say, “I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be for all people,” he did as much as say, “From this time forth it shall be joy for the sons of men; there shall be peace for the human race, and goodwill towards men for ever and ever, as long as there is glory to God in the highest.” Oh blessed thought! the Star of Bethlehem shall never set. Jesus, the fairest among ten thousand, the most lovely among the beautiful, is a joy for ever.

7. Since this joy is expressly associated with the glory of God, by the words, “Glory to God in the highest,” we may be quite clear that it is a pure and holy joy. An angel could not have proclaimed anything else, and, indeed, no other joy is joy. The wine pressed from the grapes of Sodom may sparkle and foam, but it is bitterness in the end, and its dregs are death; only what comes from the clusters of Eshcol is the true wine of the kingdom, making glad the heart of God and man. Holy joy is the joy of heaven, and that, to be sure, is the very cream of joy. The joy of sin is a fountain of fire, having its source in the burning soil of hell, maddening and consuming those who drink its firewater; we do not desire to drink from such delights. It would be worse than damned to be happy in sin, since it is the beginning of grace to be wretched in sin, and the consummation of grace to be wholly escaped from sin, and to shudder even at the thought of it. It is hell to live in sin and misery, it is an even lower depth when men could create a joy in sin. May God save us from unholy peace and from unholy joy! The joy announced by the angel of the nativity is as pure as it is lasting, as holy as it is great. Let us then always believe concerning the Christian religion that it contains its joy within itself, and holds its feasts within its own pure precincts, a feast whose viands all grow on holy ground. There are those who, tomorrow, will pretend to exhibit joy in the remembrance of our Saviour’s birth, but they will not seek their pleasure in the Saviour: they will need many additions to the feast before they can be satisfied. Joy in Emmanuel would be a poor kind of mirth for them. In this country, too often, if one were unaware of the name, one might believe the Christmas festival to be a feast of Bacchus, or of Ceres, certainly not a commemoration of the Divine birth. Yet there is cause enough for holy joy in the Lord himself, and reasons for ecstasy in his birth among men. It is to be feared that most men imagine that in Christ there is only seriousness and solemnity, and to them consequently weariness, gloom, and discontent; therefore, they look out of and beyond what Christ allows, to snatch from the tables of Satan the delicacies with which to adorn the banquet held in honour of a Saviour. Let it not be so among you. The joy which the gospel brings is not borrowed but blooms in its own garden. We may truly say in the language of one of our sweetest hymns — 

   I need not go abroad for joy,
   I have a feast at home,
   My sighs are turned into songs,
   My heart has ceased to roam.
   Down from above the Blessed Dove
   Has come into my breast,
   To witness his eternal love,
   And give my spirit rest.

Let our joy be living water from those sacred wells which the Lord himself has dug; may his joy reside in us, so that our joy may be full. We cannot have too much of Christ’s joy; there is no fear of running to excess when his love is the wine we drink. Oh to be plunged in this pure stream of spiritual delights!

8. But why is it that the coming of Christ into the world is the occasion for joy? The answer is as follows: — First, because it is always a joyous fact that God should be in alliance with man, especially when the alliance is so close that God should in very deed take our manhood into union with his Godhead; so that God and man should constitute one divine, mysterious person. Sin had separated God and man; but the incarnation bridges the separation: it is a prelude to the atoning sacrifice, but it is a prelude full of the richest hope. From henceforth, when God looks upon man, he will remember that his own Son is a man. From this day on, when he beholds the sinner, if his wrath should burn, he will remember that his own Son, as man, stood in the sinner’s place, and bore the sinner’s doom. As in the case of war, the feud is ended when the opposing parties intermarry, so there is no more war between God and man, because God has taken man into intimate union with himself. Herein, then, there was cause for joy.

9. But there was more than that, for the shepherds were aware that there had been promises made of old which had been the hope and comfort of believers in all ages, and these were now to be fulfilled. There was that ancient promise made on the threshold of Eden to the first sinners of our race, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head; another promise made to the Father of the faithful that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, and promises uttered by the mouths of prophets and of saints since the world began. Now, the announcement of the angel of the Lord to the shepherds was a declaration that the covenant was fulfilled, that now in the fulness of time God would redeem his word, and the Messiah, who was to be Israel’s glory and the world’s hope; was now really come. Be glad you heavens, and be joyful oh earth, for the Lord has done it, and he has visited his people in mercy. The Lord has not permitted his word to fail, but has fulfilled to his people his promises. The time to favour Zion, yes the set time, is come. Now that the sceptre is departed from Judah, behold the Shiloh comes, the Messenger of the covenant suddenly appears in his temple!

