What does Christmas mean?
Despite not preaching at Christmas services this yr, for some reason I have found myself thinking virtually the meaning of Christmas more this twelvemonth than most. To stimulate your thinking this Christmas Twenty-four hour period, I simply offering ii things—one ancient, the other modern, neither mine. The ancient focuses on the meaning of Christmas—or rather the incarnation—for God. The mod focuses on the potential meaning of Christmas for us.
The ancient is an extract from Augustine's sermons on the nascency, in this case Sermon 191. He beautifully expounds the paradox of the incarnation, drawing on a broad range of ideas from the gospels and the educational activity and claims of Jesus, and showing how the incarnation involves that Great Reversal of God becoming human—in Paul's words, that great 'self emptying' of God in Jesus (Phil 2.vii), in which he lets go of the riches of his glory in order to embrace our poverty, that we might gain his riches. (2 Cor viii.9).
The mod is from King'south Church, Edinburgh, a Baptist church which now assembly itself with the NewFrontiers network. I was absorbed past this video in the way that it connected the mystery of the incarnation with the transcendent longing of man life that we see all around us. The closing shots offer a wordless invitation, through the extended visual metaphor of the closed door, maybe alluding to the invitation of Jesus made in Rev three.20: 'I stand up at the door and knock'. This Christmas, will we receive the 1 who comes well-nigh? Will we open our doors to him, and will we agree out the invitation to others to open the doors of their lives to him likewise?
The Discussion of the Father, by whom all time was created, was made flesh and was born in time for us. He, without whose divine permission no day completes its course, wished to accept one day [set bated] for his man birth. In the bust of his Father, he existed before all the cycles of ages; born of an earthly Female parent, he entered upon the grade of the years on this day.
The maker of humanity became a man that he, ruler of the stars, might be nourished at the breast;
that he, the Bread, might be hungry;
that he, the Fountain, might thirst;
that he, the Lite, might slumber;
that he, the Manner, might exist wearied past the journeying;
that he, the Truth, might be defendant past simulated witnesses;
that he, the Guess of the living and the expressionless, might be brought to trial past a mortal guess;
that he, Justice, might be condemned past the unjust;
that he, Discipline, might exist scourged with whips;
that he, the Grape, might be crowned with thorns;
that he, the Foundation, might be suspended upon a cross;
that Backbone might be weakened;
that Security might exist wounded; that Life might die.
To endure these and like indignities for us, to free us, unworthy creatures, he who existed as the Son of God earlier all ages, without a kickoff, deigned to get the Son of Man in these recent years. He did this although he who submitted to such great evils for our sake had done no evil and although we, who were the recipients of so much skillful at his easily, had washed nothing to merit these benefits. Begotten by the Male parent, he was not made by the Father; he was made Man in the Mother whom he himself had made, so that he might exist here for a while, sprung from her who could never and nowhere have existed except through his power.
This Christmas may you lot know the one, who has fatigued nearly, draw well-nigh again in all the joys and challenges that yous face.
(The picture at the top is a restored mosaic from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. It reminds me of the comment by Peter: 'They spoke of the things that have now been told y'all by those who have preached the gospel to y'all by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things' (ane Peter i.12).)
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