Harold Bosley - "Found by God" (December 2, 1956); James T. Cleland - Sermon Untitled (December 2, 1956; January 6, 1957)

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-	Sunday morning, December the 9th, 1956.	0:05
	Preacher, the Reverend professor, James T. Cleland,	0:10
	Dean of the chapel.	0:13
	(choir sings)	0:16
	♪ Gloria in excelsis Deo ♪	0:18
	♪ In excelsis Deo ♪	0:23
	♪ Gloria gloria gloria ♪	0:39
	♪ Gloria in excelsis Deo ♪	0:42
	(organist plays)	1:34
	♪ Angels from the realms of glory ♪	1:50
	♪ Wing your flight over all the earth ♪	1:55
	♪ Ye who sang creations story ♪	2:00
	♪ Now proclaim Messiah's birth ♪	2:05
	♪ Come and worship ♪	2:10
	♪ Come and worship ♪	2:12
	♪ Worship Christ the newborn King ♪	2:14
	♪ Shepherds in the fields abiding ♪	2:21
	♪ Watching over your flocks by night ♪	2:26
	♪ God with man is now residing ♪	2:31
	♪ Under shines the infant light ♪	2:36
	♪ Come and worship ♪	2:41
	♪ Come and worship ♪	2:44
	♪ Worship Christ the newborn King ♪	2:47
	♪ Sages, leave your contemplations ♪	2:54
	♪ Brighter visions beam afar ♪	2:59
	♪ Seek the great desire of nations ♪	3:04
	♪ Ye have seen His natal star ♪	3:09
	♪ Come and worship ♪	3:14
	♪ Come and worship ♪	3:17
	♪ Worship Christ the newborn King ♪	3:19
	♪ Saints before the altar bending ♪	3:26
	♪ Watching long in hope and fear ♪	3:31
	♪ Suddenly the Lord descending ♪	3:36
	♪ In His temple shall appear ♪	3:41
	♪ Come and worship ♪	3:46
	♪ Come and worship ♪	3:49
	♪ Worship Christ the newborn King ♪	3:51
	♪ Amen ♪	4:00
-	Let us author unto God our unison prayer of confession.	4:18
	Let us pray.	4:23
	Almighty God, our heavenly father,	4:26
	who didst cause light to shine out of darkness	4:29
	in the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ,	4:33
	to take away the sins of the world.	4:36
	We humbly confess our confessions	4:39
	and implore Thou forgiveness.	4:42
	We are ashamed of that within us	4:45
	which make it neither for good will to others.	4:48
	Nor for growth in goodness in our own lives.	4:51
	We beseech Thee that the Spirit of Christ	4:55
	may be born anew within us,	4:58
	and that we may glorify His nativity	5:01
	with hearts of compassion, deeds of kindly service,	5:04
	and the spirit of goodwill toward all mankind	5:09
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	5:13
	Amen.	5:17
	And now as our Savior Christ has taught us,	5:18
	we all bow to pray our Father who art in heaven,	5:21
	hallowed be Thy name.	5:26
	Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done	5:28
	on earth as it is in heaven.	5:32
	Give us this day our daily bread,	5:35
	and forgive us our trespasses	5:38
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	5:40
	And lead us not into temptation,	5:44
	but deliver us from evil.	5:47
	For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory	5:49
	forever and ever.	5:54
	Amen.	5:55
	(organist plays)	6:02
	(organ gospel music)	6:48
	♪ Lift up your heads ♪	6:53
	♪ Oh ye gates ♪	6:56
	♪ And be ye lift up ♪	6:59
	♪ Ye everlasting doors ♪	7:02
	♪ And the King of Glory shall come in ♪	7:05
	♪ Who is the King of Glory ♪	7:11
	♪ Oh King of Glory ♪	7:18
	♪ Who is the King of Glory ♪	7:21
	♪ Who is the King of Glory ♪	7:24
	♪ The Lord strong and mighty ♪	7:28
	♪ The Lord strong and mighty ♪	7:31
	♪ Lift up your heads ♪	7:38
	♪ Oh ye gates ♪	7:41
	♪ And be ye lift up ♪	7:44
	♪ Ye everlasting doors ♪	7:47
	♪ And the King of Glory shall come in ♪	7:50
	♪ And the King of Glory shall come in ♪	7:56
	♪ Who is the King of Glory ♪	8:03
	♪ Who is the King of Glory ♪	8:06
	♪ Who is the King of Glory ♪	8:09
	♪ The Lord of Hosts ♪	8:13
	♪ The Lord of Hosts ♪	8:19
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	8:26
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	8:29
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	8:32
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	8:36
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	8:39
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	8:42
	♪ The Lord of Hosts ♪	8:43
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	8:45
	♪ Oh Lord of Hosts ♪	9:09
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	9:10
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	9:13
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	9:16
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	9:28
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	9:31
	♪ Our Lord of Hosts ♪	9:36
	♪ Our Lord of Hosts ♪	9:39
	♪ Our Lord of Hosts ♪	9:42
	♪ Our Lord of Hosts ♪	9:46
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	9:49
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	9:52
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	10:02
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	10:05
	♪ The Lord of Hosts ♪	10:09
	♪ The Lord of Hosts ♪	10:12
	♪ The Lord of Hosts ♪	10:16
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	10:19
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	10:30
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	10:35
	♪ He is the King of Glory ♪	10:38
	♪ Of Glory ♪	10:44
	Let us hear the Word of God,	11:19
	as it is contained in the scriptures of the New Testament,	11:22
	in the Gospel according to Saint Luke.	11:27
	Selected versus from the first chapter.	11:31
	"And Mary arose in those days	11:37
	"and went into the hill country with haste,	11:40
	"into a city of Judah.	11:44
	"And entered into the house of Zacharias,	11:47
	"and saluted Elizabeth.	11:51
	"And Mary said, my soul doth magnify the Lord,	11:55
	"and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my savior.	12:01
	"For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden.	12:06
	"For behold, from henceforth all generations	12:11
	"shall call me blessed.	12:16
	"For He that is mighty	12:20
	"hath done to me great things.	12:22
	"And holy is His name.	12:27
	"And His mercy is on them	12:32
	"that fear Him from generation to generation.	12:34
	"He hath showed strength with His arm.	12:40
	"He hath scattered the proud in the imagination	12:44
	"of their hearts.	12:48
	"He hath put down the mighty from their seats,	12:51
	"and exalted them of low degree.	12:56
	"He hath filled the hungry with good things.	13:02
	"And the rich,	13:09
	"He hath sent empty away.	13:13
	"He hath hope in His servant Israel	13:19
	"in remembrance of His mercy.	13:22
	"As He spake to our fathers,	13:25
	"to Abraham and to his seed forever.	13:27
	"And Mary abode with Elizabeth	13:34
	"about three months and then returned	13:37
	to her own house."	13:43
	Amen, may God bless onto us	13:46
	the reading of His holy Word.	13:50
	(organist plays)	13:58
	♪ Joy to the world ♪	14:28
	♪ The Lord is come ♪	14:31
	♪ Let earth receive her King ♪	14:34
	♪ Let every heart ♪	14:40
	♪ Prepare Him room ♪	14:43
	♪ And heaven and nature sing ♪	14:47
	♪ And heaven and nature sing ♪	14:50
	♪ And heaven ♪	14:53
	♪ And heaven and nature sing ♪	14:55
	♪ Joy to the earth ♪	15:02
	♪ The Savior reigns ♪	15:05
	♪ Let men their songs employ ♪	15:09
	♪ While fields and floods ♪	15:14
	♪ Rocks hills and plains ♪	15:18
	♪ Repeat the sounding joy ♪	15:21
	♪ Repeat the sounding joy ♪	15:24
	♪ Repeat repeat the sounding joy ♪	15:28
	♪ No more let sins ♪	15:37
	♪ And sorrows grow ♪	15:40
	♪ Nor thorns infest the ground ♪	15:43
	♪ He comes to make ♪	15:49
	♪ His blessings flow ♪	15:52
	♪ Far as the curse is found ♪	15:56
	♪ Far as the curse is found ♪	15:59
	♪ Far as far as ♪	16:03
	♪ The curse is found ♪	16:06
	♪ He rules the world ♪	16:11
	♪ With truth and grace ♪	16:14
	♪ And makes the nations prove ♪	16:18
	♪ The glories of ♪	16:23
	♪ His righteousness ♪	16:27
	♪ And wonders of His love ♪	16:31
	♪ And wonders of His love ♪	16:34
	♪ And wonders ♪	16:38
	♪ Wonders of His love ♪	16:40
	♪ Amen ♪	16:47
	The Lord be with you and with us.	16:55
	Let us pray.	16:58
	All praise and thanks be unto Thee,	17:08
	almighty God, merciful Father.	17:10
	In all places and at all times.	17:14
	Yet with the yearly remembrance of the advent	17:17
