Of the Word’s Light Begotten: A Christmas Day Sermon
Anthony G. Cirilla
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy Sight, O Lord my Strength and my Redeemer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Merry Christmas! The hymn that we just sang is by one of my favorite poets, Prudentius, and was written over sixteen hundred years ago. Like a theologian’s commentary, the peace this ancient Christmas hymnist gave to his first audience still speaks to us on this Christmas morning in a way that brings together our Scripture readings so beautifully.
Verse 1: “Of the Father’s Love begotten,/Ere the world began to be/Christ is Alpha and Omega,/He the Source, the Ending He.” Notice how Prudentius entwines Revelation 22:13 where Christ says that He is the Alpha and Omega, with today’s Gospel lesson, John 1:1-3: “IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made,” and connects this likewise to John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten son.” Prudentius reminds us that the Incarnation is not just about the Son of God becoming flesh. It is also about the Father’s love. When we think of the Incarnation, yes we think of the Second Person of the Trinity who came because He loves us, but we also think of the Father who loves His Son with the full love of infinite grace and truth, and in that fullness of love for that Son, sent him to die for us.
Verse 2: “O that birth forever blessed,/when a virgin, full of grace,/by the Holy Ghost conceiving,/bore the Savior of our race;/and the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,/first revealed His sacred face.” The second verse of the hymn reminds us of the twofold nature of the Incarnation as a miracle of the highest order but as concretely and historically embodied, as we learn in Luke 1:35 when the archangel Gabriel tells Mary, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” The Virgin bore the son, and that son has a face. And here we get an insight into our relationship with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit administers the Father’s love to the human race through the Virgin Mary. To think of the Incarnation, we must think of the Holy Spirit as involved in the great mystery of bringing into perfect and total unity the Son of God with the body of that Son of Man. This historical event is the cornerstone pattern that makes it possible for you and me to be Christians and receive the work of the crucifixion. When we put our sins at the foot of the Cross, we begin to share in Divinity where Christ’s grace envelops us much as his Divinity achieved union with his humanity.
Verse 3: “This is He whom heav’n-taught singers/sang of old with one accord,/whom the Scriptures of the prophets/promised in their faithful word;/now He shines, the long-expected;/let creation praise its Lord.” Prudentius alludes here to our Epistle, Hebrews 1:1: “GOD, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.” We cannot properly dwell in the healing shadow of the Cross, if we do not realize that God planned to reconcile us to Him before the foundation of the world. In Genesis 3, God lays out his plan to raise up the seed of a woman to be the New Adam, Christ who obeys the will of the Father where the first man had not, much as Mary is in some sense a new Eve, insofar as she is the woman who bore a miraculous son of salvation where Eve had borne murderous sons of sin. From Genesis to Malachi, every book of the Old Testament acts like a kind of beam of a searchlight illuminating one grand truth: the Christ who came two thousand years ago did not simply come to make the world a better place, but to bring light to my darkness, and to your darkness, and to the darkness of any who would turn to him.
Verse 4: “O ye heights of heav’n, adore Him;/angel hosts, His praises sing:/pow’rs, dominions, bow before Him/and extol our God and King;/let no tongue on earth be silent,/every voice in concert ring.” Here Prudentius calls all Christians to our joyful duty to use our words to praise the Word. Genesis 1 says that we are made in the image of God, and if Jesus is the Word, then our ability to speak is an essential part of how we reflect our Creator. The words we use are so fundamental to shaping our minds and our perceptions, and yet we use and abuse our words so casually. But the words of Christmas should be on the tip of our tongues at all times. As Paul wrote to Titus in the alternative Christmas Day Epistle, “we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Our words should be servants and mirrors of the Word; each spoken word carrying a ray of the Light of Christ, our Christmas cheer not merely a festivity but an overwhelming truth that bursts out of us: nothing less than singing with our whole voice can begin to match the joy of the honor and glory owed to the victory and dominion of the Trinity through the Incarnation over all darkness.
Verse 5: “Christ, to Thee with God the Father,/and, O Holy Ghost, to Thee,/hymn and chant and high thanksgiving/and unwearied praises be,/honor, glory, and dominion,/and eternal victory,” In the final verse of his hymn, Prudentius sums up how our Scripture readings point our thanksgiving to all three persons of the Trinity when we remember the Incarnation. The alternative Gospel reading for today from Luke 2 is appropriate to cite here, which an angel spoke illuminated in heavenly light: “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.” Today, we stand in the light of the Christmas Word, a light begotten by the Son, who wishes to immerse us in the same Love of the Spirit He receives eternally from the Father. The same God who authored the light of the sun became a man who authored the light of salvation, and He longs not only to save us but to make us brilliant with the light Begotten of His Word. On this Christmas morning, let the words in our minds and on our lips and in our hearts shine so brightly with the light of Christ, that we feel our mortal flesh fall silent as our spirits shout with praise for the glory of God’s bright splendor, knowing that when Christ returns He will chase out every shadow in us that resists the dawn of His righteous reign. Compassed with angels from realms of glory, Our Lord will then shine upon us with His grace and truth evermore and evermore! Amen.