1t the prophet of old could be an optimist for his world, how much more can we for ours? For since Isaiah's day a new factor has enter-td into the world of men, a factor which must be taken into all human Celculations. We can look. back as we do this morning to something that happened just over 1900 years ago. An event so important that ihe whole world rightly takes it as a new beginning in human affairs, and dates all the years since in relation to it. This mornings" Gospel fells us that he who, "was in the beginning with God," who shared the work of creation, indeed, "all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made," he "was made flesh and dwelt among us."
God incarnate. God in human fesh—Think for a moment what that means, As we read the literature of the old world before Christ, we cannot fail but be struck by the fact that God's mdhy or one are are_conceived as dwelling apart írof men. They are away in Olympus, some distant faraway place where they live aloof, and unconcerned. Even to the Hebrew God is far away, distant and often unapproachable. God was in Heaven, and man in the world. And man found life in the world hard and burdens heavy. They were filled with doubts and uncertainties and blind gropings; conscious of longings and aspirations, but hopes were unfulfilled and aspirations unsatis-fled. And then in the fulness of time Christ came. Christ who was God Incarnate, God the Eternal Invisible, Intangible—God became Man. It is a stupendous fact, baffling theological. expression. And yet in language that a child may ' under-stend, the writers of the Gospels have told the story: The birth at Bethleheri is no more remarkable than the life that follows it. He lives the life of a true child growing to manhood at Nazareth. Like us he knows hunger and thirst. He could feel pain and sorrow just as we do. He was perfect man. But al-hough he was man, he was at the e time God. In the same Gospel that records his most human traits we have side by side the marks of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.