	of Thy Son, our savior,	17:20
	may the mystery of divine condescension	17:23
	fill us with such holy awe,	17:27
	such unearthly joy and peace	17:30
	as may quicken our worship and open wide	17:33
	our hearts unto Thee.	17:38
	As the year draws near to its close,	17:41
	help us, our Father, to recall Thy good Providences to us.	17:44
	For all Thy gifts in days past	17:50
	we praise Thee, oh Lord.	17:53
	For our birth and home training,	17:56
	for loving parents and other dear family ties.	17:58
	For patient teachers and counselors.	18:03
	For all who have profited us by their conversations,	18:07
	writings, and example.	18:11
	For our civil liberties and social privileges.	18:14
	For the benefactions of all institutions,	18:19
	especially now for this university	18:22
	and for Thy church in the world.	18:26
	We give Thee our thanks	18:29
	for all of those means of Thy grace	18:31
	whereby our disappointments and losses	18:34
	have been compensated.	18:37
	The joys of Thy salvation restored,	18:39
	our complacencies shattered,	18:43
	our moral failures overcome.	18:46
	For these blessings, and for all we have received	18:50
	and forgotten, willingly or against our will,	18:54
	we would now be truly thankful.	18:59
	Help us, our Father, to commit our lives more fully	19:03
	unto Thy will.	19:07
	We praise Thee that another day is added to our lives,	19:10
	and that life seems to open before us	19:15
	with even greater privileges and larger responsibilities.	19:17
	Let our days be lived for Thy glory,	19:23
	and for the good of others,	19:27
	as well as for our benefit and growth.	19:29
	Whether in leisure or at work,	19:33
	give us grace to seek Thy presence and guidance.	19:36
	Keep us sensitive to the weaknesses and corruptions	19:41
	of our natures,	19:44
	to the many temptations we daily meet with.	19:46
	That in turning to Thee,	19:50
	we may be restrained from sin and strengthened	19:52
	to do the right thing from the right motives	19:57
	and in the right spirit.	20:00
	In the day of small things,	20:04
	help us to do small things faithfully, cheerfully,	20:06
	and unselfishly with such a grateful sense	20:10
	of Thy never failing goodness	20:13
	as may incline us to seek Thy pleasure.	20:16
	If Thou should summon us to any great labor, go with us,	20:20
	that we may not fail.	20:25
	Defend us, we pray Thee,	20:28
	from all dangers and adversities.	20:30
	Or should we be called to endure them,	20:33
	take us and all who are dear to us under Thy fatherly	20:36
	care and protection until such experiences are passed.	20:40
	These things and whatever else,	20:46
	Thou shalt see to be necessary for us,	20:49
	we humbly beg through the merits and mediation	20:52
	of Jesus Christ.	20:56
	Help us, our Father, to remember in compassion	20:58
	the sufferers in every land this day.	21:03
	Oh God, to whom the cry of the oppressed	21:08
	has gone up in every age,	21:11
	we would remember before Thee	21:14
	the multitude of people who suffer,	21:16
	especially today in Hungary and in the middle east.	21:19
	For all prisoners of war,	21:24
	sufferers for conscience sake.	21:27
	Victims of race, hatred, and national strife,	21:30
	innocent hostages.	21:35
	For all members of families who are separated	21:37
	or on beds of pain,	21:40
	or mourning the loss of their loved ones.	21:43
	Especially the little children and the aged.	21:46
	Companion their solitude, heal their wounds,	21:51
	preserve their sanity.	21:56
	Give fit employment for mind and hand.	21:59
	Soften the hearts of their keepers,	22:03
	give strength and skill to their doctors, nurses,	22:06
	and others who minister in mercy.	22:10
	May the spirit of peace and goodwill at Christmas	22:15
	be for these who suffer a promise	22:19
	and sign of their deliverance.	22:21
	And may the memory of our Lord's blessed passion	22:24
	and resurrection sustain their faith and hope	22:28
	in moments of weariness pain or bereavement.	22:33
	Oh Thou who didst send Thy holy child	22:38
	to be the savior of all peoples,	22:42
	to become the conqueror of evil and death.	22:45
	The Prince of Peace.	22:48
	Help us and all men to learn His way, His truth.	22:51
	And to believe that in the midst of all life,	22:57
	Thou dost continue to work through Him	23:01
	for the reconciliation of the nations.	23:05
	By the power of Thy spirit,	23:09
	enable us now to receive the Christ into our hearts	23:12
	and our homes.	23:16
	That as in His first advent,	23:19
	our Savior may come again,	23:22
	shedding light upon all who walk in darkness	23:25
	and the shadow of death.	23:28
	Bringing joy and peace to all who pay Him homage.	23:30
	Even so, come Lord Jesus.	23:36
	Amen.	23:41
	(organist plays)	23:47
	(organ gospel music)	24:20
	(organ gospel music)	25:11
	(choir sings)	26:10
	(choir sings)	26:35
	(choir sings)	26:45
	(choir sings)	27:16
	(organ gospel music)	28:05
	(organist plays)	28:42
	(upbeat organ music)	28:54
	♪ Praise God from Whom all blessings flow ♪	29:07
	♪ Praise Him all creatures here below ♪	29:14
	♪ Praise Him above ye heavenly host ♪	29:21
	♪ Praise Father Son ♪	29:27
	♪ And Holy Ghost ♪	29:30
	♪ Amen ♪	29:36
	Holy Father, who with every one of Thy gifts to us,	29:45
	Thou dost offer Thyself, the greatest of all gifts.	29:49
	Receive these our offerings as representing	29:54
	the gift of our unworthy lives in the service of Christ.	29:58
	Amen.	30:03
	(soft organ music)	30:09
-	Let us pray.	30:40
	Let the words of my mouth	30:45
	and the meditations of our hearts	30:48
	be acceptable in Thy sight,	30:51
	oh Lord our strength and our redeemer.	30:54
	Amen.	31:00
	There were two facts in constant juxtaposition in my mind	31:08
	as this sermon was written.	31:16
	The first is the world in which we live	31:20
	as citizens of the United States of America	31:24
	in a college community.	31:28
	Political power is ours	31:33
	of unimagined extent and unrealized possibility.	31:37
	An embarrassing fact too often,	31:45
	but nevertheless, a fact to be recognized	31:48
	and taken into account.	31:52
	We are people of political power.	31:56
	Intellectual mastery is ours.	32:03
	But almost taggers the imagination,	32:08
	our heritage as a university from the scholarly succession	32:12
	of learning which cross the Atlantic	32:17
	from the old world to the new,	32:21
	and has been reinterpreted and extended here.	32:25
	It is given to us to ask great questions,	32:30
	even to formulate great answers.	32:34
	We are people of intellectual mastery.	32:39
	And social prestige is ours.	32:46
	Even in a society which is not favorable to everyone.	32:50
	We are the fortunate heirs of a not altogether just system.	32:56
	We expect society to appreciate our social standing.	33:04
	When we say we are college men, college women,	33:11
	we declare it with pride and expect the listener	33:17
	to be duly impressed.	33:22
	We are people of social prestige.	33:26
	Political power, intellectual mastery, social prestige,	33:30
	these are ours as Americans in a college community.	33:36
	That was the first fact.	33:42
	The second fact in juxtaposition to the first	33:46
	is the advent season of the Christian year.	33:51
	Advent is the period in the church year	33:56
	which covers the four Sundays before Christmas day.	33:59
	And is the season of expectancy	34:05
	looking toward December 25th.	34:07
	It marks the opening of the church year,	34:11
	the first half of which seeks to understand	34:15
	and to appreciate the fact that God	34:18
	is speaking to man through revelation.	34:22
	First half of the Christian year is the disclosure	34:28
	of the character and the will of God	34:32
	in the man, Christ Jesus.	34:36
	Now Advent, as part of that revelation,	34:40
	specifically points to the birth of the Christ child	34:43
	in a stable in Bethlehem.	34:48
	As a particular symbol of the revealed	34:52
	goodwill of God toward man,	34:56
	poet and artist, prophet and musician	34:59
	have fastened upon this fact.	35:03
