Our Saviour, dearly-beloved, was born today: let us be
glad. For there is no proper place for sadness, when we
keep the birthday of the Life, which destroys the fear of
mortality and brings to us the joy of promised eternity.
No one is kept from sharing in this happiness. There is
for all one common measure of joy, because as our Lord the
destroyer of sin and death finds none free from charge, so
is He come to free us all. Let the saint exult in that he
draws near to victory. Let the sinner be glad in that he
is invited to pardon. Let the gentile take courage in that
he is called to life. For the Son of God in the fullness
of time which the inscrutable depth of the Divine counsel
has determined, has taken on him the nature of man,
thereby to reconcile it to its Author: in order that the
inventor of death, the devil, might be conquered through
that (nature) which he had conquered. And in this conflict
undertaken for us, the fight was fought on great and
wondrous principles of fairness; for the Almighty Lord
enters the lists with His savage foe not in His own
majesty but in our humility, opposing him with the same
form and the same nature, which shares indeed our
mortality, though it is free from all sin. Truly foreign
to this nativity is that which we read of all others,
no one is clean from stain, not even the infant who has
lived but one day upon earth" (Job 19.4). Nothing
therefore of the lust of the flesh has passed into that
peerless nativity, nothing of the law of sin has
entered. A royal Virgin of the stem of David is chosen,
to be impregnated with the sacred seed and to conceive
the Divinely-human offspring in mind first and then in
body. And lest in ignorance of the heavenly counsel she
should tremble at so strange a result , she learns from
converse with the angel that what is to be wrought in
her is of the Holy Ghost. Nor does she believe it loss
of honour that she is soon to be the Mother of God. For
why should she be in despair over the novelty of such
conception, to whom the power of the most High has
promised to effect it. Her implicit faith is confirmed
also by the attestation of a precursory miracle, and
Elizabeth receives unexpected fertility: in order that
there might be no doubt that He who had given
conception to the barren, would give it even to a
virgin.
2. The mystery of the Incarnation is a fitting theme for joy both to angels and to men
Therefore the Word of God, Himself God, the Son of God who
in the beginning was with God,
through whom all
things were made
and without
whom was
nothing made" (John 1.1-3), with the purpose of
delivering man from eternal death, became man: so
bending Himself to take on Him our humility without
decrease in His own majesty, that remaining what He was
and assuming what He was not, He might unite the true
form of a slave to that form in which He is equal to
God the Father, and join both natures together by such
a compact that the lower should not be swallowed up in
its exaltation nor the higher impaired by its new
associate. Without detriment therefore to the
properties of eithersubstance which then came together
in one person, majesty took on humility, strength
weakness, eternity mortality: and for the paying off of
the debt, belonging to our condition, inviolable nature
was united with possible nature, andtrue God and true
man were combined to form one Lord, so that, as suited
the needs of our case, one and the sameMediator between
God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, could both die with
the one and rise again with th e other.
Rightly therefore did the birth of our Salvation impart no
corruption to the Virgin's purity, because the bearing
of theTruth was the keeping of honour. Such then beloved
was the nativity which became the Power of God and the
Wisdom of God even Christ, whereby He might be one with us
in manhood and surpass us in Godhead. For unless He were
trueGod, He would not bring us a remedy, unless He were
true Man, He would not give us an example. Therefore the
exulting angel's song when the Lord was born is this,
Glory to God in the Highest,
and their message,
peace on earth to men of good will
(Luke 2.14). For they see that the
heavenly Jerusalem is being built up out of all the
nations of the world: and over that indescribable work
of the Divine love how ought the humbleness of men to
rejoice, when the joy of the lofty angels is so great?
3. Christians then must live worthily of Christ their Head
Let us then, dearly beloved, give thanks to God the
Father, through His Son, in the Holy Spirit , Who for
His great mercy, wherewith He has loved us,
has had
pity on us: and when we were dead in sins, has
quickened us together in Christ
(Ephesians 2.4-5), that we might be
in Him a new creation and a new production. Let us put
off then the old man with his deeds: and having
obtained a share in the birth of Christ let us renounce
the works of the flesh. Christian, acknowledge your
dignity, and becoming a partner in the Divine nature,
refuse to return to the old baseness by degenerate
conduct. Remember the Head and the Body of which you
are a member. Recollect that you were rescued from the
power of darkness and brought out into God's light
and kingdom. By the mystery of Baptism you were made
the temple of the Holy Ghost: do not put such a denizen
to flight from you by base acts, and subject yourself
once more to the devil's thraldom: because your
purchase money is the blood of Christ, because He shall
judge you in truth Who ransomed you in mercy, who with
the Father and the Holy Spirit reigns for ever and
ever. Amen.
