Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Nature of Christmas" (December 13, 1959)
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Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | Before another Sunday comes, | 0:22 |
the vast majority of the Duke student body | 0:25 | |
will have turned homeward to celebrate Christmas. | 0:29 | |
The student who tacked up the notice on the bulletin board | 0:35 | |
advertising rider wanted for a trip to Bainbridge | 0:39 | |
leaving Saturday at 1:08 AM | 0:44 | |
will have contacted the student whose notice | 0:50 | |
was tacked up on the bulletin board four layers deep, | 0:54 | |
advertising ride wanted to Bainbridge | 0:58 | |
leaving Saturday at 1:08 PM. | 1:03 | |
They will have adjusted the compromise departure time | 1:08 | |
and will have left to go to Bainbridge | 1:14 | |
to celebrate Christmas. | 1:18 | |
Before next Sunday, | 1:21 | |
the air lanes will be filled with planes, | 1:22 | |
struggling and throbbing | 1:27 | |
under the heavy load of students and luggage, | 1:29 | |
mainly luggage, headed home to celebrate Christmas. | 1:33 | |
The student from Burma | 1:41 | |
who expects to remain in Durham during the holidays, | 1:43 | |
and the student from Hickory | 1:48 | |
who expects to be in Hickory during the holidays | 1:49 | |
are alike making preparations to celebrate Christmas. | 1:54 | |
Now, if history repeats itself, | 2:00 | |
and does this year what it has done in the past, | 2:04 | |
there will be a great many of our citizens | 2:07 | |
who will very sharply criticize the fashion | 2:11 | |
in which a great many of their fellow citizens | 2:15 | |
do this celebrating. | 2:18 | |
I, for one, am not entirely sure | 2:22 | |
that all of this criticism is valid, | 2:24 | |
for the reason that I believe most people have at best | 2:28 | |
a very foggy notion of what it is they are to celebrate. | 2:33 | |
They really do not know what Christmas is all about. | 2:39 | |
And even as they have a very foggy notion | 2:45 | |
of what it is they are to celebrate, | 2:48 | |
they have a very vague anxiety, | 2:52 | |
which centers around the fact that they have a feeling | 2:56 | |
there is something important here in Christmas | 3:01 | |
which should be observed and celebrated, | 3:05 | |
and they want to do it. | 3:09 | |
And consequently, what usually happens is | 3:11 | |
that we pull out all the stops | 3:15 | |
and do a general celebration and hope that somewhere, | 3:17 | |
and sometime during the Christmas season, | 3:22 | |
we shall in some way hit upon that one important thing | 3:26 | |
that is to be celebrated in Christmas | 3:32 | |
and celebrated if for only a few fleeting moments. | 3:34 | |
Well, now, if this is a correct analysis, | 3:40 | |
then it is certainly an order that on this last Sunday, | 3:42 | |
before we go home to commence our celebrating, | 3:47 | |
we should spend a little time | 3:50 | |
considering what it is that we are to celebrate. | 3:52 | |
What is then the nature of Christmas? | 3:57 | |
Perhaps a good way to approach an answer to this question | 4:01 | |
is to commence by a negative approach | 4:06 | |
and consider some things which Christmas | 4:12 | |
often is thought to be, but which it is not. | 4:14 | |
And perhaps even as Columbus | 4:19 | |
thought to go east by sailing west, | 4:22 | |
we can arrive at a positive answer | 4:24 | |
to the question of what Christmas is | 4:27 | |
by thinking first of what it is not. | 4:29 | |
The first thing which Christmas often is thought to be, | 4:33 | |
but which it is not, | 4:36 | |
is an emphasis upon that day in the calendar | 4:38 | |
which we designate as December 25. | 4:42 | |
Unfortunately, there are some people who have thought | 4:47 | |
that if in some fashion they observe this day, | 4:51 | |
they have celebrated Christmas, and so they feel | 4:54 | |
that if they do not go to classes on December 25 | 4:58 | |
or do not report for work in an office on December 25, | 5:02 | |
that they have thereby celebrated Christmas. | 5:05 | |