	And even the most skeptical of us	35:08
	are forced once a year	35:11
	to realize the faith that God	35:16
	is uniquely known to man because of a child,	35:20
	born 2000 years ago	35:27
	in the near east.	35:31
	Now the juxtaposition of these two facts.	35:35
	Our status as Americans students in the 20th century,	35:39
	and the birth of a baby in Palestine in the first century	35:46
	should give us pause.	35:52
	Because there's a great gulf fixed between them.	35:55
	And yet the very fact that we have come	36:00
	as a college community to worship this morning	36:05
	proves that we seek to bridge the gulf.	36:10
	That's why we are here.	36:15
	Now, let me try to sketch our situation in the United States	36:18
	in the light of that first Christmas.	36:23
	Let me warn you that the picture about to be drawn,	36:28
	may be overdrawn.	36:32
	Maybe a cartoon.	36:36
	And yet the virtue of a cartoon is that though	36:39
	there may be overemphasis,	36:42
	it's an understandable and appreciated overemphasis.	36:44
	I want to etch on our memories as Christians	36:50
	something that should haunt us	36:53
	through the Christmas season,	36:56
	and I want to do so by asking and answering one question.	36:58
	What was it	37:06
	that God in preparing to reveal	37:09
	His character and will rejected	37:12
	at the first Christmas?	37:19
	What was it that God in preparing to reveal His character	37:22
	and will rejected at the first Christmas?	37:26
	All right, first.	37:31
	God rejected political power.	37:33
	Rome, after a bloody period of civil and imperial war,	37:40
	had imposed its will on almost all	37:46
	the then known world.	37:49
	The Mediterranean sea was a Roman lake.	37:51
	Mare Nostrum, our sea.	37:55
	The Pax Romana was maintained by the legions on the roads,	37:59
	and by the governors in the capitals	38:04
	of the conquered countries.	38:07
	Politically, it was Rome first.	38:10
	The rest, nowhere.	38:13
	The one world, and there was one world,	38:17
	was easier to go from the north of France,	38:21
	to the south of Palestine in the first century	38:24
	than it is today.	38:26
	No visas, no change of currency.	38:29
	There was one world, one good world.	38:33
	As good a world as ever there has been,	38:37
	and a better world than today's, politically.	38:40
	And it was Rome's world.	38:45
	Oh, if you want to taste the flavor of that period,	38:48
	and you should taste it, in fact.	38:51
	You ought to drink it deep.	38:53
	Read John Buchan's "Augustus".	38:55
	Now, John Buchan not only knew Latin,	38:57
	but he was also governor general of Canada,	39:00
	so he knew something about politics.	39:02
	And he wrote a "Augustus",	39:05
	the story of that patrician who set out to become	39:07
	first man in the world at that the age of 19,	39:12
	and made it when he was 33.	39:15
	And read, or dare I say, reread Virgil,	39:18
	who in the near traces the rise of Rome,	39:26
	ascribing its success to the will of God	39:30
	and the virtue of the descendants of Romulus and Remus.	39:32
	Or go back to that strange poem of Virgil's,	39:37
	the fourth eclogue.	39:41
	When he hailed the birth of a Savior,	39:44
	who was to rule the world at peace.	39:48
	And you remember the date of this,	39:52
	around the end of the period BC.	39:55
	Do you remember the lines,	39:59
	"once more the hallowed maid appears.	40:01
	"Once more kind Saturn reigns and from high heaven	40:04
	"descends the first born child of promise.	40:08
	"The age of iron in His time shall cease,	40:12
	"and golden generations fill the world."	40:18
	Unfortunately for the poet prophet,	40:24
	the longed for child turned out to be a girl	40:28
	instead of a boy.	40:32
	He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh.	40:35
	The Lord shall hold them in derision.	40:39
	That text is so desperately true,	40:44
	I've never tried to preach on it.	40:46
	Scares me.	40:48
	But in His preparation for the nativity,	40:51
	God ignored Rome.	40:54
	God rejected political power.	40:58
	He turned to a little state whipped,	41:00
	defeated, almost despairing.	41:04
	To a little state which saw cold	41:07
	with the helplessness of it's luck.	41:10
	That 10 years after the birth of Jesus Christ,	41:13
	it voluntarily surrendered what political power	41:17
	it had left to Rome.	41:21
	And the first governor of Judea was appointed in AD 6.	41:24
	And it was in that state	41:30
	that a carpenter's wife gave birth to a child	41:34
	whom the centuries have acclaimed as the Son of God.	41:38
	That's the first fact to give us pause.	41:42
	That's something for us to remember as a nation.	41:47
	One of the big four, oh no.	41:49
	One of the big three?	41:52
	(indistinct)	41:56
	One of the big two, that's terrible thought.	41:58
	One of the big two,	42:02
	half of the world looking to us for a Pax Americana.	42:04
	We are proud of our destiny.	42:10
	Our local Virgils sing of our divinely guided state.	42:13
	And God may reject us	42:18
	as He rejected Rome.	42:21
	It's unbelievable that He dare to do it.	42:25
	But you know, He might.	42:29
	He might.	42:32
	No wonder that St. Paul,	42:35
	looking back over the disclosure of God's purpose,	42:36
	wrote more than once "for who has known the mind of God,	42:39
	"so as to instruct Him?"	42:45
	Secondly, God rejected intellectual mastery.	42:52
	If God had sought to reveal Himself to the man of intellect,	42:58
	to the people of the mind,	43:02
	He would have chosen Greece.	43:05
	Because old Greece was politically defeated by Rome,	43:08
	the prestige of her thinking fascinated the Romans	43:12
	and made Plato and Aristotle and their	43:17
	intellectual descendants names of honor in the great empire.	43:19
	It's intellectually true as a Latin poet pointed out,	43:25
	that Greece conquered,	43:30
	took her conqueror captive.	43:34
	That Greece conquered, took her conqueror captive.	43:38
	Rome copied Greece, imitated her,	43:43
	modeled her after her thought on Athens.	43:47
	Culturally Rome was dependent on Greece.	43:50
	And the interesting thing is it's just as true	43:54
	at the other end of the Mediterranean.	43:56
	When Philo, that magnificent Jew,	43:59
	decided that the only way he could establish	44:02
	the law of Moses, was to do it in terms of Greek thought.	44:05
	He swung to Greece,	44:09
	and through Greek thought began to establish again Judaism.	44:12
	And when Saint Paul quotes the Old Testament in his letters,	44:17
	he does not quote from the Hebrew.	44:21
	He quotes from the Greek translation	44:25
	of the Old Testament made in Egypt.	44:27
	At the time of the first advent season,	44:33
	Greece was mistress of the mind	44:37
	and God ignored Greece.	44:40
	He turned to a little state,	44:46
	which was both too practical and to picturesque	44:48
	in its thinking to know what to do with abstract thought.	44:52
	Where Greece was wise, Israel was shrewd.	44:56
	Where Greece stressed the head, Israel stressed the will,	45:00
	and to Israel God gave His unique revelation	45:05
	to two people of our lowly and obedient mind.	45:10
	That's the second fact to give us pause.	45:17
	That's something for us to remember as members	45:22
	of a college community, who, some of us anyway,	45:24
	pride ourselves on the intellectual life.	45:28
	Who may be arrogant and overbearing.	45:33
	You know the quip, you can always tell a Harvard man,	45:36
	but you can't tell him much.	45:41
	That goes for Yale and Princeton,	45:45
	and for Amherst and Williams and Wesley.	45:48
	And then it's even true at Wellesley and Vassar.	45:50
	And it's true at Duke, even in the classroom	45:56
	you sometimes can't tell him what's.	45:59
	And God may ignore us as He ignored Greece.	46:07
	For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,	46:13
	"and will bring to nothing the understanding	46:16
	"of the prudent."	46:19
	"Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men."	46:21
	That was Paul's summary of the situation.	46:25
	There's no guarantee that the American colleges	46:29
