# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1899_S45 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) LT Che Lutheran Pioneer. A MISSIONARY MONTHLY. PusBLisHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN SynopicaAL CONFERENCE oF NortH AMERICA. R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor. Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter. Vol. XXI. Sie ouise NiO mecem ben coo! No. 12. Christmas. Hearken to the angels singing, News of joyful gladness bringing To the weary earth! On one theme with rapture dwelling, To the startled shepherds telling Of the Saviour’s birth. Who is He, this Infant lowly? Can He be the Saviour holy Come from realms on high? This the Christ? This lowly Stranger Lying helpless in the manger, With the cattle nigh? Yes, ’tis He, the long expected, Come to be by man rejected, Come for man to die; Thus to work His great salvation, And by His humiliation Justice satisfy. And the song of angel-gladness, Bidding men arouse from sadness, Was the song of love, To the human heart appealing, By the Babe on earth revealing Love of God above. Mighty love, O melt and win us, Rouse responsive love within us, Even as we gaze On Thy wondrous incarnation, And with grateful adoration Swell the angel’s praise. +Selected. —.,—- oo Christmas Joy. The true Christmas joy is a great joy, the greatest, the most blessed joy that can fill the heart of man. ‘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.”” This is the message brought by an angel in the holy Christmas night. The tid- ings are tidings of great joy, for they make known the birth of a Saviour. ‘True Christ- mas joy is joy over this birth. And what greater joy can there be? A Saviour is born! That is just what we need. We are sinners, and therefore subject to God’s wrath and everlasting punishment. ‘There is none right- €ous, NO, not one,’’ says the Bible. And again it says, “The wages of sin is death.” With- out a Saviour there is no ray of joy to glad- den our lives, no star of hope to brighten the hour of death. Without a Saviour we are lost forever. What a great joy it is to hear that a Saviour is born! ‘‘God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that who- soever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” To him who knows himself to be a sinner there can be no greater joy than the joy over the Saviour born at Bethlehem. In that Saviour he has the Re- deemer from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil. Sin is mighty; death is mighty, the devil is mighty; but mightier than all is this Saviour. He takes away sin, He conquers death, He destroys the power of Satan. He that believes in that Saviour has nothing to fear. He shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life. He need not grope in darkness to find the way to heaven. In the Saviour he has the way that leads to the man- sions of heavenly joy in our Father’s house. His heart, therefore, knows no greater joy than the Christmas joy over the birth of the Saviour. This Christmas joy is intended for all. The angel said, “I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.’” No one has any ground for thinking that this joy is only for better and holier people than he. It is the Saviour of sinners that is born at Beth- lehem; and as He is the Saviour of all sin- ners, so the Christmas joy is for all. ‘‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all accep- tation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of which I am chief,’’ says the apostle. The Saviour came to save sin- ners, even the chief of sinners. ‘here is none excepted, no, not one. Man may shut him- self out from this Christmas joy by his un- belief, but God does not shut him out. He has sent His Son into the world to be the Saviour of all sinners, and He offers this joy to all, The young and the old, the high and the low, the colored and the white, the learned and the unlearned, the rich and the poor, the merry and the weeping—they all may share this Christmas joy and give glory to God in the highest, as there is now peace on earth and good will to all men. The Christmas joy is not for a certain time only; it is for all time. During the time of the Old Testament the saints of old looked forward with joyful longing to the birth of the promised Saviour. In this they found their consolation, on this they based their hopes of deliverance from all evil. And when in the fulness of time the Saviour was born the tidings of His birth were made known as tidings of great joy and gladdened the hearts of all that owned Him as their Saviour. More than eighteen hundred years have passed since that first Christmas night; but amid all the changes that have occurred the Christmas joy has remained the same. The world has at all times needed and the world still to-day needs the Saviour born at Bethlehem. The sweet story of His birth is the old, but ever new story which at all times fills the hearts of sin- ners with joy. And as the Christian grows older and looks with delight upon the joy of the children in the blessed Christmas season, he thinks of his own childhood days and of the many changes that have occurred since then, but amid all the changes, in days of sorrow and of mirth, the Saviour’s birth has been and still is for him the never failing spring of Christmas joy. “Rejoice, rejoice, ye Christians, With all your hearts this morn! Oh, hear the blessed tidings, ‘The Lord, the Christ is born,’ Now brought us by the angels That stand about God’s throne; Oh, lovely are the voices That make such tidings known.” —— > - oe “Unto you, therefore, who believe, He is Precious.” If we have Christ, we have all: without Christ, we have nothing. You can be happy without money, without liberty, without par- ents, without friends, if Christ is yours. If you have not Christ, neither money, nor liberty, nor parents, nor friends can make you happy. Christ with a chain is liberty: liberty without Christ is a chain. Christ with- out any thing is riches: all things without Christ is poverty indeed.