CHRISTMAS EVE
On this most holy night, we wait with joyous expectation for our Lord’s
coming into our midst. This night witnesses his wondrous birth in the lowly
stable. He comes as the Babe of Bethlehem. “Out of the mouths of very babes
and sucklings hast thou ordained strength.” Emmanuel, God with us, is the
miracle of Christmas. “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for lo, I
come and I will dwell in the midst of you,” proclaims our God through his
prophet Zechariah.
His coming in humility declares the wonderful love of God towards us.
“The heavens declare the glory of God,” sings the Psalmist. Tonight
the whole earth joins in concert with the heavenly host. Tonight the glory
of God appears in the very flesh of our humanity, “for he hath regarded
the lowliness of his handmaiden.” The humble of heart see the glory
of God in their midst. His will is their peace. “Be it unto me according
to thy word,” sings the virgin mother of our Lord, the perfect vessel of
our Lord’s humanity. Tonight that Word comes to birth as “the babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” That babe is the
eternal Word of God, our Saviour, Christ the Lord. “The Word was
made flesh and dwelt among us.” And so angels sing with shepherds,
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men.”
Our Advent preparations become our Christmas celebrations. But
first, we begin in the silence of expectancy. We await his coming
with bated breath, as it were, heeding Zechariah’s words of eager anticipation:
“Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord; for he has roused himself from
his holy dwelling.” We await the birth of our Lord, who comes that he may
dwell in our midst.
CHRISTMAS DAY
Christmas celebrates the Nativity of our Lord, the birth-day of Christ.
He is Emmanuel, God with us. All the readings abound with a sense of holy
awe and wonder at this glorious manifestation of God’s love. “In
this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his
only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.”
We rejoice in the love of God through the love of God.
The Epistle to the Hebrews exults in the wonderful condescension of
God in the sending of Christ, who is the fullness of God’s revelation to
man. God who has spoken to man through the prophets “hath in these
last days spoken unto us by his Son.” The epistle sings the glory
of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. He is the beginning and the end,
“heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.” Christ is
God of God, light of light, very God of very God, “who being the brightness
of his glory and the express image of his person” upholds “all things by
the word of his power.” From the eternal Son of God in Creation and
in Providence, the epistle turns to Christ in Redemption. Christ is our
Redeemer, who, “when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the
right hand of the majesty on high.” The epistle rejoices in the whole
mission of Christ from his coming into the world, to his death, resurrection,
and ascension. All is to the glory of God, and the cause of our rejoicing.
The great Christmas gospel is John 1.1-14, which takes us from the eternity
of God through Creation and Providence to Redemption and Sanctification.
Christ is the eternal Word of God, whose coming is the grace and truth
of God toward us. That Word was in the beginning “and was with God,
and the Word was God.” By him “all things were made.” “In him
was life, and the life was the light of men,” “the true light which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world.” That eternal Word of God “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.”
Without forsaking what he was, namely God, Christ became what he was
not, namely man, in order that through him mankind might be joined to the
life of God. The Christmas collect recalls the condescension of God,
whose only-begotten Son has taken our nature upon him, that through him
we might have a new life, daily renewed by his Holy Spirit, and become
by adoption and grace what he is by nature — sons of God through the Son
of God. We pray this collect throughout the season of Christmas.