	and universities will save the world	46:32
	by intellectual mastery.	46:35
	The example of the German universities under Hitler	46:38
	should make us less sure of ourselves.	46:43
	And the place of the student as complacent,	46:51
	compared with the place of the worker in Hungary	46:53
	shouldn't give us a warning also.	46:58
	God may have other plans,	47:02
	"for who hath known the mind of the Lord,	47:04
	"so as to instruct Him?"	47:07
	And then thirdly, God rejected social prestige.	47:14
	In the legend of the wise men,	47:22
	they sought the new revelation in the palace of a king,	47:26
	Herod the Great, in Jerusalem.	47:32
	But it was not there.	47:37
	The Sadducees dominated the cultural life of Jerusalem	47:41
	and controlled the temple.	47:46
	And God passed them by.	47:50
	The Pharisees were the spiritual leaders of the synagogue.	47:54
	They claimed the seats of honor at banquets,	47:59
	and expected generous recognition of their prestige.	48:03
	And God avoided them in His advent plans.	48:09
	He came to the people of the land,	48:16
	the Am ha'aretz.	48:21
	Brethren, I'd like to translate that proletariat,	48:25
	if proletariat weren't such an emotional word.	48:29
	God came to the class represented by tradesmen,	48:35
	fishermen, tailors, and shepherds.	48:39
	Is it any wonder that we find those words	48:44
	in the Magnificat.	48:47
	"He hath put down the mighty from their seats,	48:49
	"and exalted them of low degree.	48:54
	"He hath filled the hungry with good things,	48:57
	"and the rich, He hath sent empty away."	49:02
	That is worse than socialism.	49:07
	We've never sung that in the Duke Chapel, and we're right.	49:11
	At least there's an honesty about not singing it.	49:14
	And where they do sing it, they sing it in Latin.	49:18
	(congregation laughs)	49:22
	But there's a sporting chance that God,	49:24
	being omniscient, knows Latin.	49:27
	And then what does He think of a church that sings that?	49:32
	It obviously doesn't mean it.	49:35
	Do you recall Mary Coleridge's poetic commentary	49:40
	on the Magnificat?	49:43
	"Mother of God,	49:46
	"no lady thou.	49:49
	"Common woman of common earth.	49:53
	"Our lady, ladies call thee now.	49:59
	"But Christ was never of gentle birth.	50:05
	"A common man of common earth.	50:10
	"And still for a man to come she sings,	50:15
	"nor shall her singing pass away.	50:19
	"He has filled the hungry with good things.	50:21
	"Oh listen, lords and ladies gay.	50:24
	"And the rich,	50:28
	"He hath sent empty away."	50:31
	The revelation of God,	50:37
	the son of God came to a carpenter and his wife.	50:40
	He was brought up in a city of so strange a reputation,	50:46
	that one who became a disciple on first hearing	50:52
	of his native city ejaculated,	50:56
	"can any good thing come out of Nazareth?".	50:59
	It's like saying Jersey City.	51:05
	(congregation laughs)	51:07
	I mean brethren, from our point of view,	51:14
	God is all wrong.	51:16
	The awful thing is He has the power and we don't.	51:21
	He moves in a mysterious way.	51:27
	His wonders to perform.	51:31
	That's the third fact to give us pause.	51:34
	Something for us to remember who pride ourselves	51:38
	on the prestige that comes to us as college men and women.	51:41
	Oh, I know that many of us come from the Am ha'aretz.	51:45
	The proletariat.	51:52
	But we hope before we finish to be higher	51:54
	in the social scale.	51:58
	Doctors, lawyers, ministers,	52:00
	professors, politicians, big business executives,	52:04
	or the wives there of.	52:10
	It's good for us as a preferred group to remember	52:17
	that strange Word of God,	52:21
	"for who has known the mind of the Lord,	52:23
	"so as to instruct Him?"	52:27
	Therefore, this advent season brings to us	52:31
	who have political power, intellectual mastery	52:34
	and social prestige, a warning.	52:40
	It is of course a season of joy looking towards Christmas.	52:45
	Therefore the joy of Handel's Messiah this afternoon,	52:51
	and the happy folksiness of the pageant next Sunday night.	52:56
	But thus early in the advent season,	53:03
	let us be reminded that it's also a warning.	53:07
	God does not necessarily work as we expect Him to work.	53:13
	Of course, it's more than a warning.	53:21
	It's an encouragement to consecration.	53:24
	If God could make such use of a few humble folk	53:28
	in tired, defeated, impoverished Palestine,	53:32
	what could He do with us?	53:38
	If we would but consecrate our power,	53:41
	our intelligence, and our prestige to Him.	53:45
	And yet brethren, thus early in the advent season,	53:49
	that is not the emphasis in this sermon.	53:52
	The emphasis is, do not forget the warning.	53:56
	If we do not consecrate ourselves,	54:03
	God can find another way	54:07
	through other people.	54:13
	People not as gifted as we are,	54:16
	because His ways are not necessarily our ways.	54:21
	Just as His thoughts are not necessarily our thoughts.	54:28
	Saint Paul spoke a wise word when he said,	54:36
	"for who has known the mind of the Lord,	54:39
	"so as to instruct Him?"	54:44
	It behooves us	54:51
	to walk through this advent season	54:55
	into Christmas tide with caution.	54:59
	With great caution.	55:06
	Let us pray.	55:13
	All mighty God, who in Thy providence has made	55:22
	all ages a preparation for the kingdom of Thy Son.	55:26
	We beseech Thee so to humble us by the memory	55:33
	of the first Christmas.	55:36
	That in meekness we may make ready our hearts	55:39
	for the brightness of Thy glory	55:44
	and the fullness of Thy blessing in Jesus Christ, our Lord.	55:46
	And may the blessing of the Lord	55:53
	come upon you abundantly.	55:56
	May it keep you strong and tranquil	55:59
	in the truth of His promises,	56:03
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	56:06
	♪ Amen ♪	56:17
	♪ Amen ♪	56:24
	(church bell rings)	56:40

-	Sunday morning, December the 2nd, 1956.	0:06
	Preaching, Dr. Harold A. Bosley,	0:11
	Pastor, First Methodist Church, Evanston, Illinois.	0:14
	♪ Israel ♪	0:19
	♪ That mourns in lonely exile here ♪	0:23
	♪ Until the Son of God appear ♪	0:32
	♪ Rejoice, rejoice ♪	0:41
	♪ Emmanuel ♪	0:48
	♪ Shall come to thee, O Israel ♪	0:54
	♪ O come, thou wisdom from on high ♪	1:05
	♪ And order all things far and nigh ♪	1:14
	♪ To us the path of knowledge show ♪	1:23
	♪ And cause us in her ways to go ♪	1:32
	♪ Rejoice, rejoice ♪	1:42
	♪ Emmanuel ♪	1:48
	♪ Shall come to thee, O Israel ♪	1:54
	♪ O come, desire of nations, bind ♪	2:07
	♪ All peoples in one heart and mind ♪	2:16
	♪ Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease ♪	2:25
	♪ Fill the whole world with heaven's peace ♪	2:34
	♪ Rejoice, rejoice ♪	2:43
	♪ Emmanuel ♪	2:49
	♪ Shall come to thee, O Israel ♪	2:55
	♪ Amen ♪	3:08
-	Let us offer unto God our unison prayer of confession.	3:29
	Let us pray.	3:34
	Almighty God, our heavenly Father,	3:36
	who didst cause light to shine out of darkness	3:40
	in the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ	3:43
	to take away the sins of the world,	3:47
	we humbly confess our transgressions	3:50
	and implore thy forgiveness.	3:53
	We are ashamed of that within us	3:56
	which maketh neither for goodwill to others	3:58
	nor for growth in goodness in our own lives.	4:02
	We beseech thee that the Spirit of Christ	4:06
	may be born in you within us	4:10
	and that we may glorify his nativity	4:12
	with hearts of compassion,	4:15
	deeds of kindly service,	4:18
	and the spirit of goodwill taught all mankind.	4:20
	Through Jesus Christ our Lord.	4:24
	Amen.	4:27
	And now as our Savior Christ hath taught us,	4:29
	we humbly pray.	4:32
	Our Father, who art in heaven,	4:34
	hallowed be thy name.	4:37
	Thy kingdom come.	4:40
	Thy will be done on earth	4:42
	as it is in heaven.	4:44
	Give us this day our daily bread,	4:46
	and forgive us our trespasses	4:49
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	4:51
	And lead us not into temptation,	4:56
	but deliver us from evil.	4:58
	For thine is the kingdom and the power	5:01