10. But the angel’s song had in it even a fuller reason for joy; for our Lord who was born in Bethlehem came as a Saviour. “To you is born today a Saviour.” God had come to earth before, but not as a Saviour. Remember that terrible coming when three angels went into Sodom at nightfall, for the Lord said, “I will go now and see whether it is altogether according to its cry.” He had come as a spy to witness human sin, and as an avenger to lift his hand to heaven, and order the red fire to descend and burn up the accursed cities of the plain. Horror to the world when God descends like this. If Sinai smokes when the law is proclaimed, the earth itself shall melt when the breaches of the law are punished. But now not as an angel of vengeance, but God has come as a man in mercy; not to spy out our sin, but to remove it; not to punish guilt, but to forgive it. The Lord might have come with thunderbolts in both his hands he might have come like Elijah to call fire from heaven; but no, his hands are full of gifts of love, and his presence is the guarantee of grace. The babe born in the manger might have been another prophet of tears, or another son of thunder, but he was not so: he came in gentleness, his glory and his thunder equally laid aside.

   ’Twas mercy filled the throne,
   And wrath stood silent by,
   When Christ on the kind errand came
   To sinners doomed to die.

11. Rejoice, you who feel that you are lost; your Saviour comes to seek and save you. Be of good cheer you who are in prison, for he comes to set you free. You who are famished and ready to die, rejoice that he has consecrated for you a Bethlehem, a house of bread, and he has come to be the bread of life for your souls. Rejoice, oh sinners, everywhere for the restorer of the castaways, the Saviour of the fallen is born. Join in the joy, you saints, for he is the preserver of the saved ones, delivering them from innumerable perils, and he is the sure perfecter of those whom he preserves. Jesus is no partial Saviour, beginning a work and not concluding it; but, restoring and upholding, he also perfects and presents the saved ones without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing before his Father’s throne. Rejoice aloud all you people, let your hills and valleys ring with joy, for a Saviour who is mighty to save is born among you.

12. Nor was this all the holy mirth, for the next word has also in it a fulness of joy: — “a Saviour, who is Christ,” or the Anointed. Our Lord was not an amateur Saviour who came down from heaven upon an unauthorized mission; but he was chosen, ordained, and anointed by God; he could truly say, “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me.” Here is great comfort for all those who need a Saviour; it is to them no insignificant consolation that God has himself authorized Christ to save. There can be no fear of a falling out between the mediator and the judge, no peril of a nonacceptance of our Saviour’s work; because God has commissioned Christ to do what he has done, and in saving sinners he is only executing his Fathers own will. Christ is here called “the anointed.” All his people are anointed, and there were priests after the order of Aaron who were anointed, but he is the anointed, “anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows”; so plenteously anointed that, like the unction upon Aaron’s head, the sacred anointing of the Head of the church distils in copious streams, until we who are like the skirts of his garments are made sweet with the rich perfume. He is “the anointed” in a threefold sense: as prophet to preach the gospel with power; as priest to offer sacrifice; as king to rule and reign. In each of these he is preeminent; he is such a teacher, priest, and ruler as was never seen before. In him was a rare conjunction of glorious offices, for never did prophet, priest, and king meet in one person before among the sons of men, nor shall it ever be so again. Triple is the anointing of him who is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, a prophet like Moses, and a king of whose dominion there is no end. In the name of Christ, the Holy Spirit is glorified, by being seen as anointing the incarnate God. Truly, dear brethren, if we only understand all this, and receive it into our hearts, our souls would leap for joy on this Sabbath day, to think that there is born for us a Saviour who is anointed by the Lord.

