| Show att ff T 1 X i SERMON BY REV F F EDDY IN THE unitarian CHURCH folk lore concerning jesus 1 similar to that concerning st nicholas cormon preached in K of P hall sunday evening on christ in life mr eddy introduced his theme by saying that he turned away from the mythology with which fond fancy has adorned the nativity to beek the deeper reasons why jesus called the christ looms ao large upon our spiritual horizon to believe the tale of the shepherds or of the three wise men or of the virgin birth Is to retain against the protests of the reason the credulity of childhood there Is no more reason for believing the folk lore clustering around the birth of jesus in the calm judgment of adult years than there is in believing n the stories about good st nicholas to the unitarian the significance of this alfo docs not lie in the wonders with which it Is ushered in or m the my and magical portents surrounding its end upon the cross where then does its significance lie mr eddy found his to this question in a rational interpretation of the incarnation and the transfiguration li this connection he said 1 I believe in the incarnation so do you and I 1 think most of you who are here this morning believe in it as I 1 do we believe an active principle of righteousness expressed in noble ideals of duty in surging tides of the spirit carrying us onward toward service in the pure unselfishness of love and the mystical ties of faith uniting us to an over soul whose face and form are shrouded in the flats of infinity these diviner appeals play upon our humanity we respond to the greater or less degree it Is quite the most wonderful thing in the universe that we humans have this capacity of spiritual understanding fashioned as we are still in the clay of the brute there Is a mystery in the incarnation but it is a universal mystery applying no more to jesus than to one of us the difference between jesus and one of his disciples a peter or a john for instance was immeasurable with the human yard stick all lived on the human plane jesu aa much as the rest but jesus climbed to the spiritual heights of life in him we find righteous incarnate to the supreme degree possible to a man or at least so it seems to us now hence his life has a meaning to us it is the life of one of our own kind hence his gospel has a meaning to us it is the gospel of a man like unto ourselves in the transfiguration we have a mythical account of great spiritual experience of jesus just as we have in the stories of the temptation jesus went up some night 10 abo heights of the calm hillside he went up away from the noise and sordidness of the thronging multitude whose importunities for signs and miracles of healing wearied him he went up to wrestle with the fact that he was not reaching the aeouls of those who flocked to hear him he went up to face the fact that his mission so fsr was a failure bitterly to that young man who so lately bad left hla lowly home and the simple neighbors inspired with visions of a world recalled from its sins and striving cam home the thought that for bis hand no more was possible than the ased scattering upon soil for the most part unfit to bring forth a harvest upon the mount of transfiguration ho touched spirit with the noble aves of the past as typified in moses and ellas who had been seed sowers in day in the morning light he caine to his peter alamea and john who aroused from their slumbers saw upon his face a new exaltation doubtless be tried to tell them then and later the meaning of the soul struggle he experienced and they and the others made out of it the myth we havo in the gospel narratives this myth haa greater meaning to us precisely because it doos refer to a spiritual experience of jesus a deeper meaning than ts possible to the merely fanciful folk lore of the nativity among the germanic tribes from whom we havo borrowed so much relating to our christmas festivities in early pagan days the practice of human sacrifice in its rending form the sacrifice of the first born child seems to have been performed at the time of the winter solstice it seems hard to that the christmas has become so joy ous could have bad a beginning so bloody and pathetic but it is quite true that christmas began thus long before the man christendom calls christ was aborn indeed we know not exactly in what day of the month or even in what yar of time the birthday of jesus Is to te placed one thing Is certain that when christianity spread over the roman corid tho of celebrating the birthday of waft grafted upon the much more ancient ceremonies held for the propitiation of the gods upon the short est day of tho year among these was the blood of the first born so similar to the interpretation placed upon the death of christ according to christian theology the idea in each instance was the placation pla catlon of god the heathen sacrificed his loved child that the gods might not allow the days to shorten and shorten inu dark noaa and cold should claim the earth the christian assumed that in the death of christ god was propitiated so that ho awauld not visit him just judgment it seems to me that the pagan had more genuine religion than the christian we no longer think of placating god with a blood sacrifice A newer meaning Is being given to life even in the expressions of the nominally orthodox the meaning is found in what it incarnated ed right here we who have long fought on the lonely outposts a cordial greeting to those who come tardily enough to our support we say with them yea god requires pt a great soul that before it shall belve forth ita gospel it must incarnate that gospel must give its very life into its possessions it if sacrifice self the world and au t holds is aa nothing in the balance against the compelling gospel this Is joyous and complete it Is less a sacrifice than a self expression yet it must be made by our pro phot or the fire of burns low and his aspirations fiut 1 with clipped wings B ane curious result of this self lm allon this supreme act of incur aion ui on Is that an ideal figure takes the place of the real man the man gives his name to an idea or an ideal which sweeps around the earth and lays generations under its spell his dream or his gospel lives while he himself almost in his own lifetime becomes unreal and shadowy an idealized figure thus tub sacrifice of self 13 mabb complete so the real moses the real Gaut auma the real mohammed the real jesus is exchanged or a figure fashioned or our dreams in the same way and in no less degree are lost the real alexander the real caesar the real napoleon cromwell washington and a host of others who stalked so bravely and with martial tread across the pages of history the work of a great spiritual leader uke jesus Is perhaps best illustrated it parable hie owan favorite method let mo bring you n parable from a book of alerd stories called some chinese ghosts by cadio hearn it Is the tale called the soul of the great bell in brief it la this some five hundred years ago a chinese emperor commanded one of hi high boffl ceals to havo a bell cast that might be heard one hundred 11 and furthermore commanded that the hell should bo strengthened with brass and deepened with gold and sweetened with silver upon its lips were to be engraved the blessed sayings of the sacred books and it was to be suspended in the center of the imperial city of pekin the mandarin kouan yu assembled all the master and boll smiths in the empire and set them at work but the first boll came forth cracked and ugly likewise the second the emperor nf fronted at this failure decreed that if the third attempt resulted no better than kouan yu should be beheaded be headed now this mandarin had a beautiful and pious daughter named ko agal alarmed tor the safety of her father she sold her jewels and with the gold obtained nought a famous astrologer for advice after consulting the heavenly ener agles he told her that the metals never blend in the boll unless a virgin was fused alth them in the fires of the crucible ko agal told no our of her secret abut on the day set for the casting accompanied her father to the foundry there from a raised platform she cast herself into the fiery lake of metal crying as she sprang to death tor thy sake 0 father this bell so runs the taie is the great bell which still marks the hour in the great tower of the ancient and every child kno wa thai it sobs for the name of ko agal round and full followed by a minor note like a sigh so jesus incarnate righteousness affected the fusion of many discordant elements in the religious life of man and today from countless beliefs peals forth his message peace on earth good will to men |