	and the glory forever.	5:04
	Amen.	5:07
	(melancholy organ music)	5:10
	♪ In the bleak midwinter ♪	5:47
	♪ Frosty wind made moan ♪	5:56
	♪ Earth stood hard as iron ♪	6:06
	♪ Water like a stone ♪	6:15
	♪ Snow had fallen ♪	6:25
	♪ Snow on snow ♪	6:29
	♪ Snow on snow ♪	6:34
	♪ In the bleak midwinter ♪	6:44
	♪ Long, long ago ♪	6:54
	♪ Our God, heaven cannot hold him ♪	7:06
	♪ Nor Earth sustain ♪	7:16
	♪ Heaven and Earth shall flee away ♪	7:25
	♪ When he comes to reign ♪	7:33
	♪ In the bleak midwinter ♪	7:42
	♪ A stable place sufficed ♪	7:50
	♪ The Lord God Almighty ♪	7:58
	♪ Jesus Christ ♪	8:09
	♪ Angels and archangels ♪	8:20
	♪ May have gathered there ♪	8:30
	♪ Cherubim and seraphim ♪	8:40
	♪ Thronged the air ♪	8:50
	♪ But his mother only ♪	9:00
	♪ In her maiden bliss ♪	9:10
	♪ Worshiped the Beloved ♪	9:21
	♪ With a kiss ♪	9:31
	♪ What can I give him ♪	9:43
	♪ Poor as I am ♪	9:52
	♪ If I were a shepherd ♪	10:01
	♪ I would bring a lamb ♪	10:10
	♪ If I were a wise man ♪	10:19
	♪ I would do my part ♪	10:29
	♪ Yet what I can, I give him ♪	10:37
	♪ Give my heart ♪	10:50
-	"O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me.	11:30
	Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising.	11:34
	Thou understandest my thought afar off.	11:38
	Thou compassest my path and my lying down	11:42
	and art acquainted with all my ways.	11:46
	For there is not a word in my tongue,	11:48
	but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.	11:50
	Thou hast beset me behind and before,	11:55
	laid thine hand upon me.	11:58
	Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.	12:01
	It is high, I cannot attain unto it.	12:03
	Whither shall I go from thy Spirit,	12:07
	or whither shall I flee from thy presence?	12:10
	If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there.	12:14
	If I make my bed in hell,	12:17
	behold, thou art there.	12:19
	If I take the wings of the morning	12:22
	and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,	12:24
	even there shall thy hand lead me,	12:27
	and thy right hand shall hold me.	12:30
	If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me,	12:33
	even the night shall be light about me.	12:37
	Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee,	12:40
	but the night shineth as the day.	12:44
	The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.	12:47
	For thou hast possessed my reins.	12:51
	Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.	12:55
	I will praise thee,	12:58
	for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.	13:00
	Marvelous are thy works,	13:03
	and that my soul knoweth right well.	13:05
	My substance was not hid from thee	13:09
	when I was made in secret	13:12
	and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.	13:15
	Thine eyes did see my substance,	13:19
	yet being unperfect.	13:22
	And in thy book, all my members were written,	13:24
	which in continuance were fashioned,	13:28
	when as yet there was none of them.	13:31
	How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God.	13:35
	How great is the sum of them.	13:39
	If I should count them,	13:41
	they are more in number than the sand.	13:43
	When I awake, I am still with thee.	13:46
	Search me, O God, and know my heart.	13:49
	Try me, and know my thoughts.	13:52
	And see if there be any wicked way in me,	13:55
	and lead me in the way everlasting."	13:58
	Here endeth the reading from his Holy Word.	14:01
	May his blessing rest upon it.	14:04
	(regal organ music)	14:10
	♪ Hail to the Lord's anointed ♪	14:52
	♪ Great David's greater Son ♪	14:58
	♪ Hail in the time appointed ♪	15:03
	♪ His reign on Earth begun ♪	15:09
	♪ He comes to break oppression ♪	15:14
	♪ To set the captive free ♪	15:20
	♪ To take away transgression ♪	15:25
	♪ And rule in equity ♪	15:31
	♪ He comes in succor speedy ♪	15:37
	♪ To those who suffer wrong ♪	15:43
	♪ To help the poor and needy ♪	15:48
	♪ And bid the weak be strong ♪	15:54
	♪ To give them songs for sighing ♪	15:59
	♪ Their darkness turn to light ♪	16:04
	♪ Whose souls condemned and dying ♪	16:10
	♪ Are precious in his sight ♪	16:15
	♪ He shall come down like showers ♪	16:23
	♪ Upon the fruitful Earth ♪	16:28
	♪ Love, joy, and hope like flowers ♪	16:34
	♪ Spring in his path to birth ♪	16:39
	♪ Before him on the mountains ♪	16:45
	♪ Shall peace the herald go ♪	16:51
	♪ And righteousness in fountains ♪	16:56
	♪ From hill to valley flow ♪	17:02
	♪ To him shall prayer unceasing ♪	17:09
	♪ And daily vows ascend ♪	17:15
	♪ His kingdom still increasing ♪	17:20
	♪ A kingdom without end ♪	17:26
	♪ The tide of time shall never ♪	17:32
	♪ His covenant remove ♪	17:37
	♪ His name shall stand forever ♪	17:43
	♪ The name to us is love ♪	17:49
	♪ Amen ♪	17:56
-	The Lord be with you.	18:04
-	And with thy spirit.	18:06
-	Let us pray.	18:08
	All merciful God,	18:19
	who didst come in Jesus Christ	18:22
	with saving power	18:25
	to a world that walked in darkness	18:27
	and in the shadow of death,	18:30
	we praise and bless thee	18:33
	for all those thy servants	18:36
	who helped prepare the way for his appearing	18:39
	and for those who received him	18:43
	and gave to him the homage of their hearts and lives,	18:47
	for prophets,	18:53
	who in the face of tyranny	18:55
	declared thy truth and thy righteousness,	18:57
	for psalmists,	19:02
	who in days of gloom	19:04
	still believed in thy great goodness	19:06
	and sang praises unto thy name,	19:09
	and for innumerable simple folk	19:13
	who waited in patience and unfailing hope	19:17
	for the manifestation of thy glory.	19:21
	We raise to thee our grateful praise.	19:25
	God of truth and love,	19:30
	we acknowledge before thee	19:33
	our deep need of a new birth	19:36
	of Christ's Spirit in our midst.	19:39
	We confess our own share in the selfishness	19:43
	which rules our human life,	19:48
	in the prejudices and suspicions which divide men,	19:51
	in the love of unworthy things which cheapens life,	19:57
	in the timidity which holds back good causes,	20:03
	and in the indifference which suffers evil to go unchecked.	20:08
	We confess our broken vows of loyalty to Christ,	20:15
	our obedience to the powers of evil, which he hates,	20:21
	our want of faith in the way of love along which he leads.	20:26
	By thy mighty power,	20:32
	free us from our sins.	20:34
	By thy providence,	20:38
	guide us toward paths of usefulness	20:41
	and lead us in thy way.	20:44
	By the quickening of thy Spirit,	20:47
	lift our thoughts towards things true and lovely	20:50
	and of good report,	20:55
	and grant us visions	20:57
	of thy kingdom of goodwill upon the Earth.	20:58
	And by the gracious face of Jesus,	21:02
	teach us the beauty of holiness,	21:06
	and satisfy us	21:09
	with the life which is life indeed.	21:11
	We pray in the name of thy Son, the Babe of Bethlehem,	21:16
	who did stand our earthly life to save us from ourselves	21:21
	and to lead us to thee.	21:26
	Amen.	21:29
	(solemn organ music)	21:33
	♪ Teach me, O Lord ♪	24:07
	♪ The way of thy statutes ♪	24:11
	♪ Teach me ♪	24:17
	♪ Teach me ♪
	♪ Teach me ♪	24:20
	♪ Teach me ♪
	♪ The way ♪	24:23
	♪ The way of thy statutes ♪	24:25
	♪ And I shall keep it ♪	24:29
	♪ And I shall keep it ♪	24:36
	♪ Unto the end ♪	24:43
	♪ And I shall keep it ♪	24:49
	♪ And I shall keep it ♪	24:55
	♪ And I shall keep it ♪	25:01
	♪ Unto the end ♪	25:07
	♪ And I shall keep it ♪	25:15
	♪ Unto the end ♪	25:21
	♪ Teach me, O Lord ♪	25:31
	♪ Teach me, O Lord ♪	25:34
	♪ Teach me, O Lord ♪	25:37
	♪ The way of thy statutes ♪	25:41
	♪ And I shall keep it ♪	25:47
	♪ And I shall keep it ♪	25:52
	♪ And I shall keep it ♪	25:58
	♪ Unto the end ♪	26:04
	♪ And I shall keep it ♪	26:11
	♪ Unto the end ♪	26:17
	♪ Unto the end ♪	26:28
	(solemn organ music)	26:42
	(majestic organ music)	27:22
	♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪	27:47
	♪ Praise him, all creatures here below ♪	27:53
	♪ Praise him above, ye heavenly host ♪	28:00
	♪ Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ♪	28:06
	♪ Amen ♪	28:15
