Peace and Good Will Toward Men: A Christmas Meditation on Luke 2

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree

from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)

 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth,

into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem;

(because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife,

being great with child.

 

And so it was, that, while they were there,

the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son,

and wrapped him in swaddling clothes,

and laid him in a manger;

because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field,

keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them,

and the glory of the Lord shone round about them:

and they were sore afraid.

 

And the angel said unto them,

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,

which shall be to all people.

 For unto you is born this day in the city of David

a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you;

Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes,

lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude

 of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace,

good will toward men.

 

Merry Christmas! It is joyous phrase that to my mind, simply can’t be said enough this time of year.  It is an exuberance which proceeds forth from something far deeper than a mere holiday greeting, something that St. Luke records in the second chapter of his Gospel.  On that first Christmas night, when the blessed Virgin Mary, with her husband and protector St. Joseph at her side, gave birth to the Son of God.  Never in the history of the world had there ever been anything like it, and never again will there ever be:  the Lord God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen, the Rock of Ages who transcends all time and space and before Whom all things are fully known and present, entered our fallen world and took our humanity into Himself, that our relationship with Him might be restored forever.  It is the great miracle of the infinite, transcendent, impassible God who deigns to be in our present moment, that He might show forth His good will to all mankind by bringing them His peace.  It is a moment that reverberates across all of heaven and earth, as the Holy Angels fill the vaults of heaven with their magnificent song of proclamation—a moment that still rings today.

 

Theologians note this event as the Incarnation (technically begun with the Annunciation to Mary and her divine, miraculous conception of Jesus) where the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Eternal Word of the Father, is sent by the power of the Holy Spirit to become man.  In doing so, the person of the Son is forever established as two indivisible natures:  one fully divine, begotten of the Father before all ages, neither made nor created, and possessing all the divine attributes of the Holy Trinity; and one nature which is fully human, possessing all that is essential to humanity including a body, soul, and mind, all without sin, received from the nature of His mother, Mary.  How precisely God preserved this human nature received from the blessed Virgin Mary so that Jesus might be born of her without sin, has been debated for centuries, but the Scriptures are silent in this regard.  Whether you are of the pious opinion that Mary herself was miraculously prepared and preserved without sin (a kind of preventative grace looking ahead to the Cross) like a new ark for the carrying of the Eternal Word, or that the miracle was part of Jesus’ conception in the womb accomplished simply by the power of God’s Word and Spirit, the result is the same:  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is made flesh to dwell among us, full of grace and truth.  He was, and is to all eternity, fully God and fully man, reconciling in Himself the whole human race to the Father.

 

It is far too often an oddity of theologians to fixate on the esoteric, the mysterious, and the obscure, trying to use the clumsy tools of human reason in plumbing the infinite depths of divinity, while somehow missing the wonder of the gift right before them.  Regardless of how God accomplished the Incarnation, and irrespective of our individual ability to apprehend even the rudimentary nature of such a miracle, the truth remains:  God and man are reunited in Jesus, and that is something worth meditating upon, not only at Christmas, but every single day of eternity.  What was originally created good in us, but lost through our rebellion and pride, is restored by Jesus; the dignity our divine image we lost as a human race, is repaired by Jesus; the hopeless aspirations of every living soul struggling in a fallen world to be all that they were created to be, is remade in Jesus; the bodies, souls, and minds of all people, cursed by their own sin to an eternity of death and destruction, are forgiven and made whole again in Jesus.  All that we lost in our fallen humanity, Jesus Christ has brought back to us through His Incarnation, that He might walk our paths of death, despair, and judgement in our place, giving to us His victory over every evil which plagues us and our world.

 

Reformation Christians often focus heavily on the Cross, and for good reason—it is at the Cross where Jesus takes the sins of the world upon Himself in the Vicarious Atonement for all mankind, securing for us our salvation by grace through faith in Him alone.  But we would be remiss to forget that what is accomplished at the Cross is only possible because of the Incarnation.  The promise made to Adam and Eve in the Garden after their fall, that a Son of the woman would crush the head of the satanic serpent and restore the world they had just condemned into millennia of sin, slavery, and death, was fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  Only God could take upon Himself the eternal condemnation due to every human soul through their own most grievous individual fault; and only a man could die for the sins of mankind.  There is no other solution to the fall of man, except the salvation accomplished by the God-Man, Jesus Christ.  Only as the Most Holy Trinity condescends to begin the New Creation through the Incarnation of the Son, is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus made efficacious for us, that as He has reconciled the world to the Father by His sacrifice, we, too, might be reconciled through Him to the Father, sealed by the Holy Spirit in Him forever.

 

This is the joy which shattered the heavens with angelic choirs nearly 2000 years ago, where heaven and nature sang forth a song of thanksgiving and glory to God for the accomplishment of His Word, which still echoes in undimmed beauty today.  Jesus Christ, eternally begotten Son of the Father, born of Mary in a particular time and place according to our nature, yet fully God according to His divine nature, is the love of God made manifest among us.  In Him is the hope of all ages, from the dawn of time to the end, for every tribe and tongue of man.  In Him alone is the narrow path of reconciliation with God, because in Him alone are all things made new.  In Him, the promise of God is made fresh to each and every soul who would hear His gracious Gospel of forgiveness, life, and salvation, and turn to Him in faith.  In Him alone do the saints and angels sing their everlasting song of joy and rapture, into whose choirs we also press, lending our voices to the never-ending chorus:

 

Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace,

good will toward men!

 

Amen—Soli Deo Gloria, and Merry Christmas!