This is not the case. | 5:10 | |
We are going to have to get over | 5:13 | |
our idolatry of that date in the calendar. | 5:16 | |
December 25th, let it be said, is not a holy day | 5:21 | |
in the sense that some other day of the year is not. | 5:26 | |
December 25 has absolutely nothing to do | 5:31 | |
with the central nature of Christmas. | 5:36 | |
Indeed, if the facts were stated, | 5:41 | |
it is very unlikely that Jesus even was born on December 25. | 5:42 | |
It is most likely that he was not born on December 25. | 5:49 | |
Now, if you will simply remember | 5:55 | |
that the scriptures nowhere affirm or declare December 25 | 5:57 | |
to be the date of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. | 6:02 | |
You can see why it is at least possible | 6:07 | |
that this was not the date. | 6:10 | |
As a matter of fact, | 6:13 | |
the scriptures do not give us any clue at all | 6:14 | |
as to the day on which Christ was born. | 6:18 | |
The only indication that the scriptures do give us | 6:23 | |
about when he might have been born is this one little token, | 6:26 | |
Luke Two verse Eight, and there were in that same country, | 6:31 | |
shepherds abiding in the field, | 6:37 | |
keeping watch over their flock by night. | 6:42 | |
Now, when you remember the fact | 6:49 | |
that the seasons of the year in Palestine | 6:51 | |
are roughly the same as the seasons here, | 6:54 | |
since Palestine is about on a level with Georgia, | 6:58 | |
you can see how that at this time of the year, | 7:02 | |
things would be pretty cold in Palestine. | 7:06 | |
Our very excellent student friend, Ghazi Cubine, | 7:13 | |
who comes here to Duke from Bethlehem | 7:16 | |
and who has lived a short distance | 7:19 | |
outside the town of Bethlehem | 7:21 | |
at approximately the same location | 7:23 | |
where the shepherds were supposed to have been | 7:26 | |
when they heard the story from Heaven. | 7:28 | |
You will consult him, | 7:31 | |
he will tell you that on December 25th, | 7:32 | |
there were not shepherds abiding in the field, | 7:38 | |
keeping watch over their flocks by night. | 7:42 | |
In the first place, in December, | 7:46 | |
there is no grass out in the field for the sheep to eat. | 7:48 | |
Second place, it is cold. | 7:52 | |
And at this time of year, | 7:55 | |
the shepherds have their sheep in the caves of Palestine | 7:58 | |
or in the fold at night. | 8:01 | |
You will remember that some of the references | 8:04 | |
which Jesus made to sheep herding in the land of Palestine | 8:06 | |
had to do with their being in the fold or in the cave, | 8:10 | |
and there are other references | 8:14 | |
where they are out in the field at night, | 8:15 | |
it being too hot for them to eat during the day, | 8:18 | |
and they need to eat at night. | 8:20 | |
Shepherds abiding in the field, | 8:24 | |
keeping watch over their flock by night | 8:26 | |
sounds more like a spring or a summer event. | 8:28 | |
We have no way to know exactly | 8:34 | |
from the records which are at hand. | 8:36 | |
But the important thing | 8:40 | |
for us to remember in this connection | 8:41 | |
is that it really doesn't matter when Jesus was born, | 8:43 | |
what day of the calendar. | 8:49 | |
The important thing is the fact that he was born | 8:52 | |
and that we celebrate the significance of his birth. | 8:57 | |
You know, the British have realized this | 9:02 | |
for quite a long time. | 9:04 | |
Some of you may know | 9:07 | |
that the birth of the Sovereign of England | 9:08 | |
is almost never celebrated on the anniversary | 9:12 | |
of the day of his actual birth. | 9:16 | |
The present Queen of England was actually born on April 21, | 9:20 | |
but this year, | 9:26 | |
her birthday was officially celebrated on June 13 | 9:27 | |
because that happened to be a day in England | 9:31 | |
that was more convenient | 9:34 | |
for the people to assemble together | 9:36 | |
to celebrate the birthday of the Queen. | 9:37 | |
And in their thinking, | 9:40 | |
