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Christmas Day 17
Every country in the world has its own Christmas customs. Christmas in Australia is often very hot. Whereas the northern hemisphere is in the middle of winter, Australians are baking in summer heat. It is not unusual to have Christmas Day well into the mid 30 degrees Celsius, or near 100 degrees Fahrenheit.Christmas Season Wednesday Year 1
Night Office from the
Monastic Lectionary.
Second Reading: From a
sermon by Cardinal John Henry Newman
(Sermons bearing on the Subject of the Day, Sermon V. “pp.52-62)
Sermon 5. The Three
Offices of Christ
"Full of grace are Thy lips, because God
hath blessed Thee for ever. Gird Thee with Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O Thou
most mighty, according to Thy worship and renown." Ps. xlv. 3, 4.
[Note]
{52} OUR Lord is here spoken of
in two distinct characters. As a teacher,—"Full of grace are Thy
lips;" and as a conqueror,—"Gird Thee with Thy sword upon Thy
thigh;" or, in other words, as a Prophet and as a King. His third special
office, which is brought before us prominently at this season, is that of a
Priest, in that He offered Himself up to God the Father as a propitiation for
our sins. These are the three chief views which are vouchsafed to us of His
Mediatorial office; and it is often observed that none before Him has, even in
type or resemblance, borne all three characters. Melchizedek, for instance, was
a priest and a king, but not a prophet. David was prophet and king, but not a
priest. Jeremiah was priest and prophet, but not a king. Christ was Prophet,
Priest, and King.
He is spoken of as a prophet by Moses, as a
prophet {53} like, but superior, to himself.—"A Prophet shall the Lord
your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; Him shall ye
hear." And Jacob had already described Him as a king, when he said,
"Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be." Balaam, too, speaks
of Him as a conqueror and great sovereign.—"There shall come a Star out of
Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel ... Out of Jacob shall come He
that shall have dominion." And David speaks of Him as a priest, but not a
priest like Aaron.—"Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of
Melchizedek;" that is, a royal priest, which Aaron was not. And again, the
very first prophecy of all ran, "He shall bruise thy head (that is, the
serpent's), and thou shalt bruise His heel." [Acts vii. 37. Gen. xlix. 10.
Numb. xxiv. 17, 19. Ps. cx. 4. Gen. iii. 15.] He was to conquer through
suffering.
Christ exercised His prophetical office in
teaching, and in foretelling the future;—in His sermon on the Mount, in His
parables, in His prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem. He performed the
priest's service when He died on the Cross, as a sacrifice; and when He
consecrated the bread and the cup to be a feast upon that sacrifice; and now
that He intercedes for us at the right hand of God. And He showed Himself as a
conqueror, and a king, in rising from the dead, in ascending into heaven, in
sending down the Spirit of grace, in converting the nations, and in forming His
Church to receive and to rule them.
Further, let it be observed, that these three
offices seem to contain in them and to represent the three {54} principal
conditions of mankind; for one large class of men, or aspect of mankind, is
that of sufferers,—such as slaves, the oppressed, the poor, the sick, the
bereaved, the troubled in mind; another is, of those who work and toil, who are
full of business and engagements, whether for themselves or for others; and a
third is that of the studious, learned, and wise. Endurance, active life,
thought,—these are the three perhaps principal states in which men find
themselves. Christ undertook them all. On one occasion He said, with reference
to His baptism in Jordan, "This it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness."
[Matt. iii. 15.] Every holy rite of the law did He go through for our sakes.
And so too did He live through all states of man's life up to a perfect man,
infancy, childhood, boyhood, youth, maturity, that He might be a pattern of
them all. And so too did He take man's perfect nature on Him, body, and soul,
and reason, that He might sanctify it wholly. And therefore in like manner did
He unite in Himself, and renew, and give us back in Him, the principal lots or
states in which we find ourselves,—suffering, that we might know how to suffer;
labouring, that we might know how to labour; and teaching, that we might know
how to teach.
Thus, when our Lord came on earth in our
nature, He combined together offices and duties most dissimilar. He suffered,
yet He triumphed. He thought and spoke, yet He acted. He was humble and
despised, yet He was a teacher. He has at once a life of hardship like the
shepherds, yet is wise and royal as the eastern sages who came to do honour to
His birth. {55}
And it will be observed, moreover, that in
these offices He also represents to us the Holy Trinity; for in His own proper
character He is a priest, and as to His kingdom He has it from the Father, and
as to His prophetical office He exercises it by the Spirit. The Father is the
King, the Son the Priest, and the Holy Ghost the Prophet.
And further this may be observed, that when
Christ had thus given a pattern in Himself of such contrary modes of life, and
their contrary excellences, all in one, He did not, on His going away, altogether
withdraw the wonderful spectacle; but He left behind Him those who should take
His place, a ministerial order, who are His representatives and instruments;
and they, though earthen vessels, show forth according to their measure these
three characters,—the prophetical, priestly, and regal, combining in themselves
qualities and functions which, except under the Gospel, are almost incompatible
the one with the other. He consecrated His Apostles to suffer, when He said,
"Ye shall drink indeed of My cup, and be baptized with My baptism;"
to teach, when He said, "The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, He shall
teach you all things;" and to rule, when He said to them, "I appoint
unto you a kingdom, as My Father hath appointed unto Me; that ye may eat and
drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes
of Israel." [Matt. xx. 23. John xiv. 26. Luke xxii. 29, 30.]
