READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Isaiah 7:10-14
Romans 1:1-6
St. Matthew 1:18-25
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. (Eph 1)
Jesus speaks from our Epistle today, saying:
“…the Gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through
his prophets in the holy Scriptures”
For your meditation, this evening, I offer two selections
from old, dead Church fathers—one anonymous; and one from the early Bishop
whose name the anonymous piece bears. For God proclaims His promises through
His prophets and continues to speak to us in His Word, through His pastors, in
His Church as She moves throughout history.
Tonight, all these readings we heard, all these carols, the
tree, the candlelight—even your celebrations at home, the presents, the candy
and cookies, the Hallmark villages and the various hot toddies—they all
celebrate and bring our focus to one place: the incarnation—God in human flesh
lying in a manger. This profound mystery is the very foundation of the
Christian faith. That is why the Church rates this as a first-class feast in
the church year.
So, tonight I thought it fitting that we contemplate
devotionally a section of one of the great creeds of the Church. While
generally, we think of creeds as our confession of faith, they also proclaim to
us the profundity of the Faith. So, tonight, instead of confessing it, hear and
ponder this section of the Athanasian Creed which confesses the significance of
God in a manger:
(Read vv. 27-37 on p. 320 in Lutheran Service Book)
“Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that
he also believe faithfully the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the
right faith is, that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, is God and Man; God of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the
worlds; and Man of the substance of His mother, born in the world; Perfect God
and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the
Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His
manhood; Who, although He be God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ:
One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood
into God; One altogether; not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of
Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one
Christ; Who suffered for our salvation; descended into hell, rose again the
third day from the dead; He ascended into heaven; He sitteth on the right hand
of the Father, God Almighty; from whence He shall come to judge the quick and
the dead.”
While that creed bears the name of Athanasius, Athanasius
most certainly did not write it. It is written some years later. But it
confesses the doctrine he championed throughout his life. Athanasius was bishop
of Alexandria in Egypt in the early fourth century during the Church’s greatest
Christological controversy in which those who held to the Arian heresy denied
the divinity of Jesus.
Athanasius tirelessly defended the orthodox teaching on the
divinity of Jesus. He was exiled by his enemies five times and almost murdered
twice. Christmas—and the incarnation it celebrates—is of course, at the heart
of the person and work of Jesus. So, Athanasius wrote voluminously on the
incarnation. Here is a small piece from Athanasius on the incarnation:
“The Word perceived that corruption could not be got rid of
otherwise than through death; yet He Himself, as the Word, being immortal and
the Father’s Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore, He
assumed a body capable of death, in order that it, through belonging to the
Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all,
and, itself remaining incorruptible through His indwelling, might thereafter
put an end to corruption for all others as well, by the grace of the
resurrection. It was by surrendering to death the body which He had taken, as
an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, that He forthwith abolished
death for His human brethren by the offering of the equivalent. For naturally,
since the Word of God was above all, when He offered His own temple and bodily
instrument as a substitute for the life of all, He fulfilled in death all that
was required.
You know how it is when some great king enters a large city
and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house,
the whole city is honoured, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so
is it with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body
amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind
have been foiled, and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its
power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly
had not the Lord and Saviour of all, the Son of God, come among us to put an
end to death…
Some may then ask, why did He not manifest Himself by means
of other and nobler parts of creation, and use some nobler instrument, such as
sun or moon or stars or fire or air, instead of mere man? The answer is this:
The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering
men. For one who wanted to make a display, the thing would have been just to
appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him Who came to heal and to teach the
way was not merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those
who needed Him, and to be manifested according as they could bear it…”
—
from “On the Incarnation” by Athanasius of
Alexandria (ca. 293-373)
In other words, God is in the manger so that He can die for
you, and by dying, destroy death from the inside out. So sin and death no
longer have dominion over you. And instead of the eternal death which you
deserved, you have eternal life because you are forgiven for all your sins—all
because God is a baby in a manger.
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