it was purely incidental that she was not born on June 13. | 9:42 | |
They did not pay a special attention | 9:47 | |
to observing the significance of the reality of the Queen | 9:50 | |
on the day when she actually was born, | 9:57 | |
and so it doesn't matter really when Jesus was born. | 10:00 | |
The fact is He was. | 10:07 | |
Now in this connection, | 10:10 | |
I think it might be very instructive | 10:11 | |
if we were to take a look at the way | 10:13 | |
by which the church decided | 10:17 | |
to celebrate the birthday of Jesus on December 25. | 10:21 | |
You may know that for the first 300 years | 10:27 | |
in the life of the church, | 10:30 | |
there was no celebration whatsoever of Christmas. | 10:31 | |
The church paid no attention at all | 10:35 | |
to the birthday of Jesus for the first three centuries. | 10:38 | |
It did, however, from the beginning, | 10:42 | |
celebrate the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus, | 10:45 | |
but it was not until the ritual | 10:49 | |
and the forms of worship and the calendar year | 10:52 | |
had all been fairly well fixed in the church | 10:56 | |
that around the city of Rome, | 10:59 | |
about the middle of the 4th century, | 11:01 | |
it occurred to them that they should celebrate Christmas, | 11:03 | |
the birthday of Jesus Christ. | 11:07 | |
It's interesting that because of a theological reason, | 11:11 | |
the date which was originally selected | 11:15 | |
for the celebration of Christmas | 11:17 | |
in the church in Rome was January six. | 11:19 | |
And incidentally, that date | 11:23 | |
has remained fixed in the practice | 11:24 | |
of the Eastern Orthodox Church until this day. | 11:27 | |
They have never celebrated Christmas on December 25, | 11:30 | |
always on January six. | 11:33 | |
In Rome, however, the church very soon | 11:37 | |
moved away from January six | 11:39 | |
to the date of December 25 for two reasons. | 11:41 | |
Neither one of which | 11:45 | |
was based upon any shred of documentary evidence | 11:48 | |
that he actually was born on that day. | 11:54 | |
The first reason was theological. | 11:59 | |
The second reason was practical. | 12:02 | |
The theological reason ran something like this. | 12:05 | |
They said God created the world and the universe, | 12:10 | |
and He must have created it at the Vernal Equinox | 12:15 | |
because it seems that that is when life begins | 12:20 | |
in the spring, March 25. | 12:23 | |
And then they reasoned from that point to say | 12:27 | |
well, Jesus was God's new creation, | 12:31 | |
and He would not have had His new creation | 12:35 | |
confused with His first or natural creation, | 12:38 | |
and so He would have moved down to the Winter Solstice | 12:42 | |
and would have had His new creation come nine months later, | 12:46 | |
which would be December 25. | 12:50 | |
And so for this theological reason or theory, | 12:55 | |
they had one, support for December 25, | 12:59 | |
but there was a second reason, | 13:03 | |
and this was the practical one. | 13:04 | |
It so happened that in Rome, | 13:07 | |
the pagan religion of Mithraism | 13:10 | |
had a huge pagan celebration on December 25. | 13:14 | |
This was the alleged birthday of their god, Sol Invictus, | 13:20 | |
and everybody celebrated his birthday | 13:26 | |
in thoroughly pagan fashion. | 13:29 | |
Well now the church did not have any celebration | 13:33 | |
to correspond to the celebration | 13:36 | |
of the birthday of Sol Invictus, | 13:38 | |
and so the Christians very often were a little bit alone | 13:42 | |
and feeling somewhat strange on that day | 13:48 | |
because the whole world was going out to celebrate. | 13:51 | |
And it seemed to them that if they were to celebrate | 13:55 | |
the birthday of their God, Jesus, | 13:58 | |
this would give the Christians | 14:02 | |
something spiritually significant to do | 14:04 | |
while the pagans were running wild. | 14:06 | |
Now, as we look at the traditional | 14:10 | |
American celebration on December 25, | 14:12 | |
