Isaiah 52:7-10 ‘All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God’
Hebrews
1:1-6 ‘God has spoken to us by his Son’
John 1:1-18
‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us’
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The birth of a child is
always a time of awe and wonder.
Birth follows the
moment of the conception of that child some nine months earlier.
We only celebrate
Christmas Day, the nativity of Jesus Christ, because nine months ago, on 25th
March, we celebrated the Annunciation to Mary, when she is overshadowed by the
power of the Most High and the Holy Spirit, and the angel declares:
And behold, you, Mary, will conceive in your womb
and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. (Luke 1.31)
That is the moment of
incarnation, when ‘the Word became flesh’: not yet born but already recognised,
in the womb, by the unborn John the Baptist (Luke 1.41).
During Mary’s
pregnancy, as with any pregnancy, the time of gestation, Jesus was hidden in her
womb but will have become more and more obvious week by week.
And as with any human
baby Jesus was nourished by his mother as he grew.
We often think of the
child drawing life from his mother’s body; and indeed he does: but quite
remarkably the child in the womb doesn’t just receive; it gives!
Scientists call this
‘foetal microchimerism’ or a ‘cellular exchange’.
It means that just as
sustenance flows from the mother to the child, so also the child’s cells flow
through the umbilical cord into the mother’s body.
The mother and baby are
mutually enriched.
What a mystery and
awesome thing this is.
So, Mary giving to
Jesus by feeding him through the umbilical cord, and at the same time was
receiving from him; receiving cells that would remain in her for the rest of
her life.
The time of pregnancy
is not just about decorating a nursery, or buying baby clothes, but is a time
of deep inner formation too for mother and child: as has our spiritual
formation in the season of Advent just passed.
In a similar way - even
before Jesus Christ, the Word of God, took human flesh - God was gestating his
Word in humanity:
‘Long ago, at many
times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets’ opens the
letter to the Hebrews, ‘but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son’
(Hebrews 1.1).
Throughout the
scriptures the prophets see, and wisdom declares that the Lord will act on his
promise of the Good News that, ‘all the ends of the shall see the salvation of
our God’ (Isaiah 52.10).
What scientists call a
‘cellular exchange’ between mother and yet to be born child, theologians call a
‘divine exchange’ between God and humanity.
Yes, Mary gives Jesus
his humanity at the same time as her child, Jesus Christ gives to her - and to
you and me - his divinity, so that, with her, we can be ‘partakers of the divine
nature’ (2 Peter 1.4) and filled with grace.
As Hebrews continues:
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact
imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
(Hebrews 1.3).
The exact imprint of
God, Jesus Christ, dwelt in Mary’s womb, ready to be born in the manner of one
of us, because he is at the same time, one of us: ’of one being with the
Father…and was made man.’
This is all truly
awesome and wonderful.
The ancient words of a psalm,
written even before ultrasound scans were a thing, puts it like this:
For you yourself created my inmost parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully
made;
marvellous are your works, my soul knows well.
(Psalm 139.12,13)
Each, and every, human life
– you, me, everyone - is ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ and not only that, he
or she is made in the image of God.
What Christmas is all
about is that Jesus Christ is born with all the risk, trepidation and joy a
birth entails to make those made in the image of God more deeply into God’s
likeness.
He is not now solely
carried by his mother in her womb, but can be picked up and handled by Joseph,
by shepherds and by Magi, and in the deepest spiritual sense he can also be
embraced by each one of us.
As we receive Holy
Communion today that is what we are doing: we are opening ourselves to
something much more than ‘foetal microchimerism’ or a ‘cellular exchange’ it is
a divine and sacramental exchange going on: ‘where we dwell in him and he in
us’.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we
have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace
and truth. (John 1,14)
In this wonder we are ‘birthed’
by God – and here is the nub of Christmas:
…to all who did receive him, who believed in his
name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood
nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1.12,13)
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