The Incarnation

Sheffield Cathedral. Evening Prayer with Hymns (Christmas 1) – 29.12.13
Readings: Isaiah 49.7-13; Philippians 2.1-11

In this season of Christmas we will have familiarised ourselves once again with those hymns that are now such an integral part of our Christian tradition. Hymns such as:

• Hark the herald-angels sing (Charles Wesley, 1708-88)
• Angels from the realms of glory (James Montgomery, 1771-1854)
• O come, all ye faithful (Latin, 18th cent., tr. F. Oakley, 1802-80)
• In the bleak mid-winter (Christina Rossetti, 1830-94)

For many of us they will, over the years, have soaked into our very being and each year they surface again like old friends, reminding us of what the heart of Christmas is all about. Yes, of course, they sometimes trip off the tongue as we sing them with gusto; but when we take time to reflect on the words of the great Christmas hymns they remind us of the theology on which our Christian faith is built. The God of the universe entered into our humanity in the most astonishing way possible, being born as one of us.

Thus, in ‘Hark the herald-angels sing’ is the line: Veiled in flesh the Godhead see: hail, the incarnate Deity, pleased as Man with man to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel.

Verse 2 of ‘Angels from the realms of glory’: Shepherds, in the field abiding, watching o’er your flocks by night, God with man is now residing, yonder shines the infant Light.

Verse 2 of ‘O come, all ye faithful’: God of God, Light of Light, lo, he abhors not the Virgin’s womb; very God, begotten, not created.

Verse 2 of ‘In the bleak mid-winter’: Our God, heaven cannot hold him nor earth sustain; heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign: in the bleak mid-winter a stable-place sufficed the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Our theology of the incarnation is carried in a rich tradition of Christmas hymns, many of those with which we are most familiar dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. Our second reading this evening, however, included a much more ancient Christian hymn in which the mystery of the incarnation is referenced. Paul’s letter to the Church at Philippi was written around 61AD, possibly when he was under house arrest in Rome. He exhorts the fledgling Christian community at Philippi as follows:

‘Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.’ (Philippians 2.5-8)

Paul is encouraging the Philippians to follow the example of Christ’s humility, demonstrated through the manner of his birth which exemplified his complete identification with humankind in all its messiness and brokenness. This profound truth was demonstrated further throughout the lifetime of Jesus as he befriended the very people whom the rich and powerful despised.

In the humility of Christ we see the very nature of God, not as a Deity who sits remote above the heavens, looking on dispassionately from a distance at the struggles of humanity and meting out random experiences of suffering. No, that is the sort of caricature that Richard Dawkins loves to denigrate while failing to realise that most Christians also disbelieve in such a God. The God whom we see in Christ could not be more different.

Paul’s words speak as powerfully to us as to his first audience. They are an encouragement for us to shape our lives after the pattern of Christ. This is no easy task in a world that puts more emphasis on power and wealth than on humility and service. What we can do is keep moving forward, step by step, in a process of incremental change so that we align ourselves with the mind of Christ. And there is no better way to do this than to meditate on the wonder of God’s love for us conveyed through Paul’s great hymn, and those other hymns that have been with us over the past days.

The world is a different place because of what happened at Bethlehem. In Christ we are different people, and through Christ we can make a difference to others. All the great hymns of our faith reach towards an expression of this divine mystery. Like poetry they help us to touch that truth beyond words, but which lives in our hearts: that God is with us.
I close with a poem written in 1926 by Dr James Allen:

One Solitary Life
He was born in an obscure village, the son of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter’s shop until he was thirty. Then for three years he became a wandering preacher.
He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a house. He didn’t go to college. He never visited a big city. He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of those things one usually associates with greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.
He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies and went through a mockery of a trial. He was executed by the state. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind’s progress. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that One Solitary Life.