It may shock some people to be told that Christ is not an American. Nor was He a Jew merely. He was born of the seed of Abraham of the line of David, and His mother was a Jewess of the tribe of Judah. Still, Christ is vastly more than a Jew. His dearest name for Himself was “the Son of Man.” He came through the Jewish race, but He came to the human race. He is everyman’s countryman and everyman’s contemporary. He is building a kingdom of all nations and tribes and tongues and peoples. He has no favorites, “but in every nation he that fearest him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” Let us remember that the gospel is a divine thing. It receives no virtue from any of man’s religions or philosophies. It came down to us out of heaven, a separate thing, like Peter’s sheet, wholly on its own. It is something given of God. It operates in the individual heart, wherever that heart may be found. Any form of human government, however lofty, deals with the citizen only as long as he lives. At the graveside it bids him adieu. It may have made his journey a little easier, and, if so, all lovers of the human race will thank God for that. But in the cool earth, slaves and free men lie down together. Then what matter the talk and the turmoil? Who was right and who was wrong in this or that political squabble doesn’t matter to the dead. Judgment and sin and heaven and hell are all that matter then. So, let’s keep cool, and let’s think like Christians. Christ will be standing upright, tall and immortal, after the tumult and the shouting dies and the captains and the kings lie stretched side by side, the “cause” that made them famous forgotten and their whole significance reduced to a paragraph in a history book.
Verse
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. John 1:14a
Thought
Christ did not come to a particular people in a particular area of the world. He assumed a certain ethnicity. He took on full humanity. But He came to be the Savior and Lord of every man and woman. He belongs to all peoples who will open their hearts to Him.
Prayer
O Christ, You are praised and worshiped today in hundreds of languages and cultural forms. You are no more my Lord than the Lord of other believers around the world. But You are my Lord and my God.