Dear John,
In 'normal' times you might expect a holiday message from me like this:
On Christmas, we remember and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the savior of the world. May you and your family be blessed through the Christmas season and into 2025.
And there’s nothing wrong with that so far as it goes! But these are hardly 'normal' times.
This year, I want you to hear something more substantial from us. When a society has gotten itself into deep problems, only deeper truths will do. So, on our way to wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, I want you to hear briefly about the meaning of the incarnation of Christ from three great authorities--one inspired, one from the early church, and one from the 20th century. We must always remember that the Truth we all seek isn't an idea, but a Person.
THE BIBLE ON THE INCARNATION
“…Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5b-11)
THE ATHANASIAN CREED ON THE INCARNATION
Now this is the true faith:
That we believe and confess
that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son,
is both God and human, equally.
He is God from the essence of the Father,
begotten before time;
and he is human from the essence of his mother,
born in time;
completely God, completely human,
with a rational soul and human flesh;
equal to the Father as regards divinity,
less than the Father as regards humanity.
Although he is God and human,
yet Christ is not two, but one.
He is one, however,
not by his divinity being turned into flesh,
but by God's taking humanity to himself.
He is one,
certainly not by the blending of his essence,
but by the unity of his person.
For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh,
so too the one Christ is both God and human. […]
C.S. LEWIS ON THE INCARNATION: THE GRAND MIRACLE
“The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature’s total character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation. There is no question in Christianity of arbitrary interferences just scattered about. It relates not a series of disconnected raids on Nature but the various steps of a strategically coherent invasion—an invasion which intends complete conquest and ‘occupation.’ The fitness, and therefore credibility, of the particular miracles depends on their relation to the Grand Miracle…In the Christian story God descends to re-ascend. He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him. One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get Himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift, He must almost disappear under the load before He incredibly straightens His back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on His shoulders.” (C.S. Lewis, Miracles)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Minnesota Family Council & Institute!
