A Classic Holiness Sermon

The Incarnation

Phineas F. Bresee

Now when Jesus was
born in Bethlehem
(Matt. 2:1)

This text is made up of peculiarly significant words. In the center is Jesus, the name above every name; born, the setting up of new forces; Bethlehem, the city of bread, where God begins the preparation for giving the bread of life; when, now, the now governs the when. At Bethlehem Jesus, born, now. To a thoughtful meditative mind this text is the revelation of a picture which is the most marvelous grouping of facts that the mind of man ever considered.

The center is the Child Jesus. The child is always the center, the setting of a new life in the family, and in the world. When Jesus himself desired to create a picture that should show where human interests gather and should gather, He took a child and set him in the midst. But this Child is the center of all things. He is the center of things past and future, of things near and distant, of things in earth and in heaven. Closest to Him is the virgin mother, the manger cradle, the improvised inn, the city of Bethlehem, the longing past, the gazing future, the anxious faces of an innumerable company of human beings, legions of angels filling the galleries.

Stand back. Try to get a perspective and look at the scene. See the long, tapering fingers of prophecy, down through the ages, like a searchlight from the eye of God, shining from the gates of Eden, a stream of light pouring its rays upon Him who lies in that manger-cradle.

See the unnumbered, innumerable multitude of people in twenty centuries, tier above tier, the galleries growing larger as they go higher, and filled with the multitudes who gaze at Him in the cradle and upon whose brow the glory of prophecy rests.

Lift your eyes to the upper galleries and see the still vaster multitudes of radiant faces which crowd the heavens. Look steadily. See that marvelous, radiant, glorious star, moving slowly from the north, followed by eager, gazing, rejoicing pilgrims, urging on their fleet dromedaries. The star stops. It rests over where the young child is. The travelers halt. They unbind their treasures and laying them at His feet they worship. Do you hear that gentle murmur, half like a lullaby, and yet coming from a million throats:

“Vainly we offer each ample oblation;
Vainly with gifts would His favor secure;
Richer by far is the heart’s adoration;
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.”
Heaven sings, the angels shout, the organs of eternity break forth:
“Swift through the vast expanse it flew,
And loud the echo rolled;
The theme, the joy, the song was new;
Twas more than heaven could hold.”
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” And earth rolls back the song:
“All hail the power of Jesus’ name!
Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem
And crown Him Lord of all.”

We cannot think of this child but in His relation to heaven and earth, to time and eternity. These references are, in some sense, the revelation of Him to us. “The seed of the woman” who should bruise the serpent’s head. “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken.” “I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh; there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Seth.” He is Immanuel. “His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” “And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in; behold he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.”

“He comes with succor speedy
To those who suffer wrong,
To help the poor and needy,
And bid the weak be strong;
To give them songs for sighing,
Their darkness turn to light,
Whose souls, condemned and dying,
Were precious in His sight.”

The place is full of interest. Prophets had said that He should come of the seed of David, and that He should be born in Bethlehem. But the people are scattered abroad. It was not enough that the Holy Ghost should appear to Mary, away in her home in Galilee, and announce to her that as a virgin she should conceive and bring forth a Son. But we see the resources of God. He raised up the great Augustus and put into him a statesmanlike inspiration to know about the great empire; and he sent out a decree to complete the register of the whole empire. Every person must repair to the place of his birth and a new register must be made. This brought Mary and Joseph back to Bethlehem. The place, the time and all fill us with interest.

Heaven’s intensity is full of interest. The manifestation of heavenly glory, which filled the valley and the hillsides with infinite light, and the hearts of the shepherds with fear and awe is full of interest. That messenger with his message is full of interest to us. “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” The innumerable company of angels that filled the amphitheater of the heavens is full of interest to us. But the interest of a ruined world, of sin-wrecked humanity in this Child interests us most of all. The shepherds and the wise men lead the van, but the untold millions who have come to Him, who have laid their richest treasures of devotion at His feet, who have followed Him out and on until the everlasting doors have closed behind them, shutting them in forever with Him; these are of deepest interest to us.

“O that with yonder sacred throng
We at His feet may fall!
We’ll join the everlasting song,
And Crown Him Lord of all.”

This day we stand close to the coming of Jesus Christ. We gaze upon Jesus the Babe of Bethlehem. We cannot consider Him simply as the Babe. The interest is His larger life. He is from everlasting to everlasting. He is the Word of God, with God and to God. He made the worlds, and without Him nothing was created. He is made flesh. He has laid aside the glory. Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor. More than this to us, “He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.”

We look at that Babe this morning under the light of heaven, through prophecy, through history, through the hungry, suffering, dying hearts of men, into experience, through experience, into His atoning heart of love. We gaze until we sing:

“Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
Grace to cover all my sin;
Let the healing streams abound;
Make and keep me pure within.
Thou of life the fountain art,
Freely let me take of Thee;
Spring Thou up within my heart,
Rise to all eternity.”

Sometimes you stand beside a river flowing gently on to the sea, and then again you stand beside it when the sea has poured itself back into the river. It was possible for the shepherds and the wise men to stand beside the river; but today the sea of nearly two thousand years, reinforced by falling showers, and cloudbursts, and tornadoes, flows back into this stream of revelation and divine manifestation. The human life of God flows back on this early morning. To us, Jesus the babe is the Christ of Calvary, the Christ of resurrection glory, the Christ on the throne, the Christ of the Holy Ghost revealed by Him in human hearts and thus in human history.