Nay, all His followers in some sense bear all
three offices, as Scripture is not slow to declare. In one place it is said,
that Christ has "made us kings and priests {56} unto God and His
Father;" in another, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye
know all things." [Rev. i. 6. 1 John ii. 20.] Knowledge, power, endurance,
are the three privileges of the Christian Church; endurance, as represented in
the confessor and monk; wisdom, in the doctor and teacher; power, in the bishop
and pastor. And now to illustrate this more at length, by way of showing what I
mean.
1. I mean this,—that when we look abroad into
the world, and survey the different states and functions of civil society, we
see a great deal to admire, but all is imperfect. Each state, or each rank, has
its particular excellence, but that excellence is solitary. For instance,—if
you take the highest, the kingly office, there is much in it to excite
reverence and devotedness. We cannot but look up to power, which God has
originally given, so visibly and augustly displayed. All the pomp and
circumstance of a court reminds us that the centre of it is one whom God, the
Almighty King, maintains. And yet, on second thoughts, is there not this great
defect,—that it is all power, and no subjection; all greatness, and no
humiliation; all doing, and no suffering? Great sovereigns indeed, like other
men, have their own private griefs, and, if they are Christians, have the
privileges of Christians, painful as well as pleasant; but I am speaking of
kingly power in itself, and showing what a contrast it presents to Christ's
sovereignty. Princes are brought up princes; from their birth they receive
honours approaching to worship; they will a thing, and it is done; they are on
high, and {57} never below. How different the sovereignty of Christ! Born, not
in golden chambers, but in a cave of the earth, surrounded with brute cattle,
laid in a manger; then bred up as the carpenter's son; when He displayed
Himself as the King of Saints, still without a place to lay His head, and dying
on the Cross a malefactor's death. He was not a king without being a sufferer
too. And so in like manner His followers after Him. He washed His brethren's
feet, and He bade them in turn do the like. He told them that, "whosoever
would be chief among them, let him be their servant, even as the Son of Man
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom
for many." [Matt. xx. 27, 28.] He warned them that they should receive
"houses and lands, with
persecutions." [Mark x. 30.] Such is the kingly power of
Christ,—reached through humiliation, exercised in mortification.
2. Take another instance. How much is there
to admire and revere in the profession of a soldier. He comes more nearly than
a king to the pattern of Christ. He not only is strong, but he is weak. He does
and he suffers. He succeeds through a risk. Half his time is on the field of
battle, and half of it on the bed of pain. And he does this for the sake of
others; he defends us by it; we are indebted to him; we gain by his loss; we
are at peace by his warfare. And yet there are great drawbacks here also.
First, there is the carnal weapon: it is a grievous thing to have to shed blood
and to inflict wounds, though it be in self-defence. But again, which is more
to our present purpose, after all, the soldier is {58} but an instrument
directed by another; he is the arm, he is not the head; he must act, whether in
a right cause or in a wrong one. His office is wanting in dignity, and
accordingly we associate it with the notion of brute force, and with
arbitrariness, and imperiousness, and violence, and sternness, and all those
qualities which are brought out when mind, and intellect, and sanctity, and
charity, are away. But Christ and His ministers are bloodless conquerors. True,
He came as one from the battle; and the Prophet cried out on seeing Him,
"Who is this that cometh with dyed garments? … wherefore art Thou red in
Thine apparel, and Thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?"
[Isa. lxiii. 1, 2.] But that blood was His own; and if His enemies' blood
flowed after His, it was drawn by themselves, by the just judgment of God, not
by Him. "He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before
her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth." [Isa. liii. 7. Acts
viii. 32.]
