The Anticipation of Christmas
Of the spectators of the Portrait of Jesus there are some who have been in the gallery since the morning. They were there before the Portrait was brought in; they expected it. In one sense, all admiration of art is the result of anticipation. I can only admire what is already in my soul. If I shed tears over a picture of love, it is because it appeals to an old experience. Love cannot be painted; only its manifestation can be painted. If the feeling is not previously within, the manifestation will not put it there. The Portrait of Jesus is no exception. There are some in that gallery who have appreciated it from the very outset. They could only do so on the principle that Christmas “ghz is older
than Christmas Day. Had the Portrait of 1b
Jesus been foreign to the world, the world would never have accepted it. When Peter recognised its beauty he was declared to be blessed; but why? Was it because he had received a revelation from the portrait? Exactly the reverse. It was because he had received a revelation which the mere portrait could never have given him — ‘ Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven,’
To my mind the great miracle of the land of Palestine is its anticipation of Christianity. And let me say that this miracle remains when the scissors of criticism have clipped away everything else. Though Moses should be sent back to Egypt, though Daniel should be devoured by the lions, though Isaiah should again be sawn asunder, though David should be robbed of his harp, though Solomon should be deprived of his song, though Job should receive severer buffetings than ever he got from his friends, the miracle remains. It is independent of the authorship of books; it would be undimmed by the proof that the fHE ANTICIPATION OF CHRISTMAS 17
books were forgeries. What is this miracle of Jewish history? The Portrait hangs in an enchanted gallery; where lies the secret of the enchantment? Let us look round, and see,
At first we see nothing. Everything in the building seems made to dzsenchant. Never have I seen so great a portrait in so contemptible a frame, in so mean a room. What is this land of Palestine which is the background of the Picture? A narrow strip of almost imprisoned soil. About a hundred and forty miles measure its length; an average of forty constitutes its breadth. It is small room for walking in. Yet, within these limits nature seems determined to enclose it; she has shut it in, and turned the key. On every side there is a wall, an impeding of free intercourse. On the north rise the Lebanon ranges. On the south yawns the desert of Sinai. On the east stretches the valley of Jordan. On the west lave the blue waters of the Mediterranean. One would say that
in this land God had specially fulfilled His B purpose of barring man from the gates of Eden; for here the cherubim and the flaming sword turn in every direction to keep the way of the tree of life.
Perhaps you will tell me that, like Noah in the ark, Palestine has escaped the flood by being shut in. It has not. No nation has had so little time on Mount Ararat, such brief snatches of rest. Its peculiarity does not come from its changelessness. It has never worn a permanent garb, It has shifted its governments continually. It has been successively a wandering tribe, an assemblage of clans under a chief, a people under a lawgiver, a race ruled by military leaders, a state subject to a king, a province swayed by foreign governors, a community dominated by its own priesthood. Truly there is nothing in the history of this land which could have suggested to itself the pride of permanence!
Nor is there aught in the secular attainments of this land which could have suggested this pride. Take away its God, and nothing remains. It might well say, ‘The Lord is my sun and my shield. I see within its treasury few temporal gifts. The land which gave the great Portrait to the gallery is itself without art. It likes neither pictures nor statues. It has no theories of philosophy, no schools for the wisdom of man. I doubt if it has even an eye for nature. Its poets are all psalmists; they sing no beauty but the beauty of God. If they praise the sun, it is because He ‘has set a tabernacle’ there. If they laud the genial breezes, it is because fle ‘rides upon the wings of the wind.’ If they feel the grandeur of the storm, it is because H/zs voice ‘breaketh the cedars.’ If they sing of the river, it is not to tell of its majestic sweep, but to indicate how it ‘makes glad the city of God’ If they rejoice in the harvest fields, it is because they see in the mellow autumn f7zs ‘crowning of the year, This land is secularly weak all round; God alone is its refuge and its strength. It has no deep thought like India, no genius for stability like China, no sense of beauty like Greece, no high culture like Egypt, no powerful armies z0 THE ANTICIPATION OF CHRISTMAS
like Rome. In itself it is a bundle of negations. Its very law is less a command to do right than a prohibition to do wrong. It seems a poor soil for a great planting.
Yet the planting has been tremendous. This small patch of naturally unproductive ground has made a claim which takes the breath away. It has professed to give a king to the whole world! This, and nothing less than this, is the consistent and persistent claim of the Jewish race, It is never so persistent as when the natural barrenness is most pronounced. Rome may have cherished such a hope in the days of her splendour. But Judah’s boast of empire is loudest in the days of her dilapidation. Nowhere is her music so triumphant as when the string of her harp is broken. In the time of prosperity she is almost silent; but when the clouds come, she sings. It is from the chains of captivity that her voice sounds most imperious; her songs of jubilee are songs in the night. Her King is coming — her conquering King. His dominion shall be boundless, endless, He shall establish through all lands a reign of righteousness, I do not think it is physical conquest that is ever contemplated. ‘The Gentiles shall come to His “ight, and kings to the drightness of His rising. They are to be drawn by the beauty of a spectacle — not driven by the force of a dow. The enemies of this King are to be pierced; but they are to be pierced with arrows of light. They are to fall down before Him, not from dread, but from love, of Him. He is to gather all nations because He is to be ‘the desire of all nations.’ His kingdom is to be imperishable because it is to be humanitarian — for man as man. That is the claim of a nation which itself, physically and mentally, has always been but a fragment of humanity — impressed with its own monopoly, and unsympathetic with the world at large.
But now, to me standing in the gallery to-day, there comes a second wonder. This bold dream has been realised; this Portrait has dominated the world. It has dominated even those parts of the world which have not taken the Christian name. The nations in front of the Portrait have become the leading nations, the light-bearing nations; like the sun and moon of the third morning they have been set to rule both the day and the night. The Christian creed is limited; the Christian air is unlimited. It has set in motion currents of which it may literally be said ‘their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words unto the end of the world.’ ‘Thou hast received tribute even among the rebellious,’ sings one of the poets of Israel. Christianity is not confined to Christendom. Mohammedanism is confined to Mohammedans, and Buddhism to Buddhists, and Parseeism to Parsees; but Christ radiates beyond Christians, As on the Resurrection morning, so ever, He comes through shut doors. Think you that a Pagan born to-day would be in the same position as a Pagan born before the first Christmas? Not though through all his life he should never Aear of Jesus. Imagine that you and I were standing, strangers to each other, on the opposite shores of a silent sea — a sea that had never known a ripple on its bosom.
Imagine that into that silent sea I were to cast a pebble. You would not see the pebble; you would not detect the hand; you would not recognise the agent; but you would be influenced all the same. The ripple would reach you. It would go all over the water — the length of it, the breadth of it. It would be as when the Spirit of God moved on the face of the great deep; the silence would speak.
So is it with what one of our poets calls the ‘dead seas of man.’ Christianity has thrown a pebble into them, and they have rippled all over. They have caught the influence of deeds they have never known. The ships upon their bosom have begun to move, stirred by an atmosphere that belongs to other lands. The movement of the Christian West has accelerated the un-Christian East. India marches quicker; China steps more lightly; Japan becomes almost European. Lands that have not caught the light of the Portrait have received the glow of those who have seen it; for good as well as evil is contagious, and the cup of blessing can be transmitted where the outxs pouring hand is hid from view. I presume this is what Paul means when he says of the Son of Man, ‘He is the saviour of all men, especially of those who believe.’
A wonder yet remains, and it completes the miracle of Palestine. The nation has rejected the fulfilment of her own dream. She has given a king to the world, and she has refused to crown him. I have read in one of George Macdonald’s novels of a born-blind lamplighter. He illuminated the city at night; but he had no sense of what he was doing. So has it been with this land. She has presented the Portrait to the gallery; she has heard the plaudits of the spectators; and she has refused tojoinin them. In all history there is nothing so unique. It is the exemzes of this land that have crowned her world-king; it is the Gentiles that have come to His light. The lamplighter has been blind to the beauty of that throne which she has illuminated. Palestine has lit up the scene; she has listened to the crowd shouting their applause; and she has wondered why. She has been like a deaf-mute in a concert-room. She has struck by accident the notes of a harp, and by accident they have burst into music. The audience has cheered the performance to the echo; but the performer knows not her triumph.
LAND of wonder! we bring thee a Christmas wreath to-day — a wreath composed
of thine own rejected flowers. Thou hast cast them out upon the highway, and we have found them there; we gather them and bring them back to thee. We offer them to thee as gifts of the world’s new year. Thou hast made the world’s new year. Thou hast illuminated our cities without seeing the glory. Thou art standing blind amid the blaze which thou hast kindled; thou art seated deaf amid the music which thou hast created. Thou art waiting through al! the winters for the fulfilment of thy dream; and we are already basking in its fulfilment. Thou hast opened our paradise, and shut the door upon thyself. Wilt thou not
enter into our rest — the rest thou hast given to us? Wilt thou not share the beauty of thine own illumination, the vibrations of thine own music? Wilt thou not participate with us in the glory of that gift which thou hast presented to the great gallery? Our pleasure is not complete till it is shared by chee,