The low and slavish idea of man’s character and destiny inevitably infects our views of God and of God’s action and purpose in the world. Having poor hope ourselves, we cannot understand God’s hope, the hope which lit the path to Calvary, and shed a flood of glorious light around the saddest and most shameful passage of man’s sad and painful history. To those who believe that man is the serf of the creation, the Incarnation is incredible. God would be ashamed to be called the God, in any high Christian sense, of such beings as some men believe themselves to be and act as if they were. The Hebrew Christians could not believe in the Incarnation; that is, they were beset with unbelief about it. Their fathers could not believe in their angel guide. A glorious triumphant King, coming to the world in splendour, scattering the hosts of His foes by His thunders, and leading His armies to rapid and easy victory, they could comprehend well enough. But the cross was their stumbling-block. Can the living God suffer shame, anguish, and death, for such beings as we are, for such a kingdom as this Crucified One maybe able to win? “_That be far from thee, Lord_;” it is blasphemy to dream of it. They were like a man in poverty and straits, who is always expecting that a splendid fortune will fall to him suddenly, will enable him to make a magnificent figure, and to be a model of dignity, generosity, and manly grace. But the MAN is he who wins his fortune by bearing the strain of toil through long years of patience, and who trains himself by discipline to rule it as a realm when gained. And we are, most of us, of this foolish temper. What wonderful people we should be, we think, if our platform were higher, and a stronger light were thrown upon our lives! If God would but mend our surroundings, our virtue and dignity would appear! Believe that it seemed good to God, that it became God, to reveal to us the truth of this relation between surroundings and life, by sending His Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, to live the life of God in poverty, sorrow, and shame, and manifest in that depth of humiliation the mystery of the life eternal. “_For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.