it is not always clearly evident whether the celebrants | 14:15 | |
are remembering Jesus or Sol Invictus. | 14:20 | |
The point is we're going to have to abandon | 14:26 | |
our idolatry of December 25 | 14:29 | |
when we were thinking of the nature of Christmas. | 14:31 | |
This is to the mind of a person | 14:35 | |
who is scientifically trained a rather irrelevant matter. | 14:38 | |
This is not to say we are to lead a crusade | 14:44 | |
to change the date of Christmas. | 14:47 | |
To what date would we change it? | 14:49 | |
December 25 is as good as any. | 14:51 | |
And it has the weight of tradition and experience behind it. | 14:54 | |
Now, there is a second thing which Christmas | 14:59 | |
often is thought to be, but which really it is not, | 15:01 | |
and that is an emphasis upon the infancy of Jesus. | 15:05 | |
The babyhood of Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem. | 15:10 | |
There are some people who feel very pious and righteous | 15:16 | |
by spending a great deal of time | 15:21 | |
getting preoccupied with the straw in the manger | 15:23 | |
and the swaddling clothes and estimating | 15:27 | |
how many cows there were in the stable, | 15:30 | |
and all of the things that have to do with babyhood, | 15:33 | |
which are sacred and which are interesting, | 15:37 | |
but which are not really the central purpose of Christmas. | 15:41 | |
And the danger here lies in the fact | 15:46 | |
that we shall become so preoccupied | 15:48 | |
with whether or not Jesus sucked his thumb, | 15:50 | |
or whether he slept well or cried much, | 15:53 | |
that we shall miss the real nature of Christmas, | 15:56 | |
which has to do with the total impact | 16:01 | |
of the life, death, resurrection, | 16:05 | |
teachings, and mission of Jesus Christ, | 16:07 | |
who was God incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. | 16:10 | |
Now, when you consider the fact | 16:16 | |
that we do not celebrate the birthday of other great people | 16:18 | |
by becoming obsessed with their babyhood, | 16:22 | |
you can see why we need to apply the same logic | 16:25 | |
to the birth of Jesus. | 16:28 | |
On Lincoln's birthday, do we spend a great deal of time | 16:31 | |
thinking about what a chubby little rascal | 16:34 | |
Lincoln was as a baby? | 16:36 | |
What kind of clothes he wore at the age of six months? | 16:40 | |
Whether he had a bottle, whether he sucked his thumb? | 16:45 | |
No. | 16:49 | |
We think about, talk about, and remember | 16:51 | |
the fact that the great emancipator | 16:56 | |
worked for the welfare of mankind. | 16:58 | |
That he was dedicated to the unity of America | 17:01 | |
and to the cause of human liberty. | 17:04 | |
We spend time reading his Gettysburg Address, | 17:07 | |
and usually we conclude by saying | 17:12 | |
let us dedicate ourselves | 17:15 | |
to the high ideals of the man Lincoln, | 17:18 | |
who was born on this day which we celebrate. | 17:21 | |
When we celebrate the birthday of Washington, | 17:26 | |
nothing is said about his babyhood, | 17:29 | |
but a great deal is said about him | 17:31 | |
as the father of our country. | 17:32 | |
As a matter of fact, I cannot now recall | 17:35 | |
anything at all about the infancy of George Washington. | 17:38 | |
But I do recall that on February 22nd, | 17:42 | |
when we have had celebrations of his birthday in the past, | 17:45 | |
that my parents have reminded me | 17:49 | |
of how Washington prayed at Valley Forge. | 17:52 | |
And my teachers have taught the great ideals | 17:56 | |
of the man George Washington, who was born on February 22. | 18:00 | |
So it should be with Jesus of Nazareth. | 18:06 | |
This should not be a day | 18:09 | |
when we become so preoccupied with his infancy and babyhood | 18:10 | |
that we forget the total meaning | 18:14 | |
and mission of Jesus of Nazareth | 18:17 | |
who became the savior of the world, | 18:20 | |
who was crucified for our sakes, | 18:23 | |
and who, by the power of God, | 18:25 | |
was raised and liveth forevermore. | 18:27 | |
