The worlds again swing into position, as they have done throughout the eons, and our earthly home is once more at the point in the ever ascending spiral when the Winter Solstice is at hand, the nearest approach of the earth to the sun; another moment in eternity when the joyful ray of spiritual Light radiates throughout all creation, and all men of good will are more closely knit within common bounds.
The cosmic event, eternal in its recurrence, Christmas being its modern appellation, did not receive recognition only in the yesterday of two thousand and fourteen years bygone. It has always been, and it will always be the period of rejoicing at the birth of New Light.
The “Holy Night” did not emerge for one night only, but, like the Principle of Masonry, it has been and is eternal. It is the benediction of Christian, Jew or Moslem, and not the private blessing of but a few. To be sure, civilizations as they have flourished and vanished have marked the event with distinctive labels; we may note the Hindus with their Krishna, the philosophies of the Druids, misnamed pagans, and the teachings of the ancient Egyptians.
The period known as Christmas, under the very law of the Cosmos that governs, brings out within men the wish to give, to bestow happiness upon their fellow beings. Insensitive indeed is he who responds not to the influx and radiation of the Light Divine and refuse to light the candles upon the altar of his being.
As the Mighty Hand slowly and majestically turns the pages of the record of effort and progress, there appears the bright moment when humanity needs and merits an Avatar, a Teacher, a Way-Shower to point out, to those who can see and hear, the radiant pathway toward spiritual unfoldment and social achievement. A great soul, our Jesu Rabboni, graciously obliged at what we know as the opening of the Christian era, and what could be more fitting than that the Spirit Of the Presence amongst us should become embodied at that period when all Nature was in harmony to receive him.
So it has ever been. When human kind became crystalized in materialism and selfishness to the extreme danger of destruction, a Leader has been vouchsafed, a giant in strength, but who in tolerance and compassion has called to those who would listen, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
No civilization worthy of the name has ever been denied its Messiah, when, either through unfoldment or the trials of vicissitude, it was ready to receive Him. It is true that recalcitrant minorities may have accomplished His bodily removal, but His philosophies and His acts have in every case been incorporated into the souls of those who really count, in earthly maneuverings that endure.
Though earth may now be in torment, and hate active for an instant in the affairs of men, yet the cosmic sounding board is once again vibrant with the never-ending song of rejoicing; and while little men strut the earth in futility, the “Light of the World” is again renewed, even on the darkest night of the year, to bring creation to new fruitage and abundant harvest as the seasons wax and wane.
May the Christmas bells and the altar lights, in their unity of light and sound, bring all mankind, especially those of Masonic persuasion, into a renewal of the unity divine, and unfold within us the transcendent qualifications so essential to our being of the “Great White Lodge of Just Man Made Perfect.” In the name of I.N.R.I. we pray.
Glenn E. Chandler, Snr
M.I. Grand Master
Source: The Philalethes Magazine~December 1947