SERMON XVII
MUSIC
(Christmas Day.)
Luke ii. 13, 14
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
You have been just singing Christmas hymns; and my text speaks of the first Christmas hymn. Now what the words of that hymn meant; what Peace on earth and good-will towards man meant, I have often told you. To-day I want you, for once, to think of this—that it was a hymn; that these angels were singing, even as human beings sing.
Music.—There is something very wonderful in music. Words are wonderful enough: but music is even more wonderful. It speaks not to our thoughts as words do: it speaks straight to our hearts and spirits, to the very core and root of our souls. Music soothes us, stirs us up; it puts noble feelings into us; it melts us to tears, we know not how:—it is a language by itself, just as perfect, in its way, as speech, as words; just as divine, just as blessed.
Music has been called the speech of angels; I will go further, and call it the speech of God himself—and I will, with God’s help, show you a little what I mean this Christmas day.
Music, I say, without words, is wonderful and blessed; one of God’s best gifts to men. But in singing you have both the wonders together, music and words. Singing speaks at once to the head and to the heart, to our understanding and to our feelings; and therefore, perhaps, the most beautiful way in which the reasonable soul of man can show itself (except, of course, doing right, which always is, and always will be, the most beautiful thing) is singing.
Now, why do we all enjoy music? Because it sounds sweet. But why does it sound sweet?
That is a mystery known only to God.
Two things I may make you understand—two things which help to make music—melody and harmony. Now, as most of you know, there is melody in music when the different sounds of the same tune follow each other, so as to give us pleasure; there is harmony in music when different sounds, instead of following each other, come at the same time, so as to give us pleasure.
But why do they please us? and what is more, why do they please angels? and more still, why do they please God? Why is there music in heaven? Consider St. John’s visions in the Revelations. Why did St. John hear therein harpers with their harps, and the mystic beasts, and the elders, singing a new song to God and to the Lamb; and the voices of many angels round about them, whose number was ten thousand times ten thousand?
In this is a great mystery. I will try to explain what little of it I seem to see.
First—There is music in heaven, because in music there is no self-will. Music goes on certain laws and rules. Man did not make those laws of music; he has only found them out: and if he be self-willed and break them, there is an end of his music instantly; all he brings out is discord and ugly sounds. The greatest musician in the world is as much bound by those laws as the learner in the school; and the greatest musician is the one who, instead of fancying that, because he is clever, he may throw aside the laws of music, knows the laws of music best, and observes them most reverently. And therefore it was that the old Greeks, the wisest of all the heathens, made a point of teaching their children music; because, they said, it taught them not to be self-willed and fanciful, but to see the beauty of order, the usefulness of rule, the divineness of law.
And therefore music is fit for heaven; therefore music is a pattern and type of heaven, and of the everlasting life of God, which perfect spirits live in heaven; a life of melody and order in themselves; a life of harmony with each other and with God. Music, I say, is a pattern of the everlasting life of heaven; because in heaven, as in music, is perfect freedom and perfect pleasure; and yet that freedom comes not from throwing away law, but from obeying God’s law perfectly; and that pleasure comes, not from self-will, and doing each what he likes, but from perfectly doing the will of the Father who is in heaven.
And that in itself would be sweet music, even if there were neither voice nor sound in heaven. For wherever there is order and obedience, there is sweet music for the ears of Christ. Whatsoever does its duty, according to its kind which Christ has given it, makes melody in the ears of Christ. Whatsoever is useful to the things around it, makes harmony in the ears of Christ. Therefore those wise old Greeks used to talk of the music of the spheres. They said that sun, moon, and stars, going round each in its appointed path, made as they rolled along across the heavens everlasting music before the throne of God. And so, too, the old Psalms say. Do you not recollect that noble verse, which speaks of the stars of heaven, and says—
What though no human voice or sound
Amid their radiant orbs be found?
To Reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine.
And therefore it is, that that noble Song of the Three Children calls upon sun and moon, and stars of heaven, to bless the Lord, praise him, and magnify him for ever: and not only upon them, but on the smallest things on earth;—on mountains and hills, green herbs and springs, cattle and feathered fowl; they too, he says, can bless the Lord, and magnify him for ever. And how? By fulfilling the law which God has given them; and by living each after their kind, according to the wisdom wherewith Christ the Word of God created them, when he beheld all that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
And so can we, my friends; so can we. Some of us may not be able to make music with our voices: but we can make it with our hearts, and join in the angels’ song this day, if not with our lips, yet in our lives.
If thou fulfillest the law which God has given thee, the law of love and liberty, then thou makest music before God, and thy life is a hymn of praise to God.
If thou art in love and charity with thy neighbours, thou art making sweeter harmony in the ears of the Lord Jesus Christ, than psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music.
If thou art living a righteous and a useful life, doing thy duty orderly and cheerfully where God has put thee, then thou art making sweeter melody in the ears of the Lord Jesus Christ, than if thou hadst the throat of a nightingale; for then thou in thy humble place art humbly copying the everlasting harmony and melody which is in heaven; the everlasting harmony and melody by which God made the world and all that therein is, and behold it was very good, in the day when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy over the new-created earth, which God had made to be a pattern of his own perfection.
