PART I

On the morning of Good Friday, 1857, Richard Wagner, the master artist of the nineteenth century, sat on the verandah of a Swiss villa by the Zurich Sea. The landscape about him was bathed in most glorious sunshine; peace and good will seemed to vibrate through nature. All creation was throbbing with life; the air was laden with the fragrant perfume of budding pine forests—a grateful balm to a troubled heart or a restless mind.

Then suddenly, as a bolt from an azure sky, there came into Wagner’s deeply mystic soul a remembrance of the ominous significance of that day—the darkest and most sorrowful in the Christian year. It almost overwhelmed him with sadness, as he contemplated the contrast. There was such a marked incongruity between the smiling scene before him, the plainly observable activity of nature, struggling to renewed life after winter’s long sleep, and the death struggle of a tortured Savior upon a cross; between154 the full-throated chant of life and love issuing from the thousands of little feathered choristers in forest, moor, and meadow, and the ominous shouts of hate issuing from an infuriated mob as they jeered and mocked the noblest ideal the world has ever known; between the wonderful creative energy exerted by nature in spring, and the destructive element in man, which slew the noblest character that ever graced our earth.

While Wagner meditated thus upon the incongruities of existence, the question presented itself: Is there any connection between the death of the Savior upon the cross at Easter, and the vital energy which expresses itself so prodigally in spring when nature begins the life of a new year?

Though Wagner did not consciously perceive and realize the full significance of the connection between the death of the Savior and the rejuvenation of nature, he had, nevertheless, unwittingly stumbled upon the key to one of the most sublime mysteries encountered by the human spirit in its pilgrimage from clod to God.

In the darkest night of the year, when earth sleeps most soundly in Boreas’ cold embrace, when material activities are at the very lowest ebb, a wave of spiritual energy carries upon its crest the divine creative “Word from Heaven” to a mystic birth at Christmas; and as a luminous cloud the spiritual impulse broods over the world that “knew it not,” for it155 “shines in the darkness” of winter when nature is paralyzed and speechless.

This divine creative “Word” has a message and a mission. It was born to “save the world,” and “to give its life for the world.” It must of necessity sacrifice its life in order to accomplish the rejuvenation of nature. Gradually it buries itself in the earth and commences to infuse its own vital energy into the millions of seeds which lie dormant in the ground. It whispers “the word of life” into the ears of beast and bird, until the gospel or good news has been preached to every creature. The sacrifice is fully consummated by the time the sun crosses its Easter(n) node at the spring equinox. Then the divine creative Word expires. It dies upon the cross at Easter in a mystical sense, while uttering a last triumphant cry, “It has been accomplished” (consummatum est).

But as an echo returns to us many times repeated, so also the celestial song of life is re-echoed from the earth. The whole creation takes up the anthem. A legion-tongued chorus repeats it over and over. The little seeds in the bosom of Mother Earth commence to germinate; they burst and sprout in all directions, and soon a wonderful mosaic of life, a velvety green carpet embroidered with multicolored flowers, replaces the shroud of immaculate wintry white. From the furred and feathered tribes “the word of life” re-echoes as a song of love, impelling them to mate. Generation and multiplication are the watchwords156 everywhere—the Spirit has risen to more abundant life.

Thus, mystically, we may note the annual birth, death, and resurrection of the Savior as the ebb and flow of a spiritual impulse which culminates at the winter solstice, Christmas, and has egress from the earth shortly after Easter when the “word” “ascends to Heaven” on Whitsunday. But it will not remain there forever. We are taught that “thence it shall return,” “at the judgment.” Thus when the sun descends below the equator through the sign of the scales in October, when the fruits of the year are harvested, weighed, and assorted according to their kind, the descent of the spirit of the new year has its inception. This descent culminates in birth at Christmas.

Man is a miniature of nature. What happens on a large scale in the lif............