The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1891, Page 45

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Che Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PUBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LurHeRAN SynopicaL ConFERENCE oF NorTH AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter.

Vol. XIII.

St. Louis, Mo., December, 1891.

No. 12.

Christmas Hymn.

I.
’Tis come! ’tis come! the gladsome morn!
The waiting ages wait no more;
To-day the Christ of God is born!
Him let all earth and heaven adore.

Hail, Star of Promise! Jacob’s Star,
That in its destined hour appears!

Hail, longed-for Dayspring, seen afar
Down the dim track of lingering years.

The Son of David! Lo, He sleeps,
On the sweet mother’s bosom laid:

No princely guard the manger keeps,
No royal homage there is paid.

But softly on the quivering air
Floats the low hum of rustling wings,
The hosts of God glad tidings bear,
And wake glad strains from myriad strings.

Glad tidings of great joy to men!

Glad tidings! Shout them earth around;
Till desert waste and lonely glen

Shall catch and echo back the sound.

II.
Welcome, O mortals, Christ your King!
Jesus, Redeemer, call His name;
All grace and truth He comes to bring,
Life, pardon, peace, His lips proclaim.

Where sin and death and sorrow spread
O’er peopled realms the gloom of night,

He, the bright Morning Star, shall shed
O’er the wide world celestial light.

Ye troubled hearts that long have borne
The weary weight of guilt and fears;

Ye wanderers, hopeless and forlorn,
Behold your Saviour! Dry your tears!

Earth long accursed shall smile again,
Enrobed with Eden’s primal bloom;
And God Himself shall dwell with men,

And hope.immortal cheer the tomb!
A Selected.

——s_+0-< or eo -

‘Uno you a Saviour is born,” that is, God’s
wrath, damnation, and eternal death, shall no
longer threaten you, but rather, through the
obedience of the Son of God who is born for
you, there is prepared for you reconciliation
with God, forgiveness of sins, and everlasting
salvation and freedom from all that oppresses
and saddens your heart.—Luther.

Good Tidings of Great Joy.

The Christmas tidings are good tidings of
great joy. The angel that brought these tidings
to the shepherds in the holy Christmas night
said.to them, ‘‘ Behold, I bring you good tidings
of great joy, which shall be to all people.’
And what tidings did he bring? He said,
“Unto you is born this day in the city of
David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.’
Angels’ voices were raised in joyful song when
these tidings were brought to our sinful world.
And should not these tidings be good tidings
of great joy to us for whom that Saviour came.
It was our Saviour that was born in the holy
Christmas night at Bethlehem. . These tidings
should indeed fill every sinner’s heart with joy.
We sinners need this Saviour. Our sins brought
the curse and wrath of a just and holy God
upon us. Without a Saviour we are lost for-
ever. Without a Saviour there is no beam of
joy to gladden our lives, no star of hope in the
dark hour of death. Without a Saviour man’s
life in this world would simply be a journey to
eternal damnation.

No creature in heaven or on earth could be
our Saviour. Our Saviour must be God, for
God’s own power was necessary to bear the
great punishment of the world’s sin. Our
Saviour must also be a man in order to suffer
and to die. O wonderful love of God! He
sent His own Son into this world to become
our Saviour. ‘‘ When the fulness of the time
was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a
woman, made under the law, to redeem them
that were under the law, that we might receive
the adoption of sons,’”’ Gal. 4, 4. 5. The Son
of God was born of the virgin Mary, He be-
came man, a member of our human family,
a brother of ours, like unto us in all things,
but without sin. Wonderful gift of God! The
Babe of Bethlehem, at whose manger we wor-
ship in the holy Christmas time, is God and
Man in one person. The Lord of heaven and
earth became a lowly infant. The angel there-
fore calls that Child born at Bethlehem ‘‘Christ
the Lord’’. This God-Man is our Redeemer,
our Saviour. He took upon Himself our sins

and bore God’s wrath in our stead. He is my
Saviour, and your Saviour, dear reader, and

the Saviour of every sinner. The angel plainly
says, ‘‘I bring you good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people.’ All people—
there is none shut out. To the rich and the
poor, to the high and the low, to the colored
and the white, to the old and the young, to
every sinner the glad Christmas tidings bring
the Saviour from all sins and woe.

What shall we do? Let the children tell
you that gather round their Christmas trees.
What do they do on beholding their Christmas _,
gifts? Why, they take them and rejoice over :
them. That is what we must do. We must /
take the Saviour who comes to us in the Christ-
mas Gospel. We must take Him as our Saviour.
What a happy Christmas we shall then have!
Our hearts will be filled with, true Christmas
joy, and in true faith we can triumphantly cry
out in the face of sin, death, devil, and hell:
We do not fear; for unto us is born a Saviour,
which is Christ the Lord. 2

To all our readers we wish such a happy
Christmas.

———_s +e oo

A Gift of Love.

God’s gift of His Son was a gift of love.
Was God to gain anything from us that would
repay Him for sending His Son in the flesh?
Thousands of our race go down to the grave
without ever having said so much as God be
thanked for the gift of a Saviour; multitudes
have known the name of Jesus Christ only as
giving them another oath to swear by; while
by those that have known the Saviour best,
His mercy has been but poorly acknowledged.
It could have been only from a love that is in-
finite, that God gave us His Son. And thus
the Scriptures say: ‘‘God so loved the world
that He gave His only-begotten Son.’’ ‘‘Herein
is love; not that we loved God, but that He
loved us and sent His Son to be the propi-
tiation for our sins.’’ Surely it must have been
that He loved me before the foundations of the
world, said an humble Christian, for He can

have seen nothing in me since to love.
——<>-oa oe oe

Te Incarnation teaches man the greatness ;
of his misery, by showing how great a remedy /
was needful.— Pascal.