For this is that mystery of which I spoke just now, when I said that music was as it were the voice of God himself. Yes, I say it with all reverence: but I do say it. There is music in God. Not the music of voice or sound; a music which no ears can hear, but only the spirit of a man, when awakened by the Holy Spirit, and taught to know God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
There is one everlasting melody in heaven, which Christ, the Word of God, makes for ever, when he does all things perfectly and wisely, and righteously and gloriously, full of grace and truth: and from that all melody comes, and is a dim pattern thereof here; and is beautiful only because it is a dim pattern thereof.
And there is an everlasting harmony in God; which is the harmony between the Father and the Son; who though he be co-equal and co-eternal with his Father, does nothing of himself, but only what he seeth his Father do; saying for ever, ‘Not my will, but thine be done,’ and hears his Father answer for ever, ‘Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.’
Therefore, all melody and all harmony upon earth, whether in the song of birds, the whisper of the wind, the concourse of voices, or the sounds of those cunning instruments which man has learnt to create, because he is made in the image of Christ, the Word of God, who creates all things; all music upon earth, I say, is beautiful in as far as it is a pattern and type of the everlasting music which is in heaven; which was before all worlds, and shall be after them; for by its rules all worlds were made, and will be made for ever, even the everlasting melody of the wise and loving will of God, and the everlasting harmony of the Father toward the Son, and of the Son toward the Father, in one Holy Spirit who proceeds from them both, to give melody and harmony, order and beauty, life and light, to all which God has made.
Therefore music is a sacred, a divine, a Godlike thing, and was given to man by Christ to lift our hearts up to God, and make us feel something of the glory and beauty of God and of all which God has made.
Therefore, too, music is most fit for Christmas day, of all days in the year. Christmas has always been a day of songs, of carols and of hymns; and so let it be for ever. If we had no music all the rest of the year in church or out of church, let us have it at least on Christmas day.
For on Christmas day most of all days (if I may talk of eternal things according to the laws of time) was manifested on earth the everlasting music which is in heaven.
On Christmas day was fulfilled in time and space the everlasting harmony of God, when the Father sent the Son into the world, that the world through him might be saved; and the Son refused not, neither shrank back, though he knew that sorrow, shame, and death awaited him, but answered, ‘A body hast thou prepared me . . . I come to do thy will, oh God!’ and so emptied himself, and took on himself the form of a slave, and was found in fashion as a man, that he might fulfil not his own will, but the will of the Father who sent him.
On this day began that perfect melody of the Son’s life on earth; one song and poem, as it were, of wise words, good deeds, spotless purity, and untiring love, which he perfected when he died, and rose again, and ascended on high for ever to make intercession for us with music sweeter than the song of angels and archangels, and all the heavenly host.
Go home, then, remembering how divine and holy a thing music is, and rejoice before the Lord this day with psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs (by which last I think the apostle means not merely church music—for that he calls psalms and hymns—but songs which have a good and wholesome spirit in them); and remembering, too, that music, like marriage, and all other beautiful things which God has given to man, is not to be taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly; but, even when it is most cheerful and joyful (as marriage is), reverently, discreetly, soberly, and in the fear of God. Amen.
SERMON XVIII
THE CHRIST CHILD
(Christmas Day.)
Luke ii. 7
And she brought forth her first-born Son, and wrapt him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.
Mother and child.—Think of it, my friends, on Christmas day. What more beautiful sight is there in the world? What more beautiful sight, and what more wonderful sight?
What more beautiful? That man must be very far from the kingdom of God—he is not worthy to be called a man at all—whose heart has not been touched by the sight of his first child in its mother’s bosom.
The greatest painters who have ever lived have tried to paint the beauty of that simple thing—a mother with her babe: and have failed. One of them, Rafaelle by name, to whom God gave the spirit of beauty in a measure in which he never gave it, perhaps, to any other man, tried again and again, for years, painting over and over that simple subject—the mother and her babe—and could not satisfy himself. Each of his pictures is most beautiful—each in a different way; and yet none of them is perfect. There is more beauty in that simple every-day sight than he or any man could express by his pencil and his colours. And yet it is a sight which we see every day.
And as for the wonder of that sight—the mystery of it—I tell you this. That physicians, and the wise men who look into the laws of nature, of flesh and blood, say that the mystery is past their finding out; that if they could find out the whole meaning, and the true meaning of those two words, mother and child, they could get the key to the deepest wonders of the world: but they cannot.
And philosophers, who look into the laws of soul and spirit, say the same. The wiser men they are, the more they find in the soul of every new-born babe, and its kindred to its mother, wonders and puzzles past man’s understanding.
I will say boldly, my friends, that if one could find out the full meaning of those two words, mother and child, one would be the wisest philosopher on earth, and see deeper than all who have ever yet lived, into the secrets of this world of time which we can see, and of the eternal world, which no man can see, save with the eyes of his reasonable soul.
