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Let us now go even unto
Bethlehem. This is a world of changes and chances. Very well; but He That was born in Bethlehem came into that world; came to be subject to them, came to overcome them. This is a world of sorrow. Very well; but He That was born in Bethlehem came into that world to bear it, to be the Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief, to raise us up to the pleasures that are at His right hand for evermore. This is a world of poverty: but Bethlehem is by interpretation the House of Bread, and He was born there Who not only gives Himself as the Living Bread to us, but who has promised that, if we seek first the kingdom of GOD and His righteousness, He will answer all other questions for us what we shall eat, or what we shall drink, or wherewithal we shall be clothed better than we could answer them for ourselves. This is a world of unsatisfied desires: but in Bethlehem was that spring for which David thirsted, saying, "O that one would give me to drink of the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate": that spring to reach which the three mighty men burst through the host of the Philistines at the jeopardy of their lives. And so in Bethlehem to-night the Fountain, as the prophet says, is opened for sin and for uncleanness, the Fountain of whose waters, if a man
drinketh, he shall never thirst again; the Fountain which we can only gain by breaking through all the temptations of evil spirits, the world, and our own hearts.
Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, there to learn how to set at nought change and chance, how to change sorrow into joy, how to turn poverty into riches, how to awake up after GOD'S likeness, and to be satisfied with it.
John Mason Neale
SERMON IX: PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD
Christmas Eve, 1855
SONG TITLES
A Great
& Mighty Wonder (from the Vigil)
attributed to St. Germanus, but actually by St. Anatolius
Nativity Canon
by St. Cosmas the Anchorite
Ode 1 "Christ is born tell forth His fame"
Ode 3
Ode 4 "Rod of the Root of Jesse"
Ode 5
Ode 6
Ode 7
Ode 8
Ode 9
The Lord & King
of All Things (Feast of St. Stephen)
by
St. Anatolius
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All text
translations by John Mason Neale from his work Hymns of the Eastern
Christian Church |
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