Merry Christmas.
I greet you in the precious and matchless name of the one in whom God has become one of us. Joy to the World!
In the 1928 edition of the Prayer Book there appeared a new collect for the Second Sunday after Christmas—what Lutherans and others call the Prayer of the Day. The prayer was revised with contemporary language for the current Prayer Book. I think it’s one of the finest works of theology, and among the most beautiful of our prayers. It captures God’s action for what we know as Christmas. Here’s the prayer, let us pray:
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
If you were asked, “what is the incarnation?” this prayer could be the springboard for lively conversation and inspiration. God creates and restores human nature, and it’s God’s good will for us to share in God’s life, even as Jesus Christ shares our humanity. Today the almighty, powerful, transcendent God comes near, becomes immanent, becomes one of us.
In the chaos of rapid changes in cultures and societies, and because we live with people who are excited about what’s to come, as well as with people who are petrified about what’s to come, Jesus is born yet again in 2024.
Jesus Christ is that Word spoken in the midst of chaos, and because God’s life was in his, everything Jesus experienced—infancy, fleeing with his parents as refugees to avoid murder, catching faith, teaching scripture, seeing and caring for others, denouncing hypocrisy, and showing mercy—all of this is known also to God! God gets us because in Jesus, God came to live, die, and to live again.
In these 12 Days of Christmas, more than at any other time of the year, we adore the Word made flesh, our hope is renewed, and our humanity is restored because Jesus Christ, ever ancient and ever new, is born.