13. One more note, and this is the loudest, let us sound it well and hear it well — “which is Christ the Lord.” Now the word Lord, or Kurios, here used is tantamount to Jehovah. We cannot doubt that, because it is the same word used twice in the ninth verse, and in the ninth verse no one can question that it means Jehovah. Hear it, “And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone all around them.” And if this is not enough, read the twenty-third verse, “As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.” Now the word Lord here assuredly refers to Jehovah, the one God, and so it must do that here. Our Saviour is Christ, God, Jehovah. No testimony to his divinity could be more plain; it is indisputable. And what joy there is in this; for suppose an angel had been our Saviour, he would not have been able to bear the load of my sin or yours; or if anything less than God had been set up as the basis of our salvation, it might have been found too frail a foundation. But if he who undertakes to save is none other than the Infinite and the Almighty, then the load of our guilt can be carried upon such shoulders, the stupendous labour of our salvation can be achieved by such a worker, and that with ease: for all things are possible with God, and he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him. You sons of men perceive here the subject of your joy. The God who made you, and against whom you have offended, has come down from heaven and taken upon himself your nature so that he might save you. He has come in the fulness of his glory and the infinity of his mercy so that he might redeem you. Do you not welcome this news? What! will not your hearts be thankful for this? Does this matchless love awaken no gratitude? If it were not for this divine Saviour, your life here would have been wretchedness, and your future existence would have been endless woe. Oh, I urge you to adore the incarnate God, and trust in him. Then you will bless the Lord for delivering you from the wrath to come, and as you lay hold of Jesus and find salvation in his name, you will tune your songs to his praise, and exult with sacred joy. So much concerning this joy.

14. II. Follow me while I briefly speak of THE PEOPLE to whom this joy comes.

15. Observe how the angel begins, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, for to you is born today.” So, then, the joy began with the first ones who heard it, the shepherds. “To you,” he says, “for to you is born.” Beloved hearer, shall the joy begin with you today? — for it little avails you that Christ was born, or that Christ died, unless to you a child is born, and for you Jesus bled. A personal interest is the main point. “But I am poor,” one says. So were the shepherds. Oh you poor, to you this mysterious child is born. “The poor have the gospel preached to them.” “He shall judge the poor and needy, and break in pieces the oppressor.” “But I am obscure and unknown,” one says. So were the watchers on the midnight plain. Who knew the men who endured hard toil, and kept their flocks by night? But you, unknown by men, are known to God: shall it not be said, that “to you a child is born?” The Lord does not regard the greatness of men, but has respect for the lowly. But you are illiterate, you say, you cannot understand much. So be it, but to the shepherds Christ was born, and their simplicity did not hinder their receiving him, but even helped them to do it. So be it with yourself: receive gladly the simple truth as it is in Jesus. The Lord has exalted one chosen out of the people. No aristocratic Christ have I to preach to you, but the Saviour of the people, the friend of tax collectors and sinners. Jesus is the true “poor men’s friend”; he is “a covenant for the people,” given to be “a leader and commander to the people.” Jesus is given to you. Oh that each heart might truly say, Jesus is born for me; for this I truly believe in Jesus, for me Christ is born, and I may be as sure of it as if an angel announced it, since the Scripture tells me that if I believe in Jesus he is mine.

16. After the angel had said “to you,” he went on to say, “it shall be to all people.” But our translation is not accurate, the Greek is, “it shall be to all the people.” This refers most assuredly to the Jewish nation; there can be no question about that; if anyone looks at the original, he will not find so large and wide an expression as the one given by our translators. It should be rendered “to all the people.” And here let us speak a word for the Jews. How long and how sinfully has the Christian church despised the most honourable among the nations! How barbarously has Israel been handled by the so called church! I felt my spirit burn indignantly within me in Rome when I stood in the Jew’s quarter, and heard of the cruel indignities which Popery has heaped upon the Jews, even until recently. At this hour there stands in the Jew’s quarter a church built right in front of the entrance to it, and into this the unhappy Jews were driven forcibly on certain occasions. To this church they were compelled to subscribe — subscribe as worshippers of the one invisible God, to the support of a system which is as leprous with idolatry as were the Canaanites whom the Lord abhorred. Paganism is no more degrading than Romanism. Over the door of this church is placed, in their own tongue in the Hebrew, these words: — “All day long I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and hostile generation”; how, by such an insult as that, could they hope to convert the Jew? The Jew saw everywhere idols which his soul abhorred, and he loathed the name of Christ, because he associated it with idol worship, and I do not wonder that he did. I praise the Jew that he could not give up his own simple theism, and the worship of the one true God, for such a base, degrading superstition as what Rome presented to him. Instead of thinking it a wonder of unbelief that the Jew is not a Christian, I honour him for his faith and his courageous resistance to a fascinating heathenism. If Romanism is Christianity I am not, neither could I be, a Christian. It would be a more manly thing to be a simple believer in one God, or even an honest doubter about all religion, than worship such crowds of gods and goddesses as Popery has set up, and to bow, as she does, before rotten bones and dead men’s grave clothes. Let the true Christian church think lovingly of the Jew, and with respectful earnestness tell him the true gospel; let her sweep away superstition, and set before him the one gracious God in the Trinity of his divine Unity; and the day shall still come when the Jews, who were the first apostles to the Gentiles, the first missionaries to us who were afar off; shall be gathered in again. Until that shall be, the fulness of the church’s glory can never come. Matchless benefits to the world are bound up with the restoration of Israel; their gathering in shall be as life from the dead. Jesus the Saviour is the joy of all nations, but do not let the chosen race be denied their particular share of whatever promise holy writ has recorded with a special view to them. The woes which their sins brought upon them have fallen thick and heavily; and even so let the richest blessings distil upon them.

