12-15-23

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
December 15, 2023
I ran to grab some lunch yesterday, and of course, the radio was blasting some Christmas music so that I could sing along with equal enthusiasm. The hymn, Hark! the Herald Angels Sing, was playing, and a certain section caught my attention:

…mild he lays his glory by, 
born that we no more may die, 
born to raise us from the earth, 
born to give us second birth.” 

I have only sung that verse close to 100,000 times, but as I drove up Stuebner, it struck me in a way it never had before. The laying aside of divine glory, an act of breath-taking humility, became the initial act and model by which rebirth was brought to the world. Or, as the Apostle Paul described it, “if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (Romans 6:8). For Paul, the act of humbly setting aside our old lives (arrogance and selfishness) is the beginning point for a new life with Christ. God did not simply tell us, but embodied it (incarnation) in the birth of the Christ Child. The way to true life is the way of self-giving, the relinquishing of what is not of God so that we can align ourselves with God. That is a true rebirth.

O Child of Grace, the one whom the angels announced, we are awe-struck before the great act of humility by which all glory was set aside and divine love took on flesh. Amen.