-	O God of whose bounty we have all received,	28:25
	accept this offering of thy people,	28:31
	and so follow it with thy blessing	28:34
	that it may promote peace and goodwill among men	28:37
	and advance the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.	28:42
	Amen.	28:48
	(solemn organ music)	28:50
-	I cannot honestly say that it renews one's youth	29:27
	to revisit a campus where one has been	29:31
	for a period of time,	29:36
	but I can say with all candor	29:38
	that it arrests the speed with which it slips away	29:41
	to watch the championship fight	29:45
	with the freshmen in their lounge	29:48
	at a television set that works only intermittently.	29:52
	You're never quite the same after that experience.	29:56
	I'm glad to have a chance to be here	30:00
	to talk with you about a phenomenon	30:03
	that is attracting a great deal of attention these days	30:06
	and to raise some serious questions about it.	30:09
	The phenomenon being the fabled return to religion.	30:12
	This has been more widely publicized	30:18
	than carefully examined.	30:20
	I know there is a definite upsurge of interest	30:23
	in religious books, articles, and events.	30:26
	I'm certain there is a marked upswing	30:29
	in the proportion of church membership	30:31
	relative to total population.	30:33
	This is all to the good,	30:36
	providing it is coupled with a new seriousness	30:39
	about the things that are fundamental in religion.	30:43
	We must do much better	30:47
	than the sophisticated version	30:49
	of hellfire and damnation theology of Billy Graham.	30:51
	We must do much better	30:56
	than the positive thinking panaceas of Norman Vincent Peale	30:57
	if the upswing of interest in religion is to result	31:02
	in a greater measure of religious power	31:06
	in individual and collective life and witness.	31:09
	And that's the big if,	31:12
	since, by and large, the massive evidence at hand to date	31:14
	indicates that we are witnessing	31:19
	a wind ripple on the surface,	31:21
	rather than a deep tidal swell in human affairs.	31:24
	It's something like the fabled Pecos River,	31:28
	a mile wide and a foot deep.	31:32
	Now, no one hopes more than I	31:36
	that a vastly different kind of witness may soon be coming,	31:39
	evidence that this new interest is willing to come to grips	31:44
	with the fundamentals of our faith.	31:49
	Let us in the time we have at our disposal this morning	31:52
	confront as squarely as we can one such fundamental,	31:57
	the experience of the power of God,	32:04
	the claim of God on our life.	32:08
	And as we look at that,	32:14
	we will want to carry on the margins of our mind	32:16
	Emerson's warning,	32:19
	"What is so odious as polite bows to God?"	32:21
	Elton Trueblood has called this fundamental	32:26
	the primary datum of religion.	32:30
	He has stated it this way in general terms.	32:33
	"Millions of men and women	32:36
	throughout several thousand years,	32:38
	representing various races and nations	32:40
	and including all levels	32:44
	of educational or cultural opportunity,	32:45
	have reported an experience of God	32:49
	as the spiritual companion of their souls.	32:51
	In prayer and worship,	32:55
	whether at stated times or in the midst of everyday duties,	32:58
	they have been acutely conscious of another	33:02
	who has sustained them in life's darkest	33:06
	as well as life's brightest moments."	33:10
	Now this will do as a general description	33:14
	of this almost universal fact,	33:16
	but every religious tradition has its own peculiar way	33:19
	of describing it in more detailed terms.	33:23
	Most of us here have been brought up	33:27
	in the Hebrew-Christian heritage,	33:29
	which means that we have been confronted with a book,	33:33
	a strange book,	33:38
	yet a familiar one,	33:40
	the Bible.	33:42
	And as we become acquainted with this book,	33:43
	which is the central book in our heritage,	33:46
	we discover that one word overtops all others.	33:49
	That word is God.	33:54
	All that lies between the opening lines of Genesis,	33:56
	"In the beginning, God created,"	34:00
	and the closing words of the book of Revelation,	34:03
	"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,"	34:06
	I say, all that stretches between those two words	34:10
	is little more than a dropping of explanatory footnotes	34:15
	to the meaning of God and his will for our life.	34:20
	The Bible that stands like the strayed ghost	34:26
	of an earlier age of belief	34:29
	on the shelves of all too many of our libraries	34:32
	exalts God as no other book does.	34:35
	Yet as we look at it,	34:40
	we do not discover some one idea of God.	34:41
	There are many ideas of God presented in this book,	34:45
	which is struck up and out of the experience	34:49
	of thousands of years.	34:52
	But the faith in God is there and it is constant.	34:55
	Faith in God is unbroken, firm, powerful	35:00
	from beginning to end.	35:04
	The ideas of God are many,	35:06
	and they vary as you would expect	35:09
	with the changing experiences	35:12
	of the most spiritually alert people we've any record of.	35:14
	When the Hebrews come over the horizon of history	35:20
	clad in the trappings of barbarism,	35:23
	they had an idea of God	35:27
	that is about as limited an idea as you'll ever find,	35:29
	a tribal war god living in awful aloneness on a mountain.	35:34
	But under the prodding and the pummeling	35:40
	of their experience,	35:42
	they did not long keep to this single idea.	35:43
	Their faith continued unbroken,	35:46
	but their idea changed with their experience,	35:49
	grew greater, nobler, more inclusive,	35:51
	until finally in the New Testament,	35:56
	we have the richest of all conceptions of God.	36:00
	"God so loved the world	36:04
	that he gave his only begotten Son	36:06
	that whosoever believeth in him should not perish	36:09
	but have everlasting life."	36:12
	The ideas have gone a long way	36:16
	from that first one, haven't they?	36:18
	They should have gone a long way.	36:22
	Nearly 2,000 years of human experience	36:25
	have been the anvil on which these ideas	36:29
	have been hammered out.	36:31
	We find ourselves face to face with the simple fact	36:34
	that the biblical idea of God grew up,	36:37
	ethically speaking, in this long range of experience.	36:40
	Grew up from an idea of a God of wrath and vengeance	36:45
	to one of love and forgiveness.	36:49
	From one who dwelt alone on a mountain	36:52
	to one in whom all men live and move and have their being.	36:54
	Yet these ideas join together	37:00
	in one unbroken faith in God.	37:03
	But the God we meet in the Bible is not	37:07
	is not a word to be banded about, an idea to be discussed,	37:10
	as so many of us take it.	37:15
	God is one to be obeyed.	37:18
	As simple	37:23
	and as terrifying as that.	37:26
	The Bible resounds with the deeds of God.	37:30
	It begins with God the creator	37:34
	and ends with God the re-creator.	37:36
	It begins with the creation of the world	37:39
	and ends with the redemption of the world	37:41
	in the new Jerusalem,	37:44
	where God will wipe away all tears.	37:45
	And in between the recital	37:49
	of these mighty acts of creation and redemption,	37:51
	the Bible dwells on the themes of God's search for man	37:55
	and man's response to that search.	38:00
	A few sensitive religious spirits	38:06
	had some notion of what was up.	38:09
	They are the spiritual landmarks in our heritage.	38:12
	But by and large,	38:16
	mankind continued, or so they thought,	38:18
	to elude the hound of heaven.	38:20
	One thing is clear as we look at this whole heritage.	38:25
	This Bible that we cherish is a book about God,	38:30
	a book that takes God seriously,	38:34
	a book that stands or falls	38:37
	with faith in the God whom it exalts.	38:39
	It is great literature,	38:43
	but it will not survive the generation	38:44
	if it's just great literature.	38:47
	It is the only reliable book of history we have	38:51
	about the lifestream of a great people,	38:55
