Christ is born! Glorify Him!
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
On this great and glorious day of the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ according to the Flesh, we pause from certain activities to behold the Mystery and the Miracle of the God made flesh so that we could be made sons of God. We silently join in the communion of the shepherds with the Holy Family (Lk. 2:1-20), and later with the Magi of the East who came in pursuit of the Wisdom from on high, to humbly fall down before Him in adoration Who, as “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly,” is the fullness of the Godhead (Co. 1:19; 2:9). Those tiny hands are the strong and mighty hands of the Creator of Heaven and of earth (Jn. 1:3, 10; Co. 1:16; Nicene Creed). Long before He learned the carpentry trade from His step-father and holy Guardian, He is the Master Craftsman, the Fashioner, the Artificer, the Designer of all there is: His Most Blessed Mother and All-Pure Lady, His Guardian and Betrothed of the Theotokos, the shepherds and their flocks, the Magi and their camels, the gold, the myrrh, the frankincense offered unto Him from out of His own treasury. Likewise, He is the Creator of Herod and all those like him who did not believe and would not follow. “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not,” St. John the Theologian reminds us in his Gospel. “But as many as received Him,” the Evangelist and Theologian goes on to say, “to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe in His Name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:11-13).
Later, those same creative hands will become hands of redemption – of our redemption and the redemption of all the universe – pierced through with the hard metal of nails. These are the same hands stretched forth to bless and to heal and to sanctify, to raise the dead and to chastise and to correct. For this He was born or was “made of a woman,” for this He will die, “for us men and for our salvation” (Nicene Creed). “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, . . ., that we might receive the adoption of sons.”
This, beloved, is the great Mystery of the Faith and Miracle: the Son of God becomes the Son of Man, so that sons of men might be made sons of God. Everything in God’s plan revolves around this historical reality “in the fullness of time.” God’s timing is always perfect timing, though we struggle like Abraham to see that, to believe that, to trust in God Whose ways are not our ways nor thoughts our thoughts (Is. 55:8-9). Yet, it is always for our salvation God works, even when things seem delayed from our finite and restricted perspective or do not go according to our will or our wishes. We are to be still before this God Who transcends our time and keep vigil, and He will act “in the fullness of time.” “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ex. 14:14; Ps. 45 [46]:10). “And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.” But,
the angel said unto them, ‘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 Saviour, Who is Christ the Lord. . . .’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!’ (Lk. 2:1-20).
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, . . ., that we might receive the adoption of sons.” The God beyond time, outside of time – the Timeless One, the Eternal Now – steps into time and binds Himself to time, becoming Man, so that man, bound to time, might become immortal, receiving Eternal Life. Beloved, “once we were not a people, but now we are the people of God; once we had not obtained mercy, but now we have obtained mercy” (Ho. 2:23; 1 Pe. 2:10). Beloved, once we were “children of wrath,” given over to the “course of this world,” “sons of disobedience,” “without Christ, . . . strangers from the covenants of [God’s] promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Ep. 2:2, 11-12). “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, . . . .” and all that was changed, not by us, but solely by the mercy of God Who sent forth His Son to make us His sons of faith and obedience, loved beyond measure not merited by us (Ep. 2:4-10). Now we have Christ. Now we have hope. Now we have God in this world because “in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, . . ., that we might receive the adoption of sons.”
The way to God is through the very flesh of His Son. He was “made of a woman,” just as was prophesied immediately after the Fall. God said to the deceitful serpent, “’And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel’” (Gn. 3:15). The Saviour and Deliverer must be made or born of a woman – this woman, the new Woman, the New Eve – who will reverse the ancient curse and the fall of Eve. As the Douay-Rheims Bible translation has it, “’I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her Seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.’” “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, . . . .”
“’No one comes to the Father except through Me,’” our Lord Jesus once said (Jn. 14:6). In His being made of a woman, He united His divinity with our human nature so that He dares even to call us His brethren, being not ashamed (Hb. 2:11-18). We must, therefore, partake of the divinized flesh of the Son of God come down from Heaven from the Virgin through the Holy Spirit so that we might receive Him and be made His own. He was made of a woman; we must be re-made of Him! Those who received Him, declares the Gospel, “gave He power to become the sons of God, . . . born . . . of God” (Jn. 1:12-13). “’As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father,’” Jesus says, “’so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.’” “’Whoever eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has Eternal Life, . . . For My Flesh is true Food, and My Blood is true Drink. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him’” (Jn. 6:53-58).
None of us can dare become sons of God on our own. It is a divine gift, a fulfillment of God’s irrevocable Covenant – an act of God’s mercy and grace. We are not born children of God from our mother’s womb, but must be made His sons and daughters. We must be “born again” or “re-born” or “born anew from above” (Jn. 3:3, 5-8). We must be “adopted” by God into His Family, born from the virginal womb of His Bride, the Church, in the waters of Holy Baptism, and then eat and drink of His most holy Body and most precious Blood. Then, and only then, “we may dare to call on [Him], the heavenly God, as Father, and to say: Our Father, . . . .” (Divine Liturgy: Our Father). “’Our Father, Abba, Father!’” This is the prayer, not of slaves, but of sons and of daughters (Rm. 8:14-17). Only those who have been made worthy through the divine act of adoption may truly call the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, “Our Father.” “’Abba, Father!’” And, if we have been made sons of God through our Lord Jesus, then we are surely heirs of God and His Kingdom of Glory through Him.
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, . . ., that we might receive the adoption of sons.”
Through the prayers of the Theotokos, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
VIGIL PROPERS: PROPERS:
Gn. 1:1-13 Ga. 4:4-7
Nm. 24:2-3, 5-9, 17-18 Mt. 2:1-12
Mc. 4:6-7; 5:2-4
Is. 11:1-10
Br. 3:35-4:4
Dn. 2:31-36, 44-45
Is. 9:6-7
Is. 7:10-16; 8:1-4, 8-10