17. Although our translation is not literally correct, it, nevertheless, expresses a great truth, taught plainly in the context; and, therefore, we will advance another step. The coming of Christ is a joy for all people. It is so, for the fourteenth verse says: “On earth peace,” which is a wide and even unlimited expression. It adds, “Goodwill towards” — not Jews, but “men” — all men. The word is the generic name of the entire race, and there is no doubt that the coming of Christ does bring joy to all kinds of people. It brings a measure of joy even to those who are not Christians. Christ does not bless them in the highest and truest sense, but the influence of his teaching imparts benefits of an inferior kind, such as they are capable of receiving; for wherever the gospel is proclaimed, it is no insignificant blessing for all the population. Notice this fact: there is no land beneath the sun where there is an open Bible and a preached gospel, where a tyrant can hold his place for long. It does not matter who he is, whether pope or king; let the pulpit be used properly for the preaching of Christ crucified, let the Bible be opened to be read by all men, and no tyrant can rule in peace for long. England owes her freedom to the Bible; and France will never possess liberty, lasting and well established, until she comes to reverence the gospel, which she has rejected for too long. There is joy for all mankind where Christ comes. The religion of Jesus makes men think, and to make men think is always dangerous for a despot’s power. The religion of Jesus Christ sets a man free from superstition; when he believes in Jesus, what does he care about Papal excommunications, or whether priests give or withhold their absolution? The man no longer cringes and bows down; he is no more willing, like a beast, to be led by the nose; but, learning to think for himself and becoming a man, he disdains the childish fears which once held him in slavery. Hence, where Jesus comes, even if men do not receive him as the Saviour, and so miss the fullest joy, yet they receive a measure of benefit; and I pray God that everywhere his gospel may be so proclaimed, and that so many may be motivated by its spirit, that it may be better for all mankind. If men receive Christ, there will be no more oppression: the true Christian does to others as he would have them do to him, and there is no more contention of classes, nor grinding of the faces of the poor. Slavery must go down where Christianity rules, and notice that, if Romanism is once destroyed, and pure Christianity shall govern all nations, war itself must come to an end; for if there is anything which this book denounces and considers the worst of all crimes, it is the crime of war. Put up your sword into your sheath, for has he not said, “You shall not kill,” and he did not mean that it was a sin to kill one but a glory to kill a million, but he meant that bloodshed on the smallest or largest scale was sinful. Let Christ govern, and men shall break the bow and cut the spear asunder, and burn the chariot in the fire. It is joy for all nations that Christ is born, the Prince of Peace, the King who rules in righteousness.

18. But, beloved, the greatest joy is for those who know Christ as a Saviour. Here the song rises to a higher and more sublime note. To us indeed a child is born, if we can say that he is our “Saviour who is Christ the Lord.” Let me ask each of you a few personal questions. Are your sins forgiven you for his name’s sake? Is the head of the serpent bruised in your soul? Does the seed of the woman reign in sanctifying power over your nature? Oh then, you have the joy that is for all the people in its truest form; and, dear brother, dear sister, the further you submit yourself to Christ the Lord, the more completely you know him, and are like him, the fuller will your happiness become. Surface joy is for those who live where the Saviour is preached; but the great depths, the great fathomless depths of solemn joy which glisten and sparkle with delight, are for those who know the Saviour, obey the anointed one, and have communion with the Lord himself. 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 would be much better if they were altogether Christians. Perhaps you know the legend, or perhaps true history of the awakening of St. Augustine. 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 mainly directed to the works of Cicero and the classics, and you neglected the teaching of Jesus. We judge men here by what most engrossed their thoughts, and you are not considered 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 most intense delight. “He is my Saviour, my Christ, my Lord,” may this be your loudest boast. Then you will know the joy which the angel’s song predicts for men.

