“We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth.”
We beheld. Yet we can only behold what we are given to see. What we are given to see is something made. It is not the Word, but “the Word made flesh”. The shepherds say “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass,” literally, this saying that has happened, this Word that is made. God is the poet of Christmas. In Greek, poet means maker.
But the poet not only makes, he also makes known. We can only see “this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us”. We can only see in the light of God himself. Where God is, there his light is also.
By the light of God we are caught up into a greater understanding. We are born anew “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”; born from above into the company of the one whom we behold from above. His light perfects our light.
For by our own lights, we see but do not see. Our light is darkness. “He came unto his own and his own received him not.” Our seeing is without a beholding, without an embracing in faith and understanding what we are given to see. There is no receiving. But by this greater light – the light which accompanies the Word, the light of God as illuminating grace – our light is taken up into something more. We are received into what we receive. “We beheld his glory.” The greater light is the light of grace, the grace to behold what “the lord hath made known unto us”, “the Word made flesh”. The Word who wills to be made also wills to be made known.
What do we behold? It is almost as an after-thought, even as a parenthesis that we are told “we beheld the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth”. We behold God’s Son who is God’s Word and God’s Light.
Word, Light and Son. These are the three great images which belong personally and essentially to Jesus Christ. They are the trinity of his essential divinity, as it were, without which all our celebrations are nothing worth, but only vain pretensions against the dying of the light – our light, our dying.
“Love is in the nature of a first gift through which all gifts are given” (Aquinas). Love is the gift of the giver. God is the giver who gives himself to us. Such is the nature of God’s love that he gives without losing anything of himself. He is always and eternally what he is. Such is the mystery of Christmas. What does it mean for us? Our love as found in his love for us.
Love is the giving of ourselves for the sake of one another. Love is that opening out of ourselves in truth and goodwill, in forgiveness and peace, in kindness and thoughtfulness towards one another. Love is about beholding one another in the light of Christ.
The gift of Christmas is our beholding him who in the love of the Father ever beholds us. That love has been made known to us in our lives. It is the love that makes us love one another. It is the first gift through which all other gifts are given. The gift is love. God is the poet of Christmas, the one who makes and makes known.
“We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth.”
Fr. David Curry
AMD Xmas Service
Nov 29th, 2015