Day: December 29, 2024

“She shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS.”

The readings for the Sunday after Christmas provide an extended commentary on the radical meaning of the Incarnation. It is at once the redemption of our humanity and its restoration. Isaiah’s prophecy quoted in the Gospel about the Son born of the Virgin being named, “Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us,” finds its fullest meaning in Jesus as saviour. Note the emphasis – JESUS is printed in capital letters twice in this Gospel passage from St. Matthew.

The Gospel complements Paul’s theological reflection on the birth of Jesus Christ. While the Gospel gives the circumstances of his birth as being “on this wise,” particularly emphasizing Joseph’s dilemma and its solution, the Epistle offers a theological account of its meaning and purpose. It is “when the fulness of the time was come, [that] God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” These are the two makings that illuminate the meaning of Christmas about the divinity and humanity of Jesus. “‘God sent His Son” – there His divine [nature]; ‘made of a woman’- here His human nature”… “That from the bosom of His Father before all worlds; this, from that womb of His mother in the world” (Lancelot Andrewes, Xmas 1609). The Son of God is not made of a Spirit but made of a creature, made of a woman, “made very man of the substance of the Virgin Mary his mother; and that without spot of sin” (BCP, p.79).

As Irenaeus so wonderfully puts it, Christ is “that pure one, opening purely that pure womb [meaning Mary], which regenerates our humanity unto God and which he himself made pure” (Adv. Haer. IV. 33.11). His conception and birth which are about his being with us in the truth of our humanity is through the purity of Mary, the emblem of our true humanity considered simply qua human. That purity of our humanity belongs to the sinlessness of Christ. It is “but ex muliere, and no more; of the Virgin alone by the power of the Holy Ghost, without mixture of fleshly generation. By virtue whereof no original sin was in Him, just born He was, … and no law could touch Him”(Andrewes). In her we were never the better for factum ex muliere, for his being made of a woman, made of the pure substance of Mary. The classical and orthodox teaching is repeatedly and constantly that Christ is like us in all respects save sin. All this belongs to the first making, made of a woman.

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