4^th April 2014

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 23 March 2014

Lessons - Isaiah 7:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 1:26-35; John 1:1-5,10-14

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God . . . who,
for us and for our salvation, came down from heaven, was incarnate of
the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and became truly human.' (Nicene Creed)

Last week we reflected on what the Creed says about the divinity of Christ. Against the plausible view that Jesus was similar to God, the Creed insists that he was 'of one Being with the Father'. It expresses the puzzling and thrilling reality of his presence, in ways beyond our usual ways of thinking, by composing a hymn-like affirmation to his being 'God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God'.

The Creed stretched language to breaking-point to acknowledge Christ as 'the only begotten Son of God' who was 'eternally begotten of the Father'
and thus 'begotten, not made'. We saw how the relation between Father and Son is, in some respects, like our human relationships but, in others, so different that new expressions had to be devised. The reality of God's love for the world as Father, Son and Holy Spirit demanded a radically new formulation of belief.

Against Arius, the Creed affirms that Jesus Christ was not a hybrid figure
- half God and half human - but the 'only Son of the Father'. This goes with the affirmation that he 'was incarnate of the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and became truly human'.

Those who are scandalised that a human being is accorded divine status are equally appalled by the claim that the Creator should become enfleshed uniquely in a particular person. They cannot accept primitive nonsense because it suggests that Jesus is not really human and can have nothing to do with us 'mere mortals'. Many fall silent at this point!

We need to be clear about what the Creed is saying - and not saying - about the earthly 'coming' of Jesus.

* It affirms that God is fully present in the person of Christ. The Son who is 'eternally begotten' has 'come down from heaven'. Once again, words and concepts fail us! We are apt to think literally of 'space' in terms of identifiable places and 'time' in terms of chronological sequence. So, 'heaven' is

* up there where God lives and 'earth' is the landing pad for the divine skydiver. And being 'eternally begotten' means being born at a specific time long ago.

We must think metaphorically if we are to see what the Creed is straining to say about the magnificence of God! Because 'heaven' signifies the presence of God, the Creed confesses that Jesus is of and from God. And because 'eternally begotten' signifies the complete unity of love that has always existed between Father and Son, the Creed confesses that this God, the True God, is present in Jesus.

This is amplified by what is said about Jesus 'becoming incarnate by the Holy Spirit'. His incarnate birth, as in Luke and Matthew, is not a biological accident, or just another birth, but the direct result of a unique act of God. The fact that we baulk at the idea that, according to Luke and Matthew, Jesus did not have a biological father shows how easy it is to misread what they meant. By stressing his birth to Mary, they intended us to see the full humanity of the 'only begotten Son of God'.

It did not occur to them that excluding Joseph risked Jesus' humanity. In the ancient world, many great leaders (Plato, Alexander) were thought to be 'fatherless'. Jesus was one of history's great figures!

But the Gospel writers also distanced him from pagan myths about the gods (Zeus, Apollo) mating with women to create biological freaks (Hercules).
Compared with stories of the gods' wild sexual excesses, the Gospels and the creeds are very restrained.

It is notable that the Nicene Creed does not use the more abstract language of 'begetting' (Greek: genesis) when speaking of Jesus' birth.
Both the Nicene and the Apostles' Creeds use earthier, more physical language to highlight the bodiliness of Jesus' birth. But the Nicene Creed moves further than 'was born of the Virgin Mary' (Latin: natus in the Apostles' Creed) to 'was incarnate of the Virgin Mary' (Greek:
sarkothenta).

Arius and his followers agreed that Jesus was born of Mary. What they could not accept is that this special person born to Mary was the very embodiment of the triune love of God: that the 'only Son' who was 'eternally begotten of the Father' has taken upon himself our frail flesh and fully identified himself with our scarred humanity.

Once more our ideas and words are stretched to accommodate a breathtaking reality! If it were not for the historical presence of this puzzling and enthralling person 'in the flesh' (at a particular time and place) we could not think or speak like this. It only makes sense when, like the shapers of the Creed, we are unsettled, stirred, engaged and thrilled by the One Person who does not fit our preconceived ideas about God and humanity. As the Incarnate Son he embodies both the deity of God and the fullness of humanity.

The miracle of the incarnation affirmed in the Nicene Creed led later Councils (Ephesus 431; Chalcedon 451) to call Mary, not only the 'mother of Jesus' (as most agree) or the 'mother of my Lord' (Elizabeth in Luke
1:42ff) or 'the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ' (a Roman liturgy), but the 'Mother of God' or the 'God bearer' (Greek: theotokos). Specifically, the Church confessed faith in Jesus Christ 'born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the manhood'. Once again, language is to say what must be said - that Jesus Christ is the very presence of God among us and that he is one with us in our humanity.

The point of these affirmations is not to deify Mary, but to stress Jesus'
full participation in our human life. The Son of God was born of a woman (Galatians 4:4). Therefore, as the 'Mother of God according to his humanity' she points us to the significance of Christ's coming on earth.
She is the 'God-bearer' who points the world to the Person in whom God's eternal love for humankind has been uniquely and decisively 'embodied'.

Therefore, what happens in her body is the sign that God who is the Creator of space and time has come into space and time and taken upon himself our human nature in order to heal our fractured lives.

In pointing to the mystery of God's presence in the body of Christ, Mary speaks to those who reject the idea that 'the Son of God' ('my Lord') should 'take frail flesh and die'. And she speaks to those who deny that a particular person could embody the 'Being of God'. She speaks to us whenever we 'spiritualise' Jesus (and deny his humanity) or 'humanise' him in our own image (and deny his divinity).

This is well expressed by Martin Luther:

'For if this foundation stands and is ours by faith - that Christ is
both, God's Son and the Virgin's Son, in one Person, though of two
different natures, of the divine from eternity through the Father, of
the human nature through his birth from Mary - then I have all that
is necessary, and it is superfluous for me to let my thoughts flit
heaven-ward and explore God's will and plan.' (Luther's Works Vol 24
Sermons on the Gospel of St John Ch 14-16, American edition.) That
is, it is futile to let our thoughts about God wander from the
magnificence of the incarnation!

The magnificence of the incarnation confers a dignity on us like no other.
Humans have been given a unique glory and life is sacred. This has implications for ethics. Since the splendour of the Father's eternal love for the world - in all its beauty and brokenness - has been supremely enfleshed in the Incarnate Son, we are summoned to defend the dignity of every person from conception to death and protest the abuse of our most vulnerable brothers and sisters.

Anything less diminishes the true glory of God embodied in the love of the One who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, was born of Mary and was crucified and raised from the dead.

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Rev Dr Max Champion is the minister of St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is a member of the Council of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.