And yet this has been done. | 18:32 | |
In the 16th century, there was a writer | 18:34 | |
who composed a carol that has been sung by people today | 18:36 | |
which calls our attention to the stable. | 18:43 | |
And the writer of the carol says now, look and listen, | 18:49 | |
and he seems to be seeing exactly what's going on, | 18:56 | |
and he reports what he sees to us | 19:00 | |
and he said now, Jesus is taking his milk. | 19:02 | |
Now he's asleep. | 19:06 | |
And oh look, he's not sucking his thumb. | 19:09 | |
Well now, I imagine that there were times when he did, | 19:13 | |
but whether he did or did not | 19:16 | |
has absolutely nothing to do | 19:18 | |
with the central purpose and reality of Christmas. | 19:20 | |
Before leaving this point, we ought to say, though, | 19:25 | |
that there are two values to be obtained | 19:28 | |
from remembering the birth narratives of Jesus. | 19:32 | |
The first is is this reminds us | 19:37 | |
that Jesus was no mythological figure. | 19:38 | |
That he actually was born into history | 19:42 | |
at a certain time in history | 19:44 | |
and at a certain place on the Earth. | 19:45 | |
That he fully shares our humanity, as well as divinity. | 19:49 | |
And there is a second value in this. | 19:56 | |
This comes from the fact | 19:59 | |
that we realize we're worshiping a God | 20:01 | |
who was born in a cow stall. | 20:07 | |
This has the effect of glorifying | 20:10 | |
the humble and the common things of life. | 20:14 | |
That Jesus was born in a barn may be very good medicine | 20:21 | |
for our sick pride and our haughty vanity. | 20:25 | |
It's possible that I can convince you of our need of this | 20:31 | |
by a very simple device. | 20:35 | |
There is a man in Durham | 20:38 | |
who should be known by at least a thousand, | 20:42 | |
conservatively speaking, a thousand of the Duke students | 20:45 | |
out of the 5,700 that we have. | 20:48 | |
At least a thousand people should know this man by name. | 20:50 | |
His name is H.D. Maynard. | 20:55 | |
Now, if you know Mr. H.D. Maynard, | 20:59 | |
will you kindly lift your hand right now where you sit? | 21:01 | |
We have possibly 10 hands up. | 21:09 | |
Why do not the rest of you know him? | 21:11 | |
His name is on a metal plate just above and beside his head. | 21:16 | |
Perhaps the reason you don't know his name is | 21:24 | |
that he's the bus driver who drives you back and forth | 21:26 | |
from east and west campus to the other campus. | 21:30 | |
Would you know his name | 21:37 | |
if he were the president of the fraternity | 21:39 | |
whose political support you need to be elected | 21:41 | |
an officer in the student government next spring? | 21:44 | |
Would we know his name if he were a potential donor | 21:48 | |
of a hundred thousand dollars to Duke? | 21:52 | |
I'd know his name. | 21:55 | |
(crowd laughing) | 21:57 | |
The fact that Jesus was born in a cow barn | 22:02 | |
is a good medicine for us today. | 22:06 | |
It reminds us that people in humble circumstances | 22:10 | |
who are not the so-called great of the world | 22:15 | |
may be great in the sight of God. | 22:18 | |
Well, one final thing | 22:22 | |
should be mentioned, negatively speaking. | 22:24 | |
Christmas is not a holiday of getting, | 22:27 | |
but a holy day of giving. | 22:30 | |
Consider the fact that all of the human beings | 22:34 | |
mentioned in the Christmas story, | 22:37 | |
were in the Christmas story | 22:40 | |
because they were giving something. | 22:42 | |
The stable owner was giving | 22:45 | |
the only accommodation he had available. | 22:46 | |
The wise men brought gifts of gold and expensive spice. | 22:50 | |
The shepherds brought the gifts | 22:55 | |
of their worship and adoration, | 22:57 | |
and never underestimate the value of that gift. | 23:00 | |
Mary brought the gift of motherhood. | 23:06 | |
Joseph brought the gift of paternal protection | 23:08 | |
and the kind, strong help of a strong man. | 23:12 | |
Everybody mentioned brought something as a gift. | 23:20 | |
