Christmas unwrapped – a Christmas exchange
This is the fourth in a series of Christmas studies.
…Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
Philippians 2:5-7 (NIVUK)
Christmas is a time of exchanges. Cards are exchanged, visits are exchanged, and presents are exchanged around the tree on Christmas Day, with the unwanted ones exchanged at the store on Boxing Day. But there is a bigger exchange to focus on at Christmas time. The creator of the universe exchanged heaven for earth. The eternal one, who can be neither created nor destroyed, willingly became subject to birth and death as he took on human likeness.
This is one sent from God as never before: this is no mere prophet, no mere messenger or guru. This is the one who was in very nature God, this is Immanuel: God with us (Matthew 1:23), who exchanged the throne of heaven for a manger (Luke 2:12).
Christmas celebrates the appearing of that eternal Word in our midst (John 1:1-4, 14). Christmas is the Most High God taking on sinful human flesh, participating in all that is painful, hurtful and limited, in order to redeem us, and provide reconciliation for us. Divinity exchanges heaven for a life on earth to undo Adam’s sin and restore us to the image of God, given at creation but spoiled by sin.
This is the wonderful exchange Christmas asks us to consider: God became like us so that we can become like God. God took on human life and accepted death so that we might die to our old self, and be raised to new life in Christ.
As Charles Wesley puts it in his majestic carol Hark the Herald Angels Sing:
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”
Let us join with the angels and give glory to the newborn king.
Prayer
Loving Father, we join the triumph of the skies, and with the angelic host proclaim: ‘Christ is born in Bethlehem’. We hail the incarnate Deity: pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
Study by Barry Robinson
Barry Robinson is a minister in Grace Communion International and Regional Pastor for Southern England, the Midlands, and Wales
Local congregation:
Grace Communion West Hampstead
Sidings Community Centre
150 Brassey Road
West Hampstead
London
NW6 2BA
Meeting time:
Sunday 12.30 pm
Local congregational contact:
Gordon Brown
gordon.brown@gracecom.church
Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church