A Christmas Gift to the American Home and the Youth of America

by N. P. Gravengaard

Look to the depths of your own soul and then tell me: Do you not feel the hidden connection between the sin, as it had attained power in your soul, and the pressure of the brief, sorrow-laden moments? Have you not also in such moments felt a truer, a more sincere and deeper disgust with the evil character of sin, than otherwise? Did not that wish soar upward from the very bottom of your soul: Would I were relieved of all that is evil so that I might live with "all my thoughts pure, and all my deeds unblemished"?

But if you have felt this, then you already are somewhat conscious of the blessedness of the moments of distress, for that is what is asked of us first of all. Without disgust with the evil being of sin we cannot renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways.

But is that all to which the brief, sorrow-laden moments can guide and help us? No—the faith of the disciples was strengthened during the little while. It is true that their faith wavered in that while, and that it looked as though it would collapse, but this was not the agony of death, but the pangs of birth.

Hitherto they had been accustomed to seeing Jesus and then believing in Him. Now that faith was to be born which would cling to him through His word without seeing Him. During the little while it looked as though Jesus had suffered defeat and the world had conquered. But after the resurrection the disciples saw the meaning of it all: Jesus had taken death upon Himself not because He was vanquished but because the Father, in His unfathomable wisdom and His eternal love, had thus decided it for the purpose of salvation.

They knew now that no matter how discouraging the outlook might be, no matter how loudly the world might proclaim its victory—His word was to be depended upon. And firm in this faith they went out to conquer the world for Jesus Christ after having received the spirit from Above. Often it looked to them as it did on Good Friday, but instead of weeping and lamenting they sang hymns of praise to the Lord fully convinced that He was the strongest. Their faith had been strengthened so as to bear the resistance of the world, and rejoicing had taken up its everlasting abode in their hearts. The little while had been the hour of birth of the faith which was to conquer all the world, and gain the eternal state of blessedness.

Thus the little dark moments have a meaning in the lives of Christians, aside from filling us with detestation of the evil ways of sin. They must be hours of birth through which our faith shall emerge renewed and invigorated until it appears as that firm faith which wins the great victory over the world.

And if there is anything of which we stand in need, in addition to being filled with horror at the phantoms of deceit, the evil ways of darkness—it is the firm faith and the eternal joy of blessedness which give us strength to become more and more the children of God, immaculate before His face, and by which we can be easily recognized as children of light in a world darkened by sin.

The world still rejoices and still—after a struggle of almost two thousand years—thinks it shall conquer the church of the Lord. Now and then we are told that in another hundred years Christianity will be something entirely different, adjusted to the trend of thought—or that it will have lost all its strength. When we face this haughty scorn of the world, we need the firm belief that although the world thinks it will triumph, it will still collapse. For the Lord is Almighty: The great powerful world will never be able to remain longer, or to progress farther, than He permits.

Then there is the joy which no one can take away from us. It is the joy of blessedness in which all the sorrows of life vanish, just as the pangs of birth are lost in the exuberant joy of the thought that a new human being has been brought into the world. It is with the joy of blessedness as with maternal love: It is made through travail and suffering, and no one can take it away from us!

Ah, how it irritated and angered Jews and heathen when they were unable to deprive the ancient Christians of this joy even in the moment of death! When Stephen appeared before the council, and his face was like the face of an angel because the joy of Heaven reposed within his soul—they cut to the heart and they gnashed with their teeth, cast him out of the city, and stoned him. But his joy they could not take away from him: Would that this might abide among us in greater fullness, for it is that very joy which gives us the touch of gentleness, mildness and loveliness!