Fewer than sixty generations ago, no more than the span of thirty lifetimes, occurred an event in Bethlehem of Judea that revolutionized the thoughts of men. In terms of world history it covered but a fragment of time. This momentous event was the birth of Christ Jesus. The prophecies about the coming of the Messiah, mentioned in the Gospel accounts, as well as by the historian Josephus, had been long known and accepted by the Jews. In the Old Testament the promise of this coming included references to the crucifixion and resurrection. Jesus himself on the walk to Emmaus expounded to his disciples these same Scriptural references to the coming of the Christ, beginning at the time of Moses.
Many things about the life of our Lord bring to thought the rising light and dawn of day. On an eventful morn his birth was heralded by the coming day. In his maturity he was known to rise before daybreak to pray alone. It was in the early morning he rose from the sepulcher. All the events of Jesus' experience indicate a rising state of consciousness, from the day when, as a child in the temple, he confounded the doctors, until the glorious event known throughout Christendom as the resurrection.
This hallowed morning indicated a glorious promise, effacing the memory of the tragic days before. Dark indeed were those hours when materialistic Roman power asserted itself; but the Roman callous indifference was secondary to the ridicule, indignities, and mockery of Jesus' own fellow countrymen whom he had come to save and who rejected him. It was indeed the darkest episode in the history of mankind when men sought to crucify purity and love on the cross of hatred.
