Thy Nativity, O Christ our God, hath shined the light of knowledge upon the world; for thereby they that worshipped the stars were instructed by a star to worship Thee, the Sun of Righteousness, and to know Thee, the Dayspring from on high. O Lord, glory be to Thee.
So we pray this holy tide of Christmas, just beginning.
God is born.
Think of this: God became a human being. There is nothing like this in any religion prior to Christianity. How can you be sure of this?
God is no god.
First, God is no god. The use of the same English word for two very different types of beings confuses the less thoughtful. If God exists, God is all powerful. Logically there can be only one all powerful being. Beings such as Zeus, if they exist, are not all powerful, though very powerful. God could exist and Zeus (and other gods) not exist or Zeus could exist and God not exist. Given this, any story of a god taking on mortal form is not like the Incarnation.
The Word, the very Logos, omnipotence became a man.
Second, if Zeus became a man, that would be a diminution of his power, but might also improve his experiences of reality. Zeus as a god suffers the tedium of Olympus. The man Zeus would be able to fight, love, and feel in new ways. When God became a human, God remained fully God, or existence would have ceased, but also condescended to full humanity. He glorified us by becoming one of us. Nothing could make God less than God, but God could make a man divine.
In any case, the great myths never have Zeus, or any other god, becoming fully man, just putting on a meat puppet and using that simulacrum to adventure. God in the person of Jesus Christ showed radical solidarity with humanity. God took on a human will, nature, desires, and experiences. God in the flesh had two natures, two wills, in perfect synergy, so God did not play at being a man. God became flesh in the person of Jesus.
What else is unique? God had a mother: a real human mother who also gave full consent and cooperation to the divine act from start to finish.
True Theotokos: A Role Model
Mary was not just the mother of a baby boy, but of God.
Imagine the moment of birth of Jesus just like every human birth yet more than any human birth. Not one essential human experience was missing at the nativity of Jesus, but for the first time nativity harmonized fully with divinity. This birth, so like every other, was nothing like every other. Mary labored, but God also worked: the human and the divine joined in her womb based on her consent and actions.
She was not passive, but active.
Mary became the mother of the God-man Jesus and yet what was remarkable was not that she gave birth and nursed little Lord Jesus. This was all good, but in the natural and normal human order of things. What was remarkable was that from the time the Angel came and Mary gave her consent to God, she heard the Word of God and acted.
She chose to obey God and so brought true Light to a cave in Bethlehem. She bore God.
The Second Day
The second day of Christmas was not less remarkable than the first: God was still there. Baby Jesus was still growing. He was still fully God and fully man. We are given many days to ponder and celebrate this divine mystery: God is man, so man can become God.
We continue to feast, because we know that the Lord Christ must go to the Temple and wisemen are still coming to Bethlehem. There is so much more to experience as we allow the outer work of the old covenant to be fulfilled as Christ comes within us. We turn to nature and see His glory and come to worship Him.
Most of all, divine Love comes to us today and we can today emulate the Theotokos and say: “Let it be done unto me according to Your will. . . “ We can say “yes” to God and so have Christ enter us. We can bring Christ to our family, our neighbors, and our world and we need not even move. Just now we need only sit and ponder in Bethlehem.
Christ is born!
Glorify Him!
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