And yet, so often we think of Christmas | 23:25 | |
simply as a holiday of getting, | 23:28 | |
and Christmas can easily be ruined for some of us | 23:31 | |
if it does not live up to our expectations at this point. | 23:35 | |
If someone to whom we give a gift | 23:40 | |
does not return a gift to us, Christmas is spoiled. | 23:42 | |
If someone leaves us off their Christmas card list, | 23:47 | |
we're mad about it. | 23:50 | |
For these people, Christmas can be spoiled | 23:53 | |
simply because the cranberries are contaminated. | 23:56 | |
And yet this is not Christmas. | 24:01 | |
Christmas is a holy day of giving, of worship, of sharing. | 24:05 | |
Giving is to Christmas what burning is to a fire. | 24:12 | |
If you do not have giving, you do not have Christmas | 24:17 | |
any more than you have a fire if you do not have burning. | 24:20 | |
And so it is not this. | 24:25 | |
Very quickly, then, let us turn from the negative approach | 24:27 | |
to the answer to our question | 24:32 | |
of what is the nature of Christmas? | 24:34 | |
To mention certain positive things which must be considered | 24:36 | |
in any picture of the nature of Christmas. | 24:40 | |
First, Christmas has been announced by God | 24:43 | |
as being a time when the eyes of the blind should be open | 24:48 | |
and the prisoners should be released. | 24:51 | |
There is a prophecy in Isaiah | 24:54 | |
which has always been identified by the church | 24:56 | |
as an interpretation of the meaning | 24:58 | |
of the coming of the Christ Child, | 25:00 | |
which says he shall open the blind eyes | 25:03 | |
and bring out the prisoners from the prison. | 25:06 | |
I suppose I need not say that what happened at Ivy Bluff | 25:10 | |
is not necessarily an expression of the Christmas spirit. | 25:13 | |
There is a kind of prison | 25:17 | |
which is far more deadly than Ivy Bluff, | 25:19 | |
and from which prisoners need to be released much more | 25:22 | |
than those who escaped from our state prison camp. | 25:26 | |
There are people who are walking around every day, | 25:31 | |
unrestricted from the outside, | 25:33 | |
who are greatly restricted on the inside. | 25:35 | |
They have inhibitions, biases, | 25:38 | |
prejudices, encrusted selfishness, | 25:41 | |
and the person who is imprisoned this way | 25:45 | |
is far more incarcerated than anyone else | 25:47 | |
could incarcerate him. | 25:52 | |
And to release a man from his prejudice, | 25:54 | |
to deliver a man from his self-centeredness, | 25:57 | |
to release a person from fear and anxiety | 26:00 | |
which holds him down, these are the great deliverances | 26:03 | |
which Christ came to bring. | 26:07 | |
The people whose eyes are closed spiritually | 26:10 | |
are the ones, as Helen Keller says, | 26:13 | |
who need to have them open more than anyone else, | 26:15 | |
and Jesus Christ came to do this. | 26:19 | |
And this is a positive meaning of Christmas. | 26:22 | |
The second positive meaning which we mention | 26:26 | |
is the one which was mentioned by the angels | 26:28 | |
as they sang to the shepherds. | 26:32 | |
The coming of Jesus Christ | 26:34 | |
would mean glory to God in the highest. | 26:37 | |
Because of the fact that Jesus opens the eyes of the blind | 26:43 | |
and brings the prisoners out of the prison, | 26:47 | |
this brings glory to God because man | 26:49 | |
who had deserved only condemnation by means of his sin | 26:52 | |
had nonetheless been visited by the day spring from on high, | 26:56 | |
who brought onto us salvation in spite of our inequity, | 27:00 | |
and sought to offer unto us the love of a God who cared. | 27:04 | |
And so the prophecy in the Old Testament | 27:09 | |
has been identified with Christmas, | 27:11 | |
which said all thou that tell us good tidings to Judah, | 27:14 | |
all thou who tell us good tidings to Jerusalem, | 27:19 | |
lift up thy voice with strength. | 27:22 | |
Lift it up, fear not, for behold, your God will come. | 27:24 | |
Say unto the cities of Judah, behold your God. | 27:29 | |
