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Christmas Day
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Scripture citation(s): John 1:1-14
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
John 1:1-14
✛
The Scandal of the Incarnation
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He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Welcome to all of you on this blessed day, the Birthday of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Welcome to the faithful regulars, to our Choir School families, and to visitors or newcomers. I invite all baptized Christians, if you so desire, to make your Christmas Holy Communion on this second most important festival of the Church.
The first festival of the Church is, of course, Easter. I say this not to diminish Christmas in any way, but to shed light on it. Christmas is not simply a birthday observance of a man who lived long ago. It is the Nativity of Jesus Christ, who revealed the fullness of his deity to his disciples by dying on the cross and rising from the dead. When Mary and Joseph looked down into the face of the Babe in the Manger, they were beholding the human face of Almighty God.
It is this mystery, the Incarnation, which the Christmas Day Gospel, the Prologue of the Gospel of Saint John, spells out in its majestic first chapter. I would describe the mystery by calling it the “scandal” of the Incarnation. It is the scandal of its particularity.
The Incarnation “offends” the worldly mind in two ways. First there is the scandal that Almighty God, the creator of all that is, should descend or empty himself to become a particular human being, namely, Jesus of Nazareth. Second there is the scandal that this particular man, Jesus of Nazareth, should turn out to be none other than Almighty God the creator of all that is.
“He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not,” writes the Evangelist, and further, “He came unto his own [people], and his own received him not.” There we have the Incarnation and the “scandal” it causes.
But the story does not stop there. Some do know and receive him: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons [children] of God, even to them that believe on his name; Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
“Born of God.” In order to understand what this means, let us look for a minute at Christ’s own mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and visit her, as the Angel Gabriel did, nine months before Christmas. The Angel greeted Mary, “Hail thou that are highly favored [or “full of grace”], the Lord is with thee.” Mary was troubled, and her trouble deepened when she heard what the greeting meant. She was to conceive and bear a son and call his name Jesus. This son would be great, called the Son of God Most High, and be given a reign and a kingdom that would have no end.
When Mary asked how this could be since she “knew not a man,” the Angel replied that the child would be conceived by the Holy Ghost, that the power of God would overshadow her, and that the child truly would be born by the sheer grace of God. To confirm his words the Angel reminded her that with God nothing shall be impossible.
It is not an exaggeration to say the destiny of the world hung in the balance at that moment, hung upon the free will of young Mary. Such is the Incarnation. And, by the grace of God, Mary said, “Be it unto me according to thy word.” She said, Let it be, and the Virgin Mary became at that moment the Mother of God. Christ was conceived through the grace and the act of Mary’s faith.
In order for anyone to enter the mystery of Christian faith, we need to follow the pattern set by Christ’s mother at the very beginning of the Incarnation. She was confronted by the “offense,” with all its trouble, indeed its mortal danger, for her. She received it by the grace of God, with whom nothing shall be impossible. What was true for her as the young mother of Christ in his physical birth is true for all the rest of us as believers in whom Christ would be spiritually born by faith. Saint John explains it: Those who receive him, who (like Mary) believe in his name, are “born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
When our Lady Saint Mary said “Yes” to the Angel Gabriel, this was, according to Saint John, the outcome, “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.”
Dear friends in Christ, when you look at the Nativity Scene in the Christmas Crèche, do more than look at it. “Behold” the mystery in it. The very thing that offends the worldly-minded is precisely the greatest blessing in the world. It is the Gift of Christmas. It is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Beholding” the mystery is nothing less than the gift of spiritual discernment given by the Holy Spirit himself.
Beholding the incarnate Lord, whose face is the human face of almighty God, is a gift that will work wonders in us. It brings love instead of hatred, hope instead of despair, pardon instead of injury, joy instead of sadness, light instead of darkness. Other people become our brothers and sisters. Life becomes a pilgrimage in the providence of God. Death is the gate of eternal life. All this is because the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
