Wonder at the incarnation
Almighty God,
who gave your only Son to take our nature upon him,
and to be born of a pure virgin;
grant that we, being born again in him,
and made your children by adoption and grace,
may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit,
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Remarkable, isn’t it? Extraordinary! Absolutely breathtaking! Just stop what you’re doing for a moment and think of it, will you? God the Holy Spirit came upon an ordinary, young, virgin woman and fertilised an egg inside her. That’s incredible enough, nearly 2,000 years before IVF and with not a single man in sight. But there’s more! In that moment, God the Son, who had always lived in perfect, loving relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, chose to “take our nature upon him” – become fully human.
And there’s even more! In doing that, he didn’t for one second stop being fully God. Just think of it. Not even as a babe in arms, as a toddler, a schoolboy or a teenager, did he cease from being God. If that doesn’t give you cause to pause amidst your sprouts and pigs-in-blankets, I don’t know what will! That is Christmas. It gets more and more wonderful, the more you think about it.
Despite all of that — and it is a lot, I grant you — Jesus’ actual birth was fairly ordinary. Just like your and my physical birth was. And Jesus needed nothing more: being God, he was completely perfect in every way; in body, mind, words, and actions. Of course, you and I aren’t. Thankfully, we aren’t as bad as we could possibly be, but fundamentally we are imperfect; in body, mind, words, and actions. God says we were, in effect, as good as dead, refusing to let him be God in our lives, slaves to Satan and to all sorts of things we’d rather not mention – our sins! And that’s how we would have remained, had he not done another remarkable, extraordinary, breathtaking miracle.
Just as he caused his only son to be born by the Holy Spirit, he caused you and me and every Christian to be born by the Holy Spirit, in what he calls our second birth. So that we could begin to really live. Jesus called it “life in all its fulness” and “eternal life”, which he defined as “that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). And at that moment in your, my, and every Christian’s life, God the Father signed the papers for us to become his children. Forever. Isn’t that the most wonderful Christmas gift? Which is what the word ‘grace’ means, of course – a totally undeserved gift. That is our adoption. It gets more and more wonderful, the more you think about it.
So pray this with me:
Almighty God,
who gave your only Son to take our nature upon him,
and to be born of a pure virgin;
grant that we, being born again in him,
and made your children by adoption and grace,
may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit,
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.