19. III. But I must pass on. The last thing in the text is THE SIGN.

20. The shepherds did not ask for a sign, but one was graciously given. Sometimes it is sinful for us to require as an evidence what God’s tenderness may nevertheless see fit to give as an aid to faith. Wilful unbelief shall have no sign, but weak faith shall have compassionate aid. The sign that the joy of the world had come was this, — they were to go to the manger to find the Christ in it, and he was to be the sign. Every circumstance is therefore instructive. The babe was found “wrapped in swaddling clothes.” Now, observe, as you look at this infant, that there is not the remotest appearance of temporal power here. See the two little puny arms of a little babe that must be carried if he is go anywhere. Alas, the nations of the earth look for joy in military power. By what means can we make a nation of soldiers? The Prussian method is admirable; we must have thousands upon thousands of armed men and big cannon and ironclad vessels to kill and destroy wholesale. Is it not a nation’s pride to be gigantic in arms? What pride flushes the patriot’s cheek when he remembers that his nation can murder faster than any other people. Ah, foolish generation, you are groping in the flames of hell to find your heaven, raking amid blood and bones for the foul thing which you call glory. A nation’s joy can never lie in the misery of others. Killing is not the path to prosperity; huge armaments are a curse to the nation itself as well as to its neighbours. The joy of a nation is a golden sand over which no stream of blood has ever rippled. It is only found in that river, the streams of which make glad the city of God. The weakness of submissive gentleness is true power. Jesus founds his eternal empire not on force but on love. Here, oh you people, see your hope; the mild peaceful prince, whose glory is his self-sacrifice, is our true benefactor.

21. But look again, and you shall observe no pomp to dazzle you. Is the child wrapped in purple and fine linen? Ah, no. Does he sleep in a cradle of gold? The manger alone is his shelter. No crown is upon the babe’s head, neither does a coronet surround the mother’s brow. A simple maiden of Galilee, and a little child in ordinary swaddling bands, it is all you see.

   Bask not in courtly bower,
   Or sunbright hall of power,
   Pass Babel quick, and seek the holy land.
   From robes of Tyrian dye,
   Turn with undazzled eye
   To Bethlehem’s glade, and by the manger stand.

Alas, the nations are dazzled with a vain show. The pomp of empires, the pageants of kings are their delight. How can they admire those gaudy courts, in which too often glorious apparel, decorations, and rank stand in the place of virtue, chastity, and truth. When will the people cease to be children? Must they for ever crave for martial music which stimulates violence, and delight in a lavish expenditure which burdens them with taxation? These do not make a nation great or joyous. Bah! how has the bubble burst across that narrow sea. A bubble empire has collapsed. (a) Ten thousand bayonets and millions of gold proved only to be a sandy foundation for a Babel throne. Vain are the men who look for joy in pomp; it lies in truth and righteousness, in peace and salvation, of which that new born prince in the garments of a peasant child is the true symbol.

22. Neither was there wealth to be seen at Bethlehem. Here in this quiet island, the majority of men are comfortably seeking to acquire their thousands by commerce and manufactures. We are the sensible people who follow the main opportunity, and are not to be deluded by ideas of glory; we are making all the money we can, and wondering that other nations waste so much in fighting. The main prop and pillar of England’s joy is to be found, as some tell us, in the Three Per Cent, (b) in the possession of colonies, in the progress of machinery, in steadily increasing our capital. Is not Mammon a smiling deity? But, here, in the cradle of the world’s hope at Bethlehem, I see far more of poverty than wealth; I perceive no glitter of gold, or spangle of silver. I perceive only a poor babe, so poor, so very poor, that he is laid in a manger; and his mother is a carpenter’s wife, a woman who wears neither silk nor gem. Not in your gold, oh Britons, will your joy ever lie, but in the gospel enjoyed by all classes, the gospel freely preached and joyfully received. Jesus, by raising us to spiritual wealth, redeems us from the chains of Mammon, and in that liberty gives us joy.

