Pastor's Page: "Fully Human, Fully Divine – the Mystery of Christmas"
December 26, 2010
“God from God, light from light, true God from true God. Begotten, not made, one in being with the
Father. Through Him (Jesus Christ) all things were made.”
The statements of faith about the person of Jesus that we recite from memory in the Creed each weekend,
were the product of fierce debate at the Councils of Nicea and Chalcedon (near present day Istanbul, Turkey)
in the fourth century. In the years after the Resurrection, the followers of Jesus wondered who he was. Was
he a very special holy man, perhaps even the promised Messiah, or was Jesus God? It took three centuries to
formulate the doctrinal statement we profess: “God from God; light from light….”
Christmas, the celebration of the feast of the Incarnation, affirms a central dogma - that God became fully
human in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is not just the best representative of God who ever lived; a man of heroic
extraordinary virtue greater than the virtue of any other human hero; He is fully God as well. He is not only
the finest human being who ever lived. He is “true God from true God”. The reality of God, and the divine
mystery made known; fully human and fully divine. He existed from all time in the presence of the Father
and the Holy Spirit; one God yet three persons.
In Jesus of Nazareth we know God. We meet God. We experience God. No other world religion refers
to its „founder‟ as God. Buddha is not God. Mohammed is not God. Confucius is not God. Christians make
what to others appears an outrageous claim. For our faith reveals that: “God so loved the world (and most
especially the human beings that inhabit it) that in the fullness of time, He sent his only Son, that whoever
believes in him may not perish, but might have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
Jesus Christ receives from us, always and everywhere, our adoration and praise as the epiphany, the
manifestation of the God who is always with us, Emmanuel.
In his study of Jesus, Christology, Jesuit priest Gerald O’Collins, makes five essential points about the
implications of the incarnation for our lives:
First, the Son of God experiences first hand what it means to be human, including death and so we are
never alone even in our darkest hour.
Second, Jesus Christ belongs to us by „completely sharing our condition in life and death‟ from the
inside of humanity. God in Jesus took on our flesh with all that our human growth; our dying and rising
entails.
Third, Christ shows us how to live life to the full – living, suffering, praying. The agony in the garden
was not playacting!
Fourth, the fact of His living life from the inside persuades us that God personally understands and
loves us intimately. God is not an outsider to the human adventure.
Fifth, we can follow Christ courageously and lovingly with hope and joy, because we know Christ has
been there before us and we are never alone. At the Last Supper, knowing what awaited him, Jesus still
sang with his disciples hymns of thanks and praise to God; remembering the Exodus event and God’s
fidelity to His wayward people.
“For though he was by nature God, he did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but
he emptied himself taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.”(Philippians 2.6-7)
Merry Christmas! Peace, Joy, and Love to all people of good will!
Father Bruce
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