12/12/54

Scripture: John 10: 1-16.

Text: John 10: 10b; “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it abundantly.”

In the year 1525, the first printed English New Testament began to appear in England. It was a strictly forbidden issue. The official world of that nation had continued to disapprove any but the Latin Bible which was readable only by scholars. William Tyndale was so thoroughly convinced that anyone who had enough education to read at all should have opportunity to read the Holy Scriptures in his own tongue, that he went ahead not only with his painstaking translation of the New Testament but with plans to publish it and distribute it. This was, of course, in defiance of the wishes of his ecclesiastical superiors. But he had vowed that “every plow boy should know the Scriptures.” Because of his determination and persistence, he was forced to leave his native England; and he never returned.

But he got his English translation of the New Testament printed on the European continent. With the help of friends, he got thousands of copies smuggled into England where they were eagerly sought and read. Various forces on the continent, cooperating with English authorities, finally had Tyndale arrested and thrown into a cold, dark jail in Belgium. Then he was put to death, a martyr to the cause of making available the Scriptures to each in his own tongue. His last words were a potent sentence prayer: “O Lord, open Thou the King of England’s eyes.”

On this Universal Bible Sunday, it is well to reflect that the American Bible Society now uses some 174 languages, 5 of them new this past year, in the translation and printing of the Scriptures. More than half a million Bibles were printed and distributed; and millions more of Testaments and portions of Scripture were made available. More that 50,000 embossed volumes and “Talking Book” records were distributed in several languages.

The Christian church is at least organized in all but two of the nations of the earth. And there are known Christians in those two: Tibet and Afghanistan. The Bible can be read by these Christian church members everywhere, each in his own tongue, for the most part. But the Bible can also go ahead of the organized church into the hands and hearts of people who are interested in reading it, though not at all Christian as yet. In countless American homes, bulky Sunday newspapers appear today. The printed matter thereon is all about the news of today, about tomorrow’s products, and about various facets of contemporary living.

The Bible tells us an old, old story of ancient days. Yet anyone who reads his Bible with real discernment soon understands that the contrast between the strictly contemporary newspaper and the ancient Scripture is partly in outward appearance. For the Bible is also “news” -- good news of timely importance. Here is the “news” of God’s goodness, and of man’s acceptableness to God. Here is “news” of all that the Creator has done, that we might have true and abundant life. In significance it surpasses anything that you have found, or are going to find, in today’s newspaper.

We welcome the daily mail with messages of love and of greeting, and of information for us. “The Bible,” as Raymond Calkins quotes in “Daily Devotions,” “is a letter from God with your name on it.” It bears the message that “God so loved the world,” that He gave his Son into the world. [John 3: 16]. Its message is the word of life.

Jesus summed up his mission to the earth, in the parable of a Good Shepherd, by saying, earnestly and assuringly, “I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly.”

The Advent Season, with its reminder of Christ’s coming, is a season of assurance. One of the musical compositions sometimes sung at the approach of Christmas if Handel’s oratorio, “The Messiah.” At its opening, the tenor soloist sings “Comfort ye, Comfort ye my people.” And every listener sits straighter in his pew with the feeling that “This is for me.”

It was so in the day of Isaiah. The Hebrew folk had had their nation’s pride and glory ground to dust in conquest by the Assyrians. The troops of the Assyrian monarchy had herded them off to Babylon where the Hebrews were whipped to work by slave-drivers, as they had been driven earlier by the Egyptians before the time of Moses. Goons had strong-armed them into servile occupations. They had been yanked out of prisoner-of-war camps for the sport of the court. There, like mice that a well-fed cat may play with, they were commanded to sing their songs of their ancestral faith so that the court might be amused at their oddities. And some of them dared to say, as other exiles have often said in later years, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

Then a new king, the Persian named Cyrus, had risen, had seized control of the Assyrians, and had promptly told the Hebrews that he would release them from captivity. He would even help them to return to their native Jerusalem.

Sometimes news comes as such a joyous surprise as to leave one nearly numb with suspense until one can know for certain that it is true. So it was with those Hebrews. Every man’s heart alternated between unbelief and incredulous joy. The prophet Isaiah had stood in their midst to speak for God:

Comfort, comfort my people,

says our God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her

that her warfare is ended,

that her iniquity is pardoned ---- [Isaiah 40: 1-2].

And each man, many with tears streaming down their faces, had felt within himself: “This is for me.”

Well, this assurance and comfort is for us; not because God will take us out of the warfare of life, but because in faith he offers us the means to withstand it. We Christians walk through difficulty, and sorrow, and the valley of the shadow of death just like anyone else. But we walk it not alone. The Lord is your Shepherd. His rod and his staff, his superb spirit, his vital presence, they comfort you. [Psalm 23].

2) As it is with our burdens, our warfare of life, so it is with our iniquity. “Cry unto her that her iniquity is pardoned.” [Isaiah 40: 2]. How many of us are bogged down spiritually because of the evil around us, and our part in it! “We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We have offended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.” Some of us have rebelled against the wording of this confession from the Book of Common Prayer. But the longer one looks into life, the more one sees the need for divine pardoning of our iniquities. Suppose one knew that he could never be forgiven! Suppose one had to mouth his guilt in an atheistic Soviet People’s court without the slightest hope of pardon or forgiveness for deviation from the party line. One of the real fears of our time is that this gloomy message of pardonless guilt may swamp the joyous gospel of Christian forgiveness. This is one of the battle fields between the Christian gospel and the hateful doctrine of communism.

Christ will prevail in that battle, in the extent to which each Christian in his own heart brings his own life before the divine judgment and seeks the assured pardon of the Most High. It is joyous news to all people of the earth who know that their “iniquity is pardoned.”

Advent and Christmas are “easy marks” if we adopt them only for their comfort. From a moral standpoint, they call upon us to “prepare the way of the Lord” in our own lives and in our community.

Jesus came into the world that we, and all mankind, might have life, and have it more abundantly. The abundance promised is not necessarily a quantity of material blessings. It may be, and often is, something quite different.

I believe it is President Eisenhower who has said that he knew that the home of his childhood practiced frugality. But the beauty of his childhood, and his mature understanding of the childhood home, is that he never knew that his parents had been poor. There is a quality of life, even of abundance, that fills life with significance, whether one’s environment is that of luxury or of frugality. The Eisenhower home produced more than one personality of great ability and understanding. It evidently had an abundance that was independent of, and better than, the material resources which vary from household to household.

Wise men came from the East, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. But the Savior himself came to earth with no gift save himself. And his gift is, verily, life itself.

Paul Scherer tells a story of a professor of the legendary absent-minded type who was waiting in the hospital for his own child to be born. As he waited, he fell to reading a book. As usual, he became deeply engrossed in his reading. So deep was his concentration that he heard, only automatically, when a nurse came from the delivery room to tell him that it was a boy. He scarcely bothered to look up. He just said what he always said when someone rapped on his office door with a remark about some boy: “Ask him what he wants.”

The Christ Child comes to the earth again. He stands at the threshold of our lives and knocks. He brings abundant life for our weary, frightened, anxious, sin-ridden souls. Shall we be so busy with our upholstered convenience and the pettiness of each task that we shrug and say, “Ask him what he wants?” Or shall we get to our knees in humility and joy, imploring him to enter with his comfort and his cleansing power? For he brings life -- and brings it abundantly!

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, December 12, 1954.