Meditation: Why Did He Come?
Christmas means that “the Word (the Eternal God) was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). In an attempt to capture the monumental humiliation God endured when He took on human flesh, C.S. Lewis likens it to our becoming a worm. Yet God did that for us in order to communicate His love to us.
Christmas means that Emmanuel has come: God is not an impersonal machine or a super power who runs the universe by remote control. He is a Person, “Emmanuel—God with us.” “And you shall call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins.” God is a Person who wants to establish a personal relationship with you. He is a Person to whom you can pray: a Person Who cares for you: a Person Who has reserved a place for you in heaven.
Christmas means that God has visited His people. But the word visit is inadequate if it means that He came to spend a few years with us and then leave us again. He came not just to visit but to stay: “Lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world.” With us in our joys, with us in our sorrows, with us in our living, with us in our dying, He came at Bethlehem. He comes now. And He will come again at the end time to judge the living and the dead.
Meditation: Why Did He Come?
Christmas means that “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” From now on we walk bravely through the valley of shadows for we walk hand-in-hand with Him Who is the Light of the World.
Christmas means that we do not have to be victimized and terrorized by the sins of the past. For God’s great gift to us at Christmas is a Savior; One Who came to wipe out the sins of the past. Clarence Jordan translates the verse “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself” this way: “God reached out in Christ to hug the universe and everyone in it.” On Christmas we try to hug Him back.
Christmas means that God cared enough to give the Best. “God so loved the world that He gave his only Son so that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have life” (John 3:16). If God cared enough to give the Best, then St. Paul is right when he writes in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not give us all things with Him?”
Meditation: Why Did He Come?
Christmas means that God comes to us in Person. He doesn’t send an angel or a saint or a prophet. He comes Himself. A person said to God once:
Don’t send Moses, Lord, don’t send Moses!
He broke the tables of stone.
Don’t send Elijah for me, Lord!
I am afraid of Elijah—
called down fire from heaven.
Don’t send Paul, Lord!
He is so learned that
I feel like a little child when I read his epistles.
O Lord Jesus, come yourself!
I am not afraid of You,
You took the little children
as lambs to Your fold.
You forgave the woman taken in adultery.
You healed the timid woman
who reached out in the crowd to touch You,
We are not afraid of You!
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
And He came!
~ Presbytera Emily Harakas & Fr. Anthony Coniaris, DAILY MEDITATIONS and Prayers for the CHRISTMAS ADVENT Fast and Epiphany: Living the Days of Advent and Epiphany according to the Orthodox Church Calendar
