A few months ago I spent some time in a modern hospital, watching by the side of a loved one. Past our door rolled the stretchers of those poor afflicted ones who were going to or returning from the operating rooms. We saw the suffering and the anguish written upon many of the faces, and recalled the words of the Great Physician who was able to lay his hands upon the halt, the deaf, the blind and the men tally disordered ones, and with a word restore them whole and in their right mind. And we thought of the day when returned from heaven to this earth, Jesus of Nazareth would either in person or through his saints, who are to share the “powers of the age to come,” visit such institutions and bid all the inmates, “rise up and walk.”
Even now we have a great consolation in the knowledge that we “have a great High Priest who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities” and can lift up fainting spirits and strengthen failing hearts and thus bring back from the brink of death those who trust in him. We heard the moans of the dying, and the glad greetings of those who were recovering. One small boy, who was recovering, shouted in high glee the words ofthe old song, “Old man MacDonald had a farm.”
But in other cases where misery was unrelieved, the long watches of the night were so prolonged that time seemed to have turned backward in its flight. Down the corridor was the maternity ward, and each evening there was a procession of the young mothers who before lights were out, came forth from their own rooms to see their tiny offspring, each in its own crib, and some in the incubators*. The mothers were arrayed in gay robes ofvaried colors — pink, blue, purple, red —and one in radiant cloth of gold! And again our thoughts went back to that Mother of Bethlehem, lying in a stall in the stable, with the young child in the manger. And what a difference! No white-robed nurses to grant every wish; no drugs to ease the pain; no finery to please the feminine eye; only the blue dress of a woman of Galilee, and swaddling clothes she had brought in anticipation of the “event.” The words of the “Magnificat” came to mind: “My soul doth magnify the Lord!” Thus spake Mary, of the birth of Jesus. “For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden.” What does this mean? Simply this: God knew the humiliation that would come to Mary because of the virgin birth; He knew of the finger of scorn, the words of reproach, the ostracism that would be her portion. No one would believe her story; she would be an outcast from friends and from her kindred. “He has taken into account the deep humiliation of His handmaiden — this is the meaning of the words.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One