	but as that, it will not last very long,	38:58
	unless we see in it something that transcends	39:01
	the experience of that people,	39:04
	It is a great pity when people confuse some one idea of God	39:07
	as we find it in the Bible	39:12
	with this faith in God.	39:14
	The faith is fundamental.	39:17
	The ideas will differ.	39:20
	But it's a book about God.	39:23
	And the New Testament, of course,	39:28
	never once falters in this faith in God.	39:29
	It reinterprets it in the person of Jesus Christ,	39:32
	whose advent we are beginning to celebrate	39:35
	in the liturgies of the churches these days.	39:38
	In him, we say we have a full revelation	39:41
	of what God is trying to do.	39:44
	In his life and teachings,	39:47
	we find out something new about God.	39:49
	He is a God of love.	39:53
	Justice, yes, forgiveness, yes,	39:55
	but in addition,	39:57
	love that becomes his name.	39:59
	He seeks us as the good shepherd seeks the lost sheep.	40:03
	He yearns for us as a father yearns	40:07
	for the return of the prodigal.	40:09
	Nowhere do we find this more powerfully portrayed	40:12
	than in Paul's word.	40:15
	"For God was in Christ,	40:17
	reconciling the world unto himself	40:18
	and hath committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation."	40:21
	Always God the doer, God who's searching man out,	40:25
	God who's finding man,	40:29
	running him to earth, if you please,	40:32
	and discovering man to himself	40:36
	for what he is.	40:40
	Now, unfortunately, this record,	40:42
	and it is a long and rich record,	40:44
	comes to us in terms of experiences	40:48
	that seem to have little relevance	40:51
	to the day in which we live,	40:53
	embalmed upon occasion in vocabularies	40:56
	that seem utterly strange to us.	40:59
	Yet the experiences and the vocabularies must be translated.	41:03
	We ought at least to have the ingenuity of a 10-year-old boy	41:09
	who came home from Sunday School one day	41:13
	and was asked by his mother what the lesson was about.	41:17
	He said, "Well, it was about the way	41:22
	the children of Israel got away from the Egyptians."	41:24
	He was willing to let it go at that, but his mother was not.	41:27
	As mothers will, she pried further,	41:30
	wanted to know what all he had learned.	41:33
	He said, "Well, mom, it was like this."	41:37
	He said, "The children of Israel were about to get away	41:38
	when Pharaoh spied them,	41:43
	and he sent his panzer divisions out after them.	41:46
	And they were closing in on them	41:49
	when Moses saw that he wasn't gonna make it.	41:51
	So he got his walkie-talkie.	41:54
	He called for the bombers,	41:56
	and they came in and made mincemeat of the panzers,	41:57
	and they got away."	42:00
	The mother was startled,	42:01
	and she said, "Is that what the teacher told you?"	42:02
	He hesitated, he said,	42:06
	"No, that wasn't quite the way she put it.	42:06
	But mom," he said, "if I gave it to you	42:08
	the way she gave it to us, you'd never believe it."	42:10
	(congregation laughing)	42:12
	Time and time again, we find ourselves stopped	42:19
	by a vocabulary that's strange to us,	42:22
	confused by an incident,	42:26
	the relevance of which we find it difficult	42:27
	to relate to the day in which we live.	42:30
	And it is the part of steadfast and unfaltering maturity	42:33
	to settle down to the task of translation	42:38
	until a basic idea has been placed	42:42
	in manageable, understandable terms,	42:44
	the terms of the day in which we must live.	42:48
	A moment ago, I read to you	42:52
	what Trueblood said was the primary datum of religion.	42:55
	Not let me translate that, if I may,	42:58
	into what is the primary datum of the Christian religion.	43:00
	Millions of men and women over nearly 2,000 years,	43:05
	representing various races and nations	43:08
	and including all levels	43:11
	of educational or cultural opportunity,	43:12
	have reported an experience	43:15
	of the love of God in Jesus Christ,	43:17
	which broke their enslavement to the power of sin and death	43:20
	and gave them new life.	43:23
	And no one knows better than I	43:27
	how guilty we in churches have been	43:28
	of letting our yammering over sectarian differences	43:30
	drown out our united and steady witness to this great fact.	43:34
	Such unity as we have in our separate churches,	43:39
	and it is more than we are willing to admit usually,	43:42
	grows out of the unity we find in him.	43:45
	The summer of 1954,	43:49
	the second assembly of the World Council of Churches	43:51
	met in Evanston,	43:53
	and the services of worship for that assembly	43:55
	were held in our church.	43:57
	And there before the altar	44:00
	high above which looms the figure of the risen Lord,	44:01
	I heard the Christian benediction	44:05
	pronounced in seven different languages	44:07
	by men from as many different traditions.	44:10
	But under him, those differences fell into perspective,	44:14
	and his spirit made us one.	44:17
	We had a feeling that he had overtaken us,	44:21
	had run our sectarian rivalries and differences to earth,	44:25
	had brought us face to face with God,	44:29
	the God of all in the presence of whose holiness,	44:32
	none dared to lift his eyes,	44:35
	let alone protest his righteousness.	44:39
	Now this experience of being found by God,	44:43
	run to earth by him, overcome by his power,	44:45
	forced to give an account of yourself in his presence	44:49
	isn't confined to clergymen alone,	44:51
	though let us hope it will continue to be found there.	44:54
	Francis Thompson in his "Hound of Heaven"	44:59
	made it plain to an earlier generation	45:01
	that the God in whom we believe is a power,	45:04
	an inescapable fact and factor	45:08
	that you must reckon with sooner or later.	45:10
	He will speak and you must answer.	45:13
	He will make a claim and you must say yes or no.	45:16
	And there's no escaping the responsibility of response.	45:20
	The poets alone haven't said it.	45:25
	Henri Bergson, who will rank as one of the great thinkers	45:29
	of the modern world,	45:32
	reported a very striking experience	45:34
	in somewhat similar language.	45:36
	During the latter years of his life,	45:39
	he became a member of a church	45:41
	and spent more and more of his time on religious matters.	45:43
	Asked by a friend, "How did you find God?"	45:47
	Bergson thought a moment and then said in a troubled voice,	45:50
	"Perhaps it was how God found me."	45:54
	Bergson centered his study upon the church, the mystics,	45:58
	history, the Sermon on the Mount,	46:01
	always asking, what does this mean to me?	46:03
	And then suddenly	46:06
	God confronted him,	46:09
	and he responded.	46:11
	Easily the most searching and detailed description	46:14
	of this sort of experience	46:16
	is contained in C. S. Lewis' last book	46:18
	that many of you, I'm sure, have read or read about,	46:21
	"Surprised by Joy."	46:24
	This is an autobiographical record	46:28
	of the author's pilgrimage to faith.	46:30
	He said it so beautifully in his own words	46:33
	that I'd like to let him tell the story.	46:36
	"I'd always wanted above all things	46:39
	not to be interfered with," he said.	46:41
	"I had wanted to call my soul my own.	46:44
	I had been far more anxious to avoid suffering	46:47
	than to achieve delight.	46:50
	I had always aimed at limited liabilities	46:52
	in this business of living.	46:56
	You must picture me alone in that room	46:58
	at the university night after night,	47:01
	feeling whenever my mind lifted	47:04
	even for a second from my work	47:06
	the steady unrelenting approach of him	47:08
	whom I most earnestly desired not to meet.	47:11
	That which I greatly feared at last came upon me.	47:16
	And in the Trinity term of 1929, I gave in	47:21
	and admitted that God was God and knelt and prayed,	47:25
	perhaps that night the most dejected	47:29
	and reluctant convert in all England.	47:31
	I did not then see	47:34
	what is now the most shining and obvious thing,	47:35
