The principle of life out of death is the central principle of the Word of God. That our Lord is life, and that He alone has the power of bringing life out of death is the basis of the Christian faith and of our personal salvation. When the Lord was going to judge the earth with the deluge, Noah believed that God could sustain life in the midst of death, and entered the ark, the symbol of that power, in order that he might be carried from the damned creation to the new creation.
The New York papers on a Monday morning after Palm Sunday carried a report of a sermon by a well-known minister. The headline over the sermon report stated that the noted minister viewed the "Crucifixion as Greatest Crime," and the article carried on the thought by saying that the preacher had declared that Christianity was the only religion which began with the martyrdom of its founder. This, of course, is absolutely false.
With the passing days I find that I dislike any pictorial representation of our Lord Jesus. Especially do I abominate the pictures which show Him long faced and long bearded, with a faraway look in His eyes. It is too bad that we have become accustomed to thinking of the Lord as dressed in a long robe. In His day all men were so dressed, so that there was no difference in His dress from that of any other man. If we would truly think of Jesus as He was when He was on earth, imagine Him in a Sears Roebuck suit and a five-dollar hat, walking through Times Square, not attracting a second glance from anyone.
This is by far the best name for the day of joy which we celebrate as the birthday of our Lord. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). This is the nativity. That was the incomparable day. The people that had once walked in darkness (Isa. 9:2) were by now sitting in darkness (Matt. 4:16), but God sent the great light to illuminate the darkness of our hearts and to lift men from the abyss of eternal darkness. No human eye could pierce those shadows.
The author of a biography begins at the birth and follows through to the death of his subject. But to understand any life story you must go back from the end to the beginning. What a man became is what makes his growth and development significant. If this is true of a man, how much more is it true of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-Man.
