Which is it? God, my beloved hearers, is always good. His very name, God, which means good, bespeaks that. Continually is He bestowing gifts and favors upon us. "His constant mercies," declares the psalmist, "are new to us every morning." What is there which we possess that He has not given us?—clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and home, wife and children, fields, cattle, and all my goods. But there is one gift that excels and outstrips them all.
Our children, in the course of the year, are being constantly provided with all that they need to support their bodies and lives, articles of food and dress and mind, and yet the best donations we afford them, those which cause their youthful hearts to skip as the lambs, are invariably given in the days of Christmas festivity. So with the beneficent Parent on high,—always good and gracious, yet His foremost and most excellent gift He bestows at this time. And which is it? Yonder, in Bethlehem's manger, it lies. Insignificant enough as you gaze upon it with outward eyes: how tiny, unpretentious, judged by the standard of men; what lowly quarters, what unfavorable circumstances, what socially unassuming people; that woman watching over the Child, those shepherds hastening thither from their humble toil,—certainly nothing there to impress one. And this is Heaven's foremost and precious gift, the gift of all gifts. Is that the best that God can give us? Yes.
For various reasons. In determining the value of earthly donations, different considerations weigh and prevail. For once, it is the sentiment that prompted that gift; it frequently is not so much the mercantile value of the gift as it is the considerations, the spirit, the sentiment, and affection that go along with it; and there, after all, rests its real power and beauty. Regard God's Christmas gift. The Apostle calls it "unspeakable"; he declares that it towers in its value and majesty beyond the reach of language and beyond the power of human expression. 'Tis truly so. What sentiment prompted it? "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." There we have the motive, His love. And why did He love man? Because he was so lovable? Nay, man had rebelled against Him, had raised himself up in disobedience against Him and His holy commandments and was at enmity with Him, and still God loved him, loved the child that had forsaken and sinned against Him, and so loved him that He spared not His dearest and His best, but delivered Him up for us all. Oh! the greatness of that charity, that love divine, all love excelling, love that passed all knowledge and understanding and expression too,—that supplied the Gift unspeakable, says the Apostle.
Again, when we are the recipients of gifts, we examine them, we give them careful scrutiny, we desire to know: What is that which we have received? Apply that to God's Christmas gift. What is it? He tells us: "Unto you is born this day a Savior, which is Christ, the Lord." Not a star, not a world, not any created thing, but Christ, the Lord.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail th' incarnate Deity.
Pleased as man with man to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel.
O the mystery, the impenetrable mystery of the gift! As you sit down and meditate upon it, as you reflect and gaze upon that divine Child, reason is confounded, thought is pushed to confusion, faith stands in profound contemplation on the brink of this sea, too deep for human intelligence to fathom, too broad for man's mind to encircle, and yet, let us not stagger at the wonderful fact. We are standing to-day, my beloved, in the presence of the greatest miracle of time. We behold here no ordinary child. It's Deity in humanity, Divinity in infancy. In this little body is bound up God's immensity, in this Babe's weakness is enclosed heaven's almightiness. This child resting at His mother's breast (who can grasp it?) is the Lord of glory, the worshipful Creator of the universe, God blest forevermore.
Such is the nature of the gift—"unspeakable," as the Apostle declares.
Again, we consider the purpose of the gift. There are every variety and quality of gifts bestowed at this season: ornamental ones, serving the purpose of decoration and embellishment, beautiful for the eye to behold; useful ones, administering to the necessity and the comforts of their recipients. How about God's Christmas gift? Ah! for human lips to speak out its value. Again we lisp, "Unspeakable." What illustrations might I employ? You lift up your eyes and encounter the bright rays of the sun; what would this world be without the light and warmth that comes from its radiant face? You feel the drops of rain falling in gentle showers; what would the soil be without these rivulets and streams that fructify its acres? Yet all such illustrations are too improper to express what this world would spiritually be without Christ. Said the angel: "Unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior." In that word you have the key of Christmas and the purpose of God's Christmas gift. "A Savior"—what a chapter that opens before us! Back to the days of Paradise does it conduct us, when man was dwelling in innocence, fell and falling, carrying himself and all his posterity to universal and eternal destruction. Sin, that most terrible of all evils upon the soul, thorns and thistles upon the ground, misery and sickness and death upon the body, the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain,—this was the sorry consequence, and this is the sad, sad story as it is read in the history of every man's life and of the world at large. And whence was deliverance to come? From man? Helpless, powerless, hopeless creature, how could he cancel the curse that rested upon soul and body and ailing earth? A more powerful one held him at his mercy; and what could he do to pluck out the sting of death beneath whose dominion he had completely fallen? A more dismal condition could never exist. What man needed was a Savior, a Deliverer mightier than the forces that held him bound, and such a one God had promised man. Adam and Eve, leaving Paradise, were consoled by the prediction of the Seed of the Woman that should bruise the head of the serpent—the Savior, Abraham, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Isaac, and Jacob looked forward to that Deliverer and were sustained by the hope: Ah, that the Savior soon would come to break our bondage and lead us home! Succeeding saints and prophets took up the pleading strain, and sang and prophesied of His advent, and finally, when the fullness of time was come, He arrived; and what did He bring?
The supply of man's foremost and chief requisite—what is that? Wealth, affluence of estate? Support of body? Not so. This is not man's foremost need. Education of mind, culture of intellect? Neither that. What is it? Deliverance from sin, death, and the power of the devil, and the salvation of man's immortal soul; for what is a man profited though he should gain the whole world, and possess all treasures and mines of knowledge, and possess not and know not how to save his soul? Beloved, when you reflect what this world would be without this divine Christmas gift, then we might well ask, Would life be worth living without Him? It would, indeed, be a dark chapter, a barren and gloomy prison cell. And so, having regarded these various particulars, we almost instinctively give voice to the Apostle's declaration: "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift." That brings us to the concluding part of our consideration.