	the divine humility which will accept a convert	47:39
	on such terms.	47:42
	The prodigal son at least walked home on his own feet,	47:44
	but who can duly adore that love	47:48
	which will open the high gates to a prodigal	47:50
	who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful,	47:53
	and darting his eyes in every direction	47:56
	for a chance to escape?	47:58
	The word compel him to come in	48:01
	has been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them,	48:03
	but properly understood,	48:06
	it plumbs the depths of the divine mercy.	48:07
	The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men,	48:11
	and his compulsion is our liberation."	48:17
	For the benefit of all of us	48:21
	who have not known that experience	48:23
	or at least with that intensity,	48:24
	he says he discovered four things	48:27
	when God had run him to earth	48:29
	and forced him to face himself and God.	48:32
	He discovered that God must be obeyed	48:36
	simply because he's God.	48:38
	And he discovered, "For the first time," he said,	48:43
	"I examined myself with a serious practical purpose,	48:47
	and there I found what appalled me,	48:51
	a zoo of lusts,	48:54
	a bedlam of ambitions,	48:56
	a nursery of fears,	48:58
	a harem of fondled hatreds.	49:00
	My name was legion."	49:03
	He discovered that total surrender,	49:06
	the absolute leap in the dark	49:10
	were demanded.	49:13
	The demand was not all or nothing; it was all.	49:17
	And then, to repeat, he discovered	49:22
	that the hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men,	49:23
	and his compulsion is our liberation.	49:28
	Now it adds up to this,	49:31
	and I confess I am as reluctant to face it	49:33
	as you could possibly be.	49:35
	Only one who is willing to be found by God	49:38
	can hope to find God.	49:42
	What we,	49:44
	in either our carelessness or our conceit,	49:46
	speak of as the discovery of God	49:51
	is in reality the discovery of us by God.	49:54
	From the psalmist's experience to that of C. S. Lewis,	50:00
	there is an unbroken chain of witnesses to this fact.	50:04
	Our relationship with God is an encounter,	50:09
	a desperate ultimate encounter.	50:13
	It is a meeting,	50:18
	a clash,	50:20
	and sometimes a communion of mind and spirit and life	50:21
	of beings who are both identifiably different,	50:26
	yet inseparably related.	50:29
	When God finds us,	50:32
	it is as the prophets of old saw day of judgment,	50:34
	an experience of being weighed in the balances	50:38
	and found wanting.	50:41
	In his presence, we have not the right to parade	50:43
	even such virtues	50:46
	as we may think we have.	50:48
	And you never feel your need more than when he finds you.	50:51
	Just a year ago, I was in Japan.	50:59
	And when I went there	51:03
	to speak at the seminaries and the schools,	51:04
	I confess I hoped they would not send me	51:06
	to Hiroshima or Nagasaki.	51:09
	I thought the Americans had been there	51:12
	one too many times already.	51:13
	But my schedule was in their hands,	51:16
	and when I got to Tokyo,	51:18
	I discovered I was to be in Hiroshima for three days.	51:19
	I didn't want to go, but I had to go,	51:27
	and when I got there, I never felt my need,	51:29
	and I never felt the need of this land that I love	51:31
	more desperately than when I stood among a people	51:35
	where we thought we had demonstrated	51:38
	our power and our ability.	51:40
	I did not see or feel their need.	51:44
	I felt our own need.	51:47
	For the judgment of the Most High God had been spoken	51:51
	on us all.	51:56
	We had been weighed in the balances,	51:59
	and we had been found wanting.	52:01
	And if there is a more poignant parable	52:04
	of the world in which we live than that,	52:07
	I have not encountered it in my experience.	52:11
	When God finds us, it is a day of judgment.	52:16
	But more, it is a kind of resurrection morn,	52:19
	a stepping forth with new life, new purpose, new power.	52:24
	The old is passed away and all has become new.	52:28
	And a new man will never be satisfied	52:32
	with the old life of the old world,	52:35
	and he will give himself to the Most High God	52:38
	as the instrument through whom he can work.	52:43
	I keep coming back, as much for myself as for anyone else,	52:46
	to the simple, puzzling, inescapable fact	52:50
	that if I'm going to take religion seriously,	52:55
	I have to look at this.	52:57
	Only the man who is willing to be found by God	53:00
	can hope to find God.	53:03
	Willing to be found by God, aye, there's the rub.	53:06
	But willing means just what it says,	53:10
	that we are alert to the deep movements of reality	53:12
	in our own life and time.	53:15
	That we are not content to live on the surface of things.	53:18
	To enjoy this day and that	53:22
	and to amuse ourselves here, there, and yonder,	53:24
	but that we will take seriously	53:27
	the full moral responsibility	53:29
	of every opportunity in every relationship we have	53:31
	and discharge them as a trust from Almighty God.	53:34
	This goes beyond simple open-mindedness to fact,	53:39
	important as that is.	53:42
	It calls for openness of life and spirit	53:44
	to the power and the love of God.	53:48
	I give it to you for what men have found it,	53:50
	to be the most important experience in life,	53:52
	one that's guaranteed to be	53:56
	the point on which all life divides,	53:58
	this experience of being found by God	54:01
	and being willing to serve him.	54:04
	Gamaliel Bradford, surveying the lost faith of his boyhood,	54:08
	burst out in the despairing cry,	54:13
	"The whole world crumbles without God."	54:16
	That, of course, is true.	54:20
	But we must not let it blind us	54:22
	to an even more important truth.	54:24
	The whole world crumbles with God.	54:28
	Life as it is,	54:32
	the world as it is	54:35
	come under judgment.	54:37
	None enter into that presence	54:41
	with clean hands and a pure heart.	54:42
	It's always and only, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.	54:47
	This means a new life,	54:53
	a new way of thinking, a new way of praying,	54:55
	a new way of planning, a new way of acting.	54:57
	And when people say there's a return to religion,	55:02
	I can only say,	55:07
	praise God that it will be so.	55:10
	But it cuts to the very heart of life	55:16
	if you return to the heart of religion.	55:18
	For that means not a new vocabulary.	55:23
	It means a new life.	55:29
	It means being found by God and being willing to serve him	55:32
	all your days.	55:38
	That's not so much a return,	55:41
	as a renaissance,	55:44
	a new beginning,	55:46
	a new life.	55:49
	Shall we pray?	55:52
	O thou who has blessed us in Jesus Christ	55:59
	with one who will never let us rest	56:02
	and never take the easy way,	56:06
	may thy blessing rest upon us as we are here assembled.	56:10
	Touch us with the divine hand of thy power and thy love.	56:15
	Awaken us to ourselves.	56:18
	And in that awakening,	56:22
	may we discover thee	56:24
	as the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of life,	56:27
	and in that life-transcending discovery,	56:32
	discover new life	56:35
	and be willing to live it.	56:37
	Enfold us now with thy blessing and thy benediction.	56:40
	May the peace that passeth all understanding	56:43
	and the love that will not let us go	56:46
	enter into our lives and make them radiant.	56:49
	For Christ's sake.	56:53
	Amen.	56:55
	♪ Amen ♪	57:02
	♪ Amen ♪	57:09
	(bell tolling)	57:22

Item Info

Title:

Harold Bosley - "Found by God" (December 2, 1956); James T. Cleland - Sermon Untitled (December 2, 1956; January 6, 1957)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4wd3v290

Date:

December 2, 1956
January 6, 1957

Speaker:

Bosley, Harold A.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0029
ref5279_71b
uachapelsermaud
duke:628315
dcrau002080
ark:/87924/r4wd3v290
bcfddce9-0c3e-48ae-ad7b-ec5dea1e90f7

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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