Advent 2018 – 07

So how exactly do we “see” God? The familiar carol has the statement “Veiled in flesh the godhead see, hail th’ Incarnate Deity.” (Hark the Herald Angels Sing).

The Book of Colossians, which deals a lot with the insurgency of mystery cults in the early church, presents its own mystery of a sort. Colossians 1:19 says, “For all the fullness of God dwelt in him (Jesus) in bodily form.”

The Christmas affirmation is also the Christian affirmation: “That God became flesh and dwelt among us,” and this God who dwelt among us was in Jesus. The implications of the incarnation are staggering.

In the flesh and blood body of our Lord dwelt the eternal, powerful, God of Sinai and God of all creation. One little girl, wrestling in her child’s mind about this mystery, said, “It’s impossible for Jesus to live in me. I’m too little.”

And when we look at Bethlehem’s babe, we are tempted to think the same. “God can’t be in there… the baby’s so little!” And yet here is the mystery, that God became flesh… fully indwelt a human baby who was His Son. The word “fullness” implies nothing being left out.

Nothing of God was left out of Jesus. Truly, when we see Him, we see the Father!

“Born as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Immanuel.”


Prayer: Our Majestic Lord, great is the mystery of godliness. The mystery that You indwelt Jesus… His physical body… in all Your power, and majesty, and immensity, and You compressed it all into a babe in His mother’s womb. No less great is the mystery that, as Christ comes within us, You do the same in us. It is too much for us to understand, so we simply praise You for it.

In Christ who is all the fullness of deity we pray, Amen.

 

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