And yet it is the most common, every-day sight. That only shows once more what I so often try to show you, that the most common, every-day things are the most wonderful. It shows us how we are to despise nothing which God has made; above all, to despise nothing which belongs to human nature, which is the likeness and image of God.
Above all, upon this Christmas day it is not merely ignorant and foolish, but quite sinful and heretical, to despise anything which belongs to human nature. For on this day God appeared in human nature, and in the first and lowest shape of it—in the form of a new-born babe, that by beginning at the beginning, he might end at the end; and being made in all things like as his brethren, might perfectly and utterly take the manhood into God.
This, then, we are to think of, at least on Christmas day—God revealed, and shown to men, as a babe upon his mother’s bosom.
Men had pictured God to themselves already in many shapes—some foolish, foul, brutal—God forgive them;—some noble and majestic. Sometimes they thought of him as a mighty Lawgiver, sitting upon his throne in the heavens, with solemn face and awful eyes, looking down upon all the earth. That fancy was not a false one. St. John saw the Lord so.
‘And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars; and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword; and his countenance was as the sun shining in his strength.’
Sometimes, again, they thought of him as the terrible warrior, going forth to conquer and destroy all which opposed him; to kill wicked tyrants, and devils, and all who rebelled against him, and who hurt human beings.
And that was not a false fancy either. St. John saw the Lord so.
‘And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True; and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew but he himself: and he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and his name is called, The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.’
But all these were only, as it were, fancies about one side of God’s character. It was only in the Babe of Bethlehem that the whole of God’s character shone forth, that men might not merely fear him and bow before him, but trust in him and love him, as one who could be touched with the feeling of their infirmities. 2
It was on Christmas day that God appeared among men as a child upon a mother’s bosom. And why? Surely for this reason, among a thousand more, that he might teach men to feel for him and with him, and to be sure that he felt for them and with them. To teach them to feel for him and with him, he took the shape of a little child, to draw out all their love, all their tenderness, and, if I may so say, all their pity.
A God in need! A God weak! God fed by mortal woman! A God wrapt in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger!—If that sight will not touch our hearts, what will?
And by that same sight he has taught men that he feels with them and for them. God has been through the pains of infancy. God has hungered. God has wept. God has been ignorant. God has grown, and increased in stature and in wisdom, and in favour both with God and man.
And why? That he might take on him our human nature. Not merely the nature of a great man, of a wise man, of a grown up man only: but all human nature, from the nature of the babe on its mother’s bosom, to the nature of the full-grown and full-souled man, fighting with all his powers against the evil of the world. All this is his, and he is all; that no human being, from the strongest to the weakest, from the eldest to the youngest, but may be able to say, ‘What I am, Christ has been.’
Take home with you, then, this thought, on this Christmas day, among all the rest which Christmas ought to put into your minds. Respect your own children. Look on them as the likeness of Christ, and the image of God; and when you go home this day, believe that Christ is in them, the hope of glory to them hereafter. Draw them round you, and say to them—each in your own fashion—‘My children, God was made like to you this day, that you might be made like God. Children, this is your day, for on this day God became a child; that God gives you leave to think of him as a child, that you may be sure he loves children, sure he understands children, sure that a little child is as near and as dear to God as kings, nobles, scholars, and divines.’
Yes, my dear children, you may think of God as a child, now and always. For you Christ is always the Babe of Bethlehem. Do not say to yourselves, ‘Christ is grown up long ago; he is a full-grown man.’ He is, and yet he is not. His life is eternal in the heavens, above all change of time and space; for time and space are but his creatures and his tools. Therefore he can be all things to all men, because he is the Son of man.
Yes; all things to all men. Hearken to me, you children, and you grown-up children also, if there be any in this church—for if you will receive it, such is the sacred heart of Jesus—all things to all; and wherever there is the true heart of a true human being, there, beating in perfect answer to it, is the heart of Christ.
To the strong he can be strongest; and to the weak, weakest of all. With the mighty he can be the King of kings; and yet with the poor he can wander, not having where to lay his head. With quiet Jacob he goes round the farm, among the quiet sheep; and yet he ranges with wild Esau over battle-field, and desert, and far unknown seas. With the mourner he weeps for ever; and yet he will sit as of old—if he be but invited—and bless the marriage-feast. For the penitent he hangs for ever on the cross; and yet with the man who works for God his Father he stands for ever in his glory, his eyes like a flame of fire, and out of his mouth a two-edged sword, judging the nations of the earth. With the aged and the dying he goes down for ever into the grave; and yet with you, children, Christ lies for ever on his mother’s bosom, and looks up for ever into his mother’s face, full of young life, and happiness, and innocence, the everlasting Christ-child in whom you must believe, whom you must love, to whom you must offer up your childish prayers.
The day will come when you can no longer think as a child, or pray as a child, but put away childish things. I do not know whether you will be the happier for that change. God grant that you may be the better for it. Meanwhile, go home, and think of the baby Jesus, your Lord, your pattern, your Saviour; and ask him to make you such good children to your mothers, as the little Jesus was to the Blessed Virgin, when he increased in knowledge and in stature, and in favour both with God and man.