Christmas, therefore, as a time of glory to God. | 27:35 | |
And then the angels also gave us | 27:40 | |
a third positive meaning of Christmas | 27:42 | |
when they said this would mean peace on earth. | 27:44 | |
Goodwill toward men. | 27:50 | |
This also had been pointed at in the Old Testament | 27:55 | |
for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. | 28:00 | |
And his name shall be called wonderful, | 28:04 | |
counselor the mighty God, the everlasting father, | 28:07 | |
the Prince of Peace. | 28:09 | |
I am sure you agree that the Prince of Peace | 28:16 | |
was born into the right world. | 28:18 | |
This is a world that needs a Prince of Peace. | 28:21 | |
There are students at Duke University who are here | 28:25 | |
because of the ravages of war in their own lands, | 28:27 | |
and they have seen how terrible is war, | 28:31 | |
how wonderful would peace be? | 28:34 | |
We here in this country who were born and reared here, | 28:38 | |
do not really understand | 28:42 | |
how desperately we need the Prince of Peace, | 28:44 | |
and yet I think we can get some notion of it | 28:47 | |
by feeling of our pocketbooks. | 28:50 | |
Last month, I received from Raymond Wilson | 28:53 | |
an analysis of our federal budget for this 12 month period. | 28:56 | |
Listen to these figures. | 29:01 | |
According to his analysis, | 29:03 | |
71% of our $82 billion budget goes entirely for swords | 29:06 | |
and only 29% of it for Plowshares. | 29:16 | |
51 and six tenths billion dollars, this year, | 29:21 | |
will go for past, present, and future wars. | 29:26 | |
Now to get some idea of how much money that is, | 29:30 | |
we could with that amount of money in this one year | 29:34 | |
build 1,200,000 homes costing $20,000 each. | 29:37 | |
And we would have enough leftover | 29:46 | |
to build 3,150 hospitals costing $4 million each. | 29:48 | |
And we would still have enough left | 29:55 | |
to build 3,700 public schools costing $4 million each. | 29:56 | |
In this one year. | 30:03 | |
Yes, the Prince of Peace came to the right world, | 30:07 | |
and His coming brings and brought | 30:11 | |
glory to God in the highest. | 30:14 | |
His coming is for the opening of the eyes of the blind, | 30:16 | |
for the releasing of prisoners from the prison houses. | 30:21 | |
His coming into this world, therefore, | 30:25 | |
should not be misunderstood | 30:27 | |
as an idolization of December 25. | 30:30 | |
It should not be thought of | 30:35 | |
simply in terms of swaddling clothes and hay in the manger | 30:36 | |
and cows standing around and stars in the sky. | 30:40 | |
We should not mistake it for tinsel, | 30:44 | |
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, four calling birds, | 30:47 | |
three French hens, two turtle doves, | 30:51 | |
or a partridge in a pear tree. | 30:53 | |
Instead, when the student from Bainbridge who's driving | 30:57 | |
gets with the student from Bainbridge who wants a ride, | 31:01 | |
let them both consider how desperately we need a rebirth | 31:06 | |
in our world of the true nature of Christmas. | 31:10 | |
The student who remains here | 31:16 | |
can join heart with the Christian in China | 31:18 | |
in realizing how wonderful it was | 31:23 | |
when God was incarnate in the babe of Bethlehem, | 31:28 | |
and how much that spirit needs to be born today. | 31:33 | |
Oh God, our heavenly father grant unto us | 31:44 | |
a holy day of giving instead of a holiday of getting. | 31:48 | |
Oh God in the highest, we ascribe unto thee | 31:55 | |
blessing and honor, glory and power. | 31:58 | |
We praise and magnify thy holy name | 32:02 | |
because of thy mighty work in Bethlehem long ago. | 32:05 | |
We now pray that the true nature of that Christ | 32:09 | |
shall be born in us this season. | 32:12 | |
And now the Lord bless you and keep you. | 32:15 | |
The Lord make His face shine upon you | 32:19 | |
and be gracious unto you. | 32:22 | |
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you | 32:24 | |
and give you peace. | 32:27 |