23. And here, too, I see no superstition. I know the artist paints angels in the skies, and surrounds the scene with a mysterious light, of which tradition’s tongue of falsehood has said that it made midnight as bright as noon. This is merely fiction; there was nothing more there than the stable, the straw the oxen ate, and perhaps the beasts themselves, and the child in the plainest, simplest manner, wrapped as other children are; the cherubs were invisible and there were no haloes. Around this birth of joy was no sign of superstition: that demon dared not intrude its tricks and posturings into the sublime spectacle: it would have been there as much out of place as a harlequin in the holy of holies. A simple gospel, a plain gospel, as plain as that babe wrapped in the most common garments, is the only hope for men today. Be wise and believe in Jesus, and abhor all the lies of Rome, and inventions of those who ape her detestable abominations.

24. Nor does the joy of the world lie in philosophy. You could not have made a schoolmen’s puzzle of Bethlehem if you had tried to do so; it was just a child in the manger and a Jewish woman looking on and nursing him, and a carpenter standing by. There was no metaphysical difficulty there, of which men could say, “A doctor of divinity is needed to explain it, and an assembly of divines must expound it.” It is true the wise men came there, but it was only to adore and offer gifts; oh that all the wise had been as wise as they. Alas, human subtlety has disputed over the manger, and logic has darkened counsel with its words. But this is one of man’s many inventions; God’s work was sublimely simple. Here was “The Word made flesh” to dwell among us, a mystery for faith, but not a football for argument. Mysterious, yet the greatest simplicity that was ever spoken to human ears, and seen by mortal eyes. And such is the gospel, in the preaching of which our apostle said, “We use great plainness of speech.” Away, away, away with your learned sermons, and your fine talk, and your pretentious philosophies; these never created a jot of happiness in this world. Finespun theories are fair to gaze on, and to bewilder fools, but they are of no use for practical men, they do not comfort the sons of toil, nor cheer the daughters of sorrow. The man of common sense, who feels the daily rub and tear of this poor world, needs richer consolation than your novel theologies, or neologies, can give him. In a simple Christ, and in a simple faith in that Christ, there is a deep and lasting peace; in a plain, poor man’s gospel there is an unspeakable joy and a bliss of which thousands can speak, and speak with confidence, too, for they declare what they know, and testify to what they have seen.

25. I say, then, to you who wish to know the only true peace and lasting joy, come to the babe of Bethlehem, subsequently the Man of Sorrows, the substitutionary sacrifice for sinners. Come, you little children, you boys and girls, come; for he also was a boy. “The holy child Jesus” is the children’s Saviour, and says still, “Permit the little children to come to me, and do not forbid them.” Come here, you maidens, you who are still in the morning of your beauty, and, like Mary, rejoice in God your Saviour. The virgin bore him on her bosom, so come and bear him in your hearts, saying, “To us a child is born, to us a son is given.” And you, you men in the plenitude of your strength, remember how Joseph cared for him, and watched with reverent solicitude his tender years; be like a father and a helper to his cause; sanctify your strength for his service. And you women advanced in years, you matrons and widows, come like Anna and bless the Lord that you have seen the salvation of Israel, and you hoar heads, who like Simeon are ready to depart, come and take the Saviour in your arms, adoring him as your Saviour and your all. You shepherds, you simple hearted, you who toil for your daily bread, come and adore the Saviour; and do not hold back you wise men, you who know by experience and who by meditation peer into deep truth, come, and like the sages of the East bow low before his presence, and make it your honour to pay honour to Christ the Lord. For my own part, the incarnate God is all my hope and trust. I have seen the world’s religion at the fountain head, and my heart has sickened within me; I come back to preach, by God’s help, still more earnestly the gospel, the simple gospel of the Son of Man. Jesus, Master, I take you to be mine for ever! May all in this house, through the rich grace of God, be led to do the same, and may they all be yours, great Son of God, in the day of your appearing, for your love’s sake. Amen.

(a) The fall of the Second French Empire under Napoleon III a little over a year before this sermon was preached.
(b) Three Per Cent: The Government securities of Great Britain, consolidated in 1751 into a single stock paying 3 per cent interest. OED.