students of jesus

Christmas has come and gone. I am in debt so deeply I have no hope of paying back what I owe, but this debt brings me hope and joy. I am in debt to God’s great Incarnational act of love.

Hidden in the North American holiday habit of excess and over-spending is a parable. The bank of Heaven extended me a line of credit so vast it cannot be calculated, and I drew on every bit of the amount. Our great debt to God is love. And like all great debt, the only way to pay it back is a little at a time, each payment a reminder of the grand total.

To stