Eve of Christmas

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Imagine yourself in a cafe or walking on ‘The Square,’ if you can, singing the hymn we just sang together: ‘O come, all ye faithful.’ Or maybe you are in a family, caroling setting, and with gusto it is you who bellows out: ‘GOD of GOD, Light Eternal … Very GOD, begotten not Created … JESUS, to Thee be all glory given; Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing…O come let us adore Him, Christ, the LORD.’ — And after the song’s completion, a family member or friend, or even a complete stranger, leans over and asks you, ‘Really! – GOD of GOD, Light Eternal … Very GOD, begotten not Created Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing. What does that mean?’ — How would you answer this question?  Have you ever considered what your response would be to this question or something similar, related to your enthusiasm for Christmas? Or is this something we should even be considering? I mean, is it important for the Church to be able to articulate a reason for why, as St. John says, GOD became Man in the person of JESUS of Nazareth – ‘the Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing’? … I believe it is something we need to be thinking about, and more importantly, that we need to be prepared to answer. 

In fact, we have a biblical mandate to be prepared to answer this question, and others like it, when asked. St. Peter says in his first epistle, 3:15, “But sanctify the Lord GOD in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and respectfulness.” — And being the Eve of Christmas Day, could there be a better time to consider this matter, and discuss it as a family? So, let me ask you, what does it mean, ‘JESUS, Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing’? 

Let us outline a defense or an answer together, one which we might give to anyone that might ask us for a reason for our Christmas hope, that GOD indeed came in the flesh and dwelt among us – first as an infant, and then as a man. To do so, we must commence our discussion at the beginning, and the beginning of the Christmas Story commences with the narrative we heard a few moments ago in the Gospel Lesson from St. Luke chapter 2. There, we find a young couple, Joseph and Mary, who were traveling during the year of a tax census. To participate in this tax-census, they had to travel from Nazareth of Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea of the country of Israel. This couple, expecting a baby, who they were to name JESUS, to passersby, was presumably their son. — I say presumably, because that is how they would have represented themselves in the offices of the Roman tax assessor-collector in Bethlehem, the city from which Joseph hailed. It would have been a responsible presumption, especially because the couple Joseph and Mary were recently betrothed to be married, and Mary was heavy with child, though such a state, even at that time, would have been frowned upon without the formalities of proper matrimony. Yet, we cannot always presume, can we, especially when an the angel of the LORD GOD appears in a glorious manner at night, without any regard for local or national codes of disturbing the peace, shinning all around and shouting with a group of his angelic friends to a group of shepherds in a field near Bethlehem: “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger” (St. Luke 2.10-12). 

This title, ‘the Savior, Christ the LORD,’ was an ancient title reserved for a particular person who would come to Israel – a particularly great person, being of the lineage of Israel’s most famous and impactful king, David. The title ‘Christ’, a Greek word that means Anointed One in English and Messiah in Hebrew, was spoken of in the Jewish Bible’s ancient prophesies. In those prophecies, it was said that this Anointed One, this Christ, this Messiah, would come from Bethlehem and that He would redeem His people from their sins, and that He would be the Light of Divine Truth to the Gentiles who sat in paganism’s darkness. (cf. Mic. 5.2; Is. 53; 49.5-7) 

What is more, the prophet Isaiah prophesied that this Christ of GOD would come to redeem the world, being born of a Virgin – His Kingdom lasting ‘forever!’ Isaiah prophesied: “Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel … For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Isaiah 7.14; 9.6-7). 

At that time, no one expected this Savior to be anything more than a man of GOD – a great man, mind you, and a man as great or even greater than Israel’s principal hero, Moses. Yet, when the Angel Gabriel told Mary that she was going to be the mother of Christ, he said something that shook everyone who heard it. He said: “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son and shall call His name JESUS. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the LORD GOD will give Him the throne of His [historical earthly] father, David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob (Israel) forever, and of His Kingdom there will be no end … Also, that Holy One who is to be born [of you] will be called the Son of GOD” (St. Luke 1.31-33,35). — The Son of GOD! — And Mary said, ‘How will this be, for I have not known or had relations with a man?’ And yet, it came to pass as the Archangel had said. — I know, it shook everyone up that heard it. 

Thankfully, everyone was able to calm down, a bit after St. John the Apostle explained the theology of what this all meant. He did so in his Gospel account of the life and times of JESUS the Messiah. There, in verse fourteen of chapter one, John explains: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” — Due to John’s insight, the Church would come to understand by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, that before He assumed flesh and became the only begotten Son of GOD, JESUS was the Word, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Thus, our hymn is correct in saying: ‘Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing…O come let us adore Him, Christ the LORD.’ — This Word, who is GOD, was embodied in the person of JESUS of Nazareth, GOD of GOD and Man of man. Returning to the original question, ‘How could this be, GOD in the flesh appearing?’, we point out, that as JESUS of Nazareth became a man, and His ministry was in full bloom with a host of followers and disciples, He was seen in His glory at one point in His lifetime by His disciples, in His eternal glory, by his most intimate fellows, Peter, James, and John. This happened on the occasion of JESUS’ Transfiguration on the peak of Mt. Tabor. And of this sighting, John would later write: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, even the Word of Life … And we have seen and do testify that the Father send the Son to be the Savior (the Christ) of the world” (1 John 1.1; 4.14). 

And in another place in the Bible, St. Peter, who was also there on Mt. Tabor with John, wrote: “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our LORD JESUS Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty! For He received from GOD the Father, honor and glory when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, saying: ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ And this is the Voice which came from Heaven that we heard, when we were with Him in the holy mount, [Tabor]” (2 Peter 1.16-18). 

If this is true (as it must be if we are to believe The Holy Bible), what does this say about ‘that holy offspring which was born of Mary on Christmas Day, and of whom the Holy angel of GOD, Gabriel, said, would be called the Son of God, and named JESUS, which means ‘GOD is salvation?’ (cf. St. Luke i. 35) We must conclude that which our hymn has made it out to be: ‘JESUS, begotten, not created – GOD in flesh appearing’ – GOD of GOD and Man of man. — JESUS is called the only-begotten of GOD, because His conception was from above, and not from below. That is, JESUS inherited the essence of man’s mortality from Mary, but His purity and immunity from mankind’s sinful nature He retained as the immortal, Divine Second Person of the Holy Trinity. — Leo the Great, a fifth century bishop in Rome said this of JESUS’ only-begotten status: “For if GOD, [the invisible and immortal], is believed to be both Almighty and Father, it follows that His Son is co-eternal with Him, in no respect different from the Father – also Almighty – because He was born GOD of GOD, Almighty of Almighty, co-eternal of eternal, not posterior in time, not inferior in power, nor dissimilar in glory, not divided in essence, but eternal of eternal … [Coming as He did in the appearance of a man], threw a veil [of flesh] over His infinite majesty … for He who is very GOD is also very MAN.”1 — In other words, JESUS, ‘GOD of GOD, Light Eternal … Very GOD, begotten not Created … Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.’ 

‘JESUS, begotten, not created – GOD in flesh appearing – what does that mean?’ Now we know – now we can give a defense, an answer to those who ask us about our Christmas hope. JESUS is the only-begotten Son of GOD, because He is the only One of His kind. This is what the Greek word for only-begotten means – one-of-a-kind – ‘mono-genus.’  The undiminished, intrinsic, and fully divine nature of the Godhead, and the undiminished, intrinsic, and fully human nature of humanity in the GOD-MAN, JESUS, united in One Person – the two natures co-existing perfectly – perfectly GOD and perfectly Man. There has never been (and there will never be), another genus like JESUS – He is μονογενοῦς. Thus, St. Paul says of Him who was born on Christmas Day, in Romans 1: “GOD promised before times through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures … [that JESUS would come] – born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of GOD with power, according to the Spirit of holiness…” (Romans 1.3-4).  

And so, on Christmas Day, dear brothers and sisters, Christ JESUS came into the world to take on the veil of human flesh, so that by becoming the only-begotten, ‘monogenus’, one-of-a-kind Son of GOD and Man, He might save and redeem His people from their sins, being the Light to lighten the Gentiles who sit in paganism’s darkness. The Church celebrates this fact every Christmas Day, answering the age-old question: ‘GOD of GOD, Light Eternal … Very GOD, begotten not Created … JESUS, Word of the Father, in flesh appearing, Christ the LORD?’ — Yes, dear friends, yes! — GOD of GOD, Light of Light Eternal, JESUS Christ the LORD; the Child for us sinners, born poor and in a manger. Thus, let me encourage you again: O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem; come and behold Him, born the King of Angels. O come let us adore Him, who is JESUS Christ the LORD! Amen. 

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1 Pope Leo I, St. Leo’s Epistle to Flavian: The Tome of Leo, (Oxford: Parker, 1885), 23.