But there is "a time to keep silence,
and a time to speak;" so in season He spoke, and then He was a Prophet. In
season He opened His mouth and said, "Blessed are the poor in
spirit;" and so with the other beatitudes upon the mount. "In Him are
hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge;" "Full of grace are
His lips, because God hath blessed Him for ever." He not only commands, He
persuades. He tempers His awful deeds, He explains His sufferings, by His
soothing words. "The Lord hath given unto Him the tongue of the learned,
that He may be able to speak a word in season to him that is weary." And
when He {59} began to teach, "All men marvelled at the gracious words
which proceeded out of His mouth." He taught them "as one having
authority." David, himself a prophet and king, a man of sacred song,
though a man of blood, had shown beforehand what kind of ruler the promised
Christ must be;—" He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear
of God; and He shall be as the light of the morning." And Moses before
him, another ruler of God's people; "My doctrine shall drop as the rain,
my speech shall distil as the dew; as the small rain upon the tender herb, and
as the showers upon the grass." [2 Sam. xxiii. 3, 4. Deut. xxxii. 2.] And
hence it was said of the Saviour to come, "He shall not strive nor cry,
neither shall any hear His voice in the streets; a bruised reed shall He not
break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment unto
victory." [Matt. xii. 18-20.] Hence such stress is laid in the Prophets on
His being a Just God and a Saviour; on "righteousness and peace kissing
each other;" on "righteousness being the girdle of His loins, and
faithfulness the girdle of His reins." [Isa. xi. 5.] Such is the Divine
Prophet of the Church, the Interpreter of secrets, ruling not like conquerors
of the earth, but by love; not by fear, not by strength of arm, but by wisdom
of heart, convincing, persuading, enlightening, founding an empire upon faith,
and ruling by a sovereignty over the conscience. And such, too, has been the
rule of His servants after Him. They have been weak personally, without armies,
without strongholds, naked, defenceless, yet sovereigns, {60} because they were
preachers and teachers, because they appealed to the reason and the conscience;
and strange to say, though the arm of force seems as if it could do all things,
the sovereignty of mind is higher, and the strong and the noble quail before
it.
3. Once more. We know that philosophers of
this world are men of deep reflection and inventive genius, who propose a
doctrine, and by its speciousness gather round them followers, found schools,
and in the event do wonderful things. These are the men, who at length change
the face of society, reverse laws and opinions, subvert governments, and
overthrow kingdoms; or they extend the range of our knowledge, and, as it were,
introduce us into new worlds. Well, this is admirable, surely, so vast is the
power of mind; but, observe how inferior is this display of intellectual
greatness compared with that which is seen in Christ and His saints, inferior
because defective. These great philosophers of the world, whose words are so
good and so effective, are themselves too often nothing more than words. Who
shall warrant for their doing as well as speaking? They are shadows of Christ's
prophetical office; but where is the sacerdotal or the regal? where shall we
find in them the nobleness of the king, and the self-denial of the priest? On
the contrary, for nobleness they are often the "meanest of mankind;"
and for self-denial the most selfish and most cowardly. They can sit at ease,
and follow their own pleasure, and indulge the flesh, or serve the world, while
their reason is so enlightened, and their words are so influential. Of all
forms of earthly greatness, surely this is the most {61} despicable. One
sorrows to think that the soldier is by his profession but a material and brute
instrument; one owns that great defect in earthly royalty, that it is
worshipped without worshipping, that it commands without obeying, and resolves
and effects without suffering; but what shall we say to men like Balaam, who
profess without doing, who teach the truth yet live in vice, who know, but do
not love?
Such is the world: but Christ came to make a
new world. He came into the world to regenerate it in Himself, to make a new
beginning, to be the beginning of the creation of God, to gather together in
one, and recapitulate all things in Himself. The rays of His glory were
scattered through the world; one state of life had some of them, another
others. The world was like some fair mirror, broken in pieces, and giving back
no one uniform image of its Maker. But He came to combine what was dissipated,
to recast what was shattered in Himself. He began all excellence, and of His
fulness have all we received. When He came, a Child was born, a Son given, and
yet He was Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the
Prince of Peace. Angels heralded a Saviour, a Christ, a Lord; but withal, He
was "born in Bethlehem," and was "lying in a manger."
Eastern sages brought Him gold, for that He was a King, frankincense as to a
God; but on the other hand myrrh also, in token of a coming death and burial.
At the last, He "bore witness to the truth" before Pilate as a
Prophet, suffered on the cross as our Priest, while He was also "Jesus of Nazareth,
the King of the Jews." {62}
And so His Apostles after Him, and in His
likeness, were kings, yet without the pomp; soldiers, yet with no blood but
their own; teachers, yet withal their own disciples, acting out in their own
persons, and by their own labours, their own precepts.
And so, in after-times, those Saints and
Fathers to whom we look up, have joined these three offices together. Great
doctors they have been, but not mere philosophers or men of letters, but
noble-minded rulers of the churches; nor only so, but preachers, missionaries,
monastic brethren, confessors, and martyrs. This is the glory of the Church, to
speak, to do, and to suffer, with that grace which Christ brought and diffused
abroad. And it has run down even to the skirts of her clothing. Not the few and
the conspicuous alone, but all her children, high and low, who walk worthy of
her and her Divine Lord, will be shadows of Him. All of us are bound, according
to our opportunities,—first to learn the truth; and moreover, we must not only
know, but we must impart our knowledge. Nor only so, but next we must bear
witness to the truth. We must not be afraid of the frowns or anger of the
world, or mind its ridicule. If so be, we must be willing to suffer for the
truth. This was that new thing that Christ brought into the world, a heavenly
doctrine, a system of holy and supernatural truths, which are to be received
and transmitted, for He is our Prophet, maintained even unto suffering after
His pattern, who is our Priest, and obeyed, for He is our King.
Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman
Copyright © 2007 by The National Institute for Newman Studies. All rights reserve
Copyright © 2007 by The National Institute for Newman Studies. All rights reserve
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