CHRISTMAS REJOICINGS. LUKE ii. 10, 11. “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 Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." (Christmas day.) WE Englishmen are peculiarly a home-loving people; and Christmas day is peculiarly a home-day. Each family has its own days which are especially remembered. All families keep this day, for it is the birthday of our Brother who is at the same time our God. It has been from our earliest years connected with so many happy associations; it recalls with such vividness the old home of our childhood, a father's love, a mother's tenderness, and the bright happy meetings of brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends, that it has written on our hearts memorials which will never die. May this Christmas day be rich to you, my brethren, in such associations. May the voice of joy and gladness be in all your houses: may parents and children, brothers and sisters, be drawn together by fresh tokens of affection, and, years hence, may you look back upon this as a most happy Christmas. We have come to the house of God, as the first act in this day's festivities, to commemorate the cause of our [No. 5.] 57 Christmas rejoicing, and to be reminded of the spirit in which they should be conducted. It is well that custom has brought us here: it will be well if the simple story, which our Services bring before us, shall give the key-note to our joy, and send us to our homes rejoicing, not so much that this is an English holiday, as that it is a Christian Festival. For if this be lost sight of, how can we escape the condemnation of those who "forget God'," and of whom the Prophet has written, "the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands?" I. In the first place, then, let us dwell upon the source and cause of this day's rejoicing, the birth of Jesus Christ our Lord. We stand then with the shepherds in the stable at Bethlehem, and there we see a little Child, who has come into the world like other children, as He enters upon a life of sorrows, which are only to cease with a death of excruciating agony. We ask who this Child is, and we find that it is "the Seed of the woman, who should bruise the serpent's head:" the Son of Abraham, "in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed*:" "the Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from everlasting:" "the Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace":" who is nevertheless to be "despised and rejected of men ; a man of sorrows, and 1 Ps. ix. 17. 2 Isa. v. 12. 6 Isa. ix. 6. acquainted with grief: wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities":" "cut off, but not for Himself." درو Yes, this Child is "God manifest in the flesh ',' "who, being in the form of God," yet, as on this day, "made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men," and who, as the Apostle goes on to say, "being found in fashion as a man, humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross "who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God"." The source,, then, and the cause of Christmas rejoicing is this fact, that on this day God took upon Himself the nature of man, and, in the person of Jesus Christ, entered into the regions of shame, and sorrow, and death, that He might raise men to the regions of glory, and honour, and immortality. He gave up all Himself, that He might give all to others. He began a human life, in which, though He knew no sin, He condescended to be "made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him 3" He lived, aye, and He died, that we might live and never die. In His person, as on this day, the manhood was taken into the Godhead, and the two natures were joined together; never to be divided; and from that time to the day of His departure from the world, by His whole life of gentleness and love, of tender come 7 Isa. liii. 3. 5. 2 Heb. xii. 2. 8 Dan. ix. 26. 1 Phil. ii. 7, 8. 3 2 Cor. v. 21. passion and melting sympathy, of unsparing selfdenial and incessant labour, of unswerving truthfulness and uncompromising hatred of sin, He taught us what men should be in time, and by His Resurrection from the dead, and Ascension in His human nature to Heaven, He assured us of what His people shall be in eternity. Bearing in mind, then, whence it arises that we rejoice this day, I can with all my heart from this holy place express to you the ordinary salutation of the season, and wish you "a happy Christmas:" for no true happiness can really come, except in connexion with the Saviour. It is in proclaiming Him, that we tell of good tidings of great joy, and set forth the injunction of His Apostle, "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice." And, brethren, for a man to know and feel his true position and yet to rejoice, is a grand and noble thing, so grand and so noble, that nothing short of a realization of the great blessings, which Christ has brought him, can possibly secure it. It is casy enough, indeed, to laugh, without Christ; it is easy enough to forget that we are sinners, and that the wages of sin is death; it is easy enough to keep the thought of death, judgment, eternity, hell, out of our minds, and then, in the midst of our friends, our light hearts and our buoyant spirits will suggest a thousand subjects at which we may laugh and be merry. But for a man calmly to look back upon his past life and its many sins, to look on the present world, the anxieties and sorrows, the losses and bereavements it is ever bringing, to look forward as an immortal being to the hour of death, the day of judgment, and the duration of : eternity for a man, I say, calmly to look all these things in the face, to realize all, be prepared for all, and rejoice, is the highest and noblest state of man on earth—a state which can only be his, who trusts that in Christ he is forgiven for the past, in Christ he has all needful good things for the present, in Christ he will have peace in death, acquittal at judgment, and glory throughout eternity. I wish you then a happy Christmas in the best and highest sense, when I trace up your joy to the coming of Christ into the world, and bid you rejoice. in Him. II. Looking then upon this day as one of holy rejoicing, let us next consider how this principle should influence us in the employment of its hours. Are you going to make Christ the source of your happiness, and to put Him first in your calculations to-day, in church, at your home, in your neighbourhood? 1. In church. You have come here professedly with the intention of so doing. You have come to acknowledge that this is, in a peculiar sense, "the day of the Lord;" and I pray that God's abundant blessing may have rested on you. But now, before you go home, you are invited to the Lord's feast. Will you turn from it? You are going to a feast at home, but Christ gave you that home, and Christ provided you with that feast. You are going to make merry with your children, but those children are a gift and heritage of the Lord. You are going, it may be, to enjoy the sound of pleasant music, and to enter into happy and social converse, but the ear to hear and the |