saw himself.
Christ enables us to see ourselves. It is the death-blow to pride. The moral revolution has begun.
(2) He casts down the mighty – he exalts the humble. That is a social revolution. Christianity puts an end to the world’s labels and prestige.
Muretus was a wandering scholar of the middle ages. He was poor. In an Italian town he became ill and was taken to a hospital for waifs and strays. The doctors were discussing his case in Latin, never dreaming he could understand. They suggested that since he was such a worthless wanderer they might use him for medical experiments. He looked up and answered them in their own learned tongue, ‘Call no man worthless for whom Christ died.’
When we have realized what Christ did for each and every one of us, it is no longer possible to regard anyone as being beneath us. The social grades are gone.
(3) He has filled those who are hungry – those who are rich he has sent empty away. That is an economic revolution. A non-Christian society is an acquisitive society where people are out for as much as they can get. A Christian society is a society where no one dares to have too much while others have too little, where everyone must get only to give away.
There is loveliness in the Magnificat but in that loveliness there is dynamite. Christianity brings about a revolution in individuals and revolution in the world.
HIS NAME IS JOHN
Luke 1:57–66
When Elizabeth’s time to bear the child was completed she brought forth a son. When her neighbours and kinsfolk heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her they rejoiced with her. On the eighth day they went to circumcise the child and it was their intention to call him Zacharias after his father. But his mother said, ‘No; he must be called John.’ They said to her, ‘There is no one in your connection who is called by this name.’ They asked his father by signs by what name he wished him to be called. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, ‘John is his name.’ Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed and he kept on praising God. And great awe fell upon all the neighbours, and all these events were talked about in all the hill country of Judaea; and all those who heard them kept them in their hearts and said, ‘What will this child turn out to be, for the hand of the Lord is with him?’
IN Palestine the birth of a boy was an occasion of great joy. When the time of the birth was near at hand, friends and local musicians gathered near the house. When the birth was announced and it was a boy, the musicians broke into music and song, and there was universal congratulation and rejoicing. If it was a girl the musicians went silently and regretfully away! There was a saying, ‘The birth of a male child causes universal joy, but the birth of a female child causes universal sorrow.’ So in Elizabeth’s house there was double joy. At last she had a child and that child was a son.
On the eighth day the boy was circumcised and received his name. Girls could be named any time within thirty days of their birth. In Palestine names were descriptive. They sometimes described a circumstance attending the birth as Esau and Jacob do (Genesis 25:25–6). They sometimes described the child. Laban, for instance, means white or blonde. Sometimes the child received the parental name. Often the name described the parents’ joy. Saul and Samuel, for instance, both mean asked for. Sometimes the name was a declaration of the parents’ faith. Elijah, for instance, means Yahweh is my God. Thus in a time of Baal worship Elijah’s parents asserted their faith in the true God.
Elizabeth, to the neighbours’ surprise, said that her son must be called John and Zacharias indicated that that was also his desire. John is a shorter form of the name Jehohanan, which means Yahweh’s gift or God is gracious. It was the name which God had ordered to be given to the child and it described the parents’ gratitude for an unexpected joy.
It was the question of the neighbours and of all who had heard the amazing story, ‘What will this child turn out to be?’ Every child is a bundle of possibilities. There was an old Latin teacher who always bowed gravely to his class before he taught them. When he was asked why, he answered, ‘Because you never know what one of these pupils will turn out to be.’ The entry of a child into a family is two things. First, it is the greatest privilege which life can offer a husband and wife. It is something for which to thank God. Second, it is one of life’s supreme responsibilities, for that child is a bundle of possibilities, and on parents and teachers depends how these possibilities will or will not be realized.
A FATHER’S JOY
Luke 1:67–80
His father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied like this: ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has graciously visited his people and wrought deliverance for them. He has raised the horn of salvation for us in the house of David, his servant – as long ago he said he would through the mouth of his holy prophets – even deliverance from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, in that he has shown mercy to us as he did to our fathers and has remembered his holy covenant, the pledge which he gave to Abraham our father, to grant to us that we, being delivered from the hands of our enemies, should fearlessly serve him, in holiness and righteousness before him, all our days. And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will walk before the Lord to prepare his ways, in order to give the knowledge of salvation to his people together with forgiveness of their sins, through the mercy of our God, in which the dawn from on high has graciously visited us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to direct our feet in the way of peace.’
And the child grew and was strengthened by the Spirit; and he lived in the desert places until the day when he was displayed to Israel.
ZACHARIAS had a great vision for his son. He thought of him as the prophet and the forerunner who would prepare the way of the Lord. All devout Jews hoped and longed for the day when the Messiah, God’s anointed king, would come. Most of them believed that, before he came, a forerunner would announce his coming and prepare his way. The usual belief was that Elijah would return to do so (Malachi 4:5). Zacharias saw in his son the one who would prepare the way for the coming of God’s king.
Verses 75–7 give a great picture of the steps of the Christian way.
(1) There is preparation. All life is a preparation to lead us to Christ. When Sir Walter Scott was young his aim was to be a soldier. An accident made him slightly lame and that dream had to be abandoned. He took to reading the old Scottish histories and romances and so became the master novelist. An old man said of him, ‘He was makin’ himsell a’ the time; but he didna ken maybe what he was about till years had passed.’ In life God is working all things together to bring us to Christ.
(2) There is knowledge. It is the simple fact that there was no real understanding of what God was like until Jesus came. The Greeks thought of a passionless God, beyond all joy and sorrow, looking on humanity in calm unmoved detachment – no help there. Jews thought of a demanding God, whose name was law and whose function was that of judge – nothing but fear there. Jesus came to tell that God was love, and in staggered amazement people said, ‘We never knew that God was like that.’ One of the great functions of the incarnation was to bring to men and women the knowledge of God.
(3) There is forgiveness. We must be clear about one thing regarding forgiveness. It is not so much the remission of penalty as the restoration of a relationship. Nothing can deliver us from certain consequences of our sins; the clock cannot be put back; but estrangement from God is turned to friendship,
