Reflections on The Saviour of the World Volume 1

We recently spent the season of Christmas celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. But the Gospel of John opens with a prologue that reminds us that the Son of God did not come into existence at his incarnation. Rather, He was in existence before the beginning of time. Today we begin a new journey through Charlotte Mason’s seven volumes of poems entitled “The Saviour of the World.” In the opening poem of her series, she praises the One who was with God from all time: the Word who enlightens “every man who comes into the world.” May your heart be enlightened as you praise Him too. Read or hear it here.

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📷: @aolander

In 1943, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was held captive in Tegel military prison. On November 21 he wrote a letter to his student Eberhard Bethge. “Today is Remembrance Sunday. … Then comes Advent, a time during which we share so many beautiful memories.” He went on: “By the way, a prison cell like this is a good analogy for Advent; one waits, hopes, does this or that—ultimately negligible things—the door is locked and can only be opened from the outside.”

Two millennia before the world was held in a prison cell. It was “a period of such inconceivable oppression,” writes Charlotte Mason, that it “naturally raised in men’s minds a certainty of deliverance… Predictions were rife, omens were in the air, men were aware of an expectation which they could not define.”

The door was locked and it could only be opened from outside. The world watched and waited. Enter the mystery today with Charlotte Mason’s poem of expectation. Find it here.

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“The rise of Christianity was preceded by a long period of four hundred years, during which prophecy was silent,” writes J. R. Dummelow. “The advent of Christ was heralded by a great revival of prophecy, and by the restoration of direct communications from God to man through supernatural agency, as in the cases of Zacharias, Joseph, Mary, Elisabeth, Simeon, Anna, the shepherds, the Magi, and, in particular, John the Baptist, who, though he left no written prophecies, and worked no miracle, was declared by our Lord to be the greatest of the prophets, yea, and more than a prophet.”

Charlotte Mason highlighted the angelic encounter with Zechariah. She comments that “Zacharias met with grave rebuke, and a punishment was inflicted upon him, a punishment which gave pause to his thoughts and afforded him, we may believe, a time for blesséd contemplation.”

Let the story of Zechariah touch your heart through Charlotte Mason’s poetry. May it lead you to your own “time for blesséd contemplation.” Find it here.

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“Dare we venture to let our feeble thought attempt to search matters which the angels desired to look into?” So asks Charlotte Mason, before envisioning a scene in the throne room of heaven. “Perhaps we may, because it is the purpose of our God to reveal Himself to men, and it is only to open minds and willing hearts that such revelation is possible.”

A medieval mystic also envisioned a scene, in which God speaks to humanity: “I want you to realize, my children, that by Adam’s sinful disobedience the road was so broken up that no one could reach everlasting life… This sin sprouted thorns and troublesome vexations. My creatures found rebellion within themselves, for as soon as they rebelled against me, they became rebels against themselves… With sin there came at once the flood of a stormy river that beat against them constantly with its waves, bringing weariness and troubles from themselves as well as from the devil and the world. You were all drowning, because not one of you, for all your righteousness, could reach eternal life.”

All humanity was drowning, but voices were crying out for help. One tireless voice in particular “wearieth heaven with importunity.” In Mason’s vision, this voice is heard in the heavenly council. God and the angels discourse, and the result is the greatest announcement ever made. Read or hear the poem here.

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