Let me no more my comfort draw
From my frail hold of thee,
In this alone rejoice with awe
Thy mighty grasp of me.
Is the world any better since Christ came? The history of the Christian Church throughout the centuries and its experiences -- in its triumphs and failures alike -- points to the permanent significance of Jesus. It is Jesus Christ and His teachings that lie behind all our efforts at social reform. It was He who abolished the gladiatorial shows. It is He who has put an end to slavery.
It is He who has elevated the status of women. Until Christ came women were everywhere regarded as household chattels without any rights. The morning prayer of the Jew contained this sentence: "I thank thee that thou hast not made me a Gentile, a slave or a woman." Jesus exalted women forever when He was born of Mary. Mary's song, the Magnificat, is the charter of women's liberties.
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It is Jesus Christ who has sanctified childhood. In the ancient world, if children were not wanted they were destroyed or put out to die of exposure. But Jesus said: "Suffer the little children to come unto me." He set a little child in the midst of His disciples and said: "of such is the kingdom of heaven." What a difference the coming of Jesus has made to children. He was born a babe.
Day by day like us he grew.
He was little, weak and helpless.
Tears and smiles like us he knew.
It was Jesus Christ who by His emphasis on the worth of human personality conferred on us all our liberties. He has given us a new way of life, a new standard of conduct, a new power for living. Why then is the world in such a desperate plight at the present time? The answer is that it will not come to Jesus Christ that it might have life. Its conscience is with Jesus but not yet its conduct. Christ can save the world only when He is born again in the hearts of men and women.
This child was different -- different from the beginning,-- different in what He became and different in what He has done for the world. The triumph of the spiritual is assured to those who, with seeing eyes and understanding hearts, bow in worship before the lowly cradle of the Child who was different.
Edward the First surprised the people of Wales at a difficult moment and secured their loyalty by promising them three things: (1) The son of a king; (2) One born in their own country; (3) One in whose character they could find no flaw. He offered them as their ruler his own son, newly born in Carnarvon Castle, too young to have committed any fault, the first Prince of Wales.
God comes to us with a yet more wonderful offer. He offers to us, to be our ruler and king, his own Son, born in our world, in whose character none has found a flaw, the Prince of Peace.