II. Preparation for the Event


Near events may have remote causes. The river that sweeps by us cannot
be explained without going far back to hidden springs in distant hills.
The huge wave that breaks upon the ocean shore may have had its origin
in a submarine upheaval five thousand miles away.

A wide circle of causes converged towards this birth; all the spokes of
the ancient world ran into this hub. When Abraham started west as an
emigrant out of Babylonia, "not knowing whither he went," he was
unconsciously traveling towards Bethlehem. Jewish history for centuries
headed towards this culmination; this was the matchless blossom that
bloomed out of all that growth from Abraham to Joseph and Mary. Priest
and prophet, tabernacle and temple, gorgeous ritual and streaming altar,
sacrifice and psalm, kingdom and captivity, triumph and tragedy were all
so many roots to this tree. These were the education and discipline of
the chosen people, preparing them as soil out of which the Messiah could
spring. The great ideas of the unity and sovereignty, spirituality and
righteousness of God, the sinfulness of sin and the need of an
atonement were in flaming picture language emblazoned before the people
and burnt into their conscience. Christ could do nothing until these
ideas were rooted in the world.

Pagan achievements, also, "the glory that was Greece and the grandeur
that was Rome," were roots to this same tree of preparation for the
coming of Christ, though they knew it not. Greece with all the glories
of its philosophy and art showed that the world never could be saved by
its own wisdom; and all the laws and legions of Rome were equally
impotent to lift it out of the ditch of sin. Neither a brilliant brain