I desire today to preach Jesus Christ. To see in the Babe of Bethlehem, not only the promise, the possibility, as the naturalist sees the possibility of the oak in the acorn. I want you to see the fact: Christ the man, the God, the Redeemer. I want you to see the Christ of Gethsemane, of Calvary, of the resurrection, of the throne; Christ with His heel on the head of the old serpent, the devil; Christ with His foot on the threshold of the empty sepulcher; the Christ that ascends to His own throne of Power, no longer divine alone, but human as well; Him who laid aside His glory, has a new glory of human enswathment; Him, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” I want you to see Him as He comes again in the person of the Holy Ghost to take upon Himself continued incarnation, to take up anew and continue the struggle, not to destroy, but to save men from themselves, from sin, from Satan. I want to preach Christ today. It is my desire that we may see what He does for humanity, in humanity, and what He makes humanity. John the Baptist gathered it partially into utterance when he said, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” Jesus completed the utterance, “As I am so are ye in this world.” I would have you see, without taking your eyes off this Babe, the man of Calvary. It is no transition, it is already revealed. The Holy Ghost said of this same Child to Mary, “a sword shall pierce through thine own soul.” You have but to look steadily into the light of God in the face of this Child to see the cross, to see redemption. “Unto you is born a Savior.” The cross is beside the manger; the sepulcher and the resurrection glory are here. The power of an endless life is here.

I desire to call your attention more especially to results. All instituted causes, even the incarnation and its atonement, are for results. Christ was born into a human life at Bethlehem that He may be born into human life everywhere through the ages. He lived in a human soul and body that He may live in human souls and bodies, thus bringing the life of God, and the blessings of heaven to men, that manhood here might be like His own, and that those made like unto Himself might be with Him forever.

I preach Jesus Christ because He has made provision for man’s need, because He is man’s glory. I preach Him because He has tasted death for every man, that through Him we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins. Why do I preach Him? Because “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed”; because in His own blood He has opened a fountain of cleansing; because He is the open way of the divine Spirit to destroy sin, the work of the devil; not simply because He is a Babe in the manger, even God incarnate, not because marvelous spectacular things gather about him, but because He stretched out His hands in death-grapple with sin, and has brought light out of darkness, and victory out of defeat, and has so smitten the destroyer that man has but to look up into His face and have his sins all taken away, has but to open the door of his soul and He comes in to be his abiding guest. I preach especially for results and for the results because of what the results may be.

Persons are to be like Himself, not in miraculous works. Jesus cared little for miracles, and, comparatively, they are very little things. It was humanity, pure, lowly, gentle, loving, truthful manhood that He prized. It was this He tried to impress upon His disciples. “Rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.” There are a few things which God prizes with infinite approbation. It is not physical strength. Strength and certain kinds of power He puts into baser things, ten times as much in a mule as in a human. It is not intelligence nor capacity for it. This is a choice gift, but if He had prized it among the highest, He would have created us with larger capabilities. God prizes higher than all things else moral purity, and facts which moral purity necessitate and make possible. The foundation of what God prizes is purity. The end of the gospel of God and of the providences of God is purity. We forget this; the Church of God forgets this.

A person who knows little of the foolishness of the wisdom of this world, who does not know the multiplication table, nor the rules of syntax, nor the correct forms of human speech; but who knows the power of God to save, and the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse, and the indwelling Holy Ghost, is lifted above college professors and people of science as Mount Blanc is above the sea. Though they may be so poor that they live in a hut, subsisting upon bread and water, or without a place to lay their head, yet filled with the holiness of God, they are lifted above millionaires as the heavens are above the earth. There is a greatness about a holy person that is a manifestation of God. They are wrapped in divine communion and fellowship. They are filled with and impelled by the life of God. They are brought into oneness with Jesus Christ in His great mission of pouring the light of God on human souls. He is filled with humility, which is much more than to sit upon a throne. He is filled with gentleness, which is much more than to be filled with riches. He has the same Christly yearning for weary, sore, penitent souls as his Master.

You want to see a manifestation of holiness. See Jesus one morning in the temple. Scribes and Pharisees bring in a woman, possibly taking her to the gathering of the Sanhedrin. She is guilty of a great sin. There is no question about it. It is an opportunity to try the spirit of Jesus. He is the friend of sinners. Is His friendship greater than His love for the law. “Master, what sayest thou?” He stooped down and wrote with His finger upon the ground. They continued asking. He raised up and said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her,” and He said unto the woman, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” No wonder that the next recorded utterance is, “I am the light of the world.”

You desire to see holiness. See Him as the shadows begin to gather about Him. “What shall I say? Father save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.” See Him in Gethsemane, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” Holiness is conformity to the will of God.

You desire to see holiness. See Jesus one day when He turns His face steadily toward the conflict until He saw the result, saw truth triumphant, saw Satan cast down from his throne in human hearts. He saw men and women delivered from the power of sin. In that hour Jesus greatly rejoiced in Spirit. There is a joy that is deeper than human suffering, higher than the clouds, wider than the conflict, stronger than all opposing forces, stronger than all conditions. It comes from the heart of God. It is the joy of the Lord. It cannot be strangled by the enemy, nor crushed by the power of darkness. Its voice can not be stilled by the tumult, nor swallowed up by the raging of the tempest. It is deeper, and higher, and sweeter than all, saying, “My beloved, I am with thee to keep thee in all thy ways.” This is holiness. “As he is, so are we in this world.” Whether it be sunshine or storm, whether it be living or dying, we are His who has undertaken through sanctification of the Spirit to bring us to glory.

P. F. Bresee, Sermons from Matthew’s Gospel (Kansas City: Nazarene Publishing House). The original manuscript has been altered to reflect gender inclusive language.