Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Lessons and Carols Meditation - 2009

Pondering over the birth of the Savior is a good thing to do – and in this Service of Lessons and Carols that is exactly what we are doing together. Through these well known and oft read passages and through these old and familiar carols and choral pieces, the point is to join with our sister Mary and with the cloud of witnesses that have come since in honoring and pondering and worshipping Jesus who came in the flesh on the first Christmas.

Each year I take the opportunity to consider the words of Christmas sermons from St. Augustine who lived, preached, and wrote in the 4th century as Bishop in an area which today is known as North Africa, an area ruled in unbelief. A land that would do well to hear again the words from their departed saint. And we would do well to listen and ponder with him as well.

In one of his Christmas meditations, Augustine plays with the wondrous fact of Christ’s double birth – something I had not pondered before.

He writes: Christ begotten of the Father without a mother, Christ begotten of a mother without a father – two wondrous facts! The first begetting, eternal; the second, temporal. And when was He born of the Father? What is that – “when?” Regarding the first case, you are asking when – a case in which you will not find time? No, here you must not ask “when.” But regarding the second, you may ask “When.” “When was He born of a mother?” is a legitimate question; not so, “When was He born of His Father?”
He was born, yet is not bound to time. He was born from eternity – eternal, coeternal. Why do you marvel? He is God. Consider His divinity, and the cause of your marveling vanishes. And when we say, “He was born of a virgin,” this is something extraordinary – you marvel. He is God! You must not marvel. Let your surprise yield to thanksgiving. Have faith; believe, for this really so happened. If you do not believe, then this happened and yet you remain and infidel. He deigned to become man: what more do you ask? Is it not enough that God has been humbled for you? He who was God was made man. His was a poor little hut; He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, placed in a manger – who would not be amazed?

Augustine writes these simple yet profound thoughts – let me play with them for a moment with you.
First, everything about God is marvelous and in fact impossible to believe without faith. Some would say that we make Christmas so hard to believe and Christianity so hard to embrace in our modern world when we demand a confession that Jesus was born of a virgin. And yet, this is no harder to believe than to believe that Jesus is God, the Father is God, there is only one God, and yet they are two of three separate and distinct Persons of God. This is no harder to believe than the profession that God created all things from nothing by the power of His Word. This is no harder to believe than the doctrine that God has wonderfully predestined everything that comes to pass and yet we remain responsible individuals with real choices and real consequences before us.

Second, the miracle of the virgin birth is not simply about proving that Jesus must have therefore been God. More importantly it is a testimony to us that the Savior of Men, while having Himself to be a man, had to come from a new line, a new race – and so Jesus is referred to as the Second Adam. The Seed in the uterus of Mary was not from Joseph, nor any son of the First Adam. She was with child because this one was conceived of the Holy Spirit. A New Creation, a New Man, a New Way was coming forth. You and I, we need this new way – we need to be brought from the old race, the Old Adam, and be placed in the New Adam and the new Humanity. Only there will we find everlasting life and life removed from the curse of the old Adam.

All of these things require faith to believe – and that faith, like all faith, has to be rooted in an object – in this case a person. Let me spare you the lesson in apologetics and simply get to the point of meditation this evening. Pondering is a means by which God grants faith and grows that faith, matures that faith, and empowers that faith into a life of action – a life changed by these radical and wonderful truths.

Friends. Christmastime comes and goes as the years go by. Your life has come and in a few short years it will go by – it will whisp away like the smoke from one of those candles at your centerpiece on your table. What will never change – never go away – never end? This fact – God the Father sent His only and ever-begotten Son to save the world. Believe this and believe on Him – and you will be saved. What was only a whisp of smoke will be transformed into a sweet aroma of worship before the Lord. A life that would have only been used of God in revealing His wrath against unbelief and rebellion will have been transformed into an object of His mighty grace. This is the saving story of Christmas, of Jesus sent for you – if you would believe and come.

He has come to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found. Therefore, join with the everlasting song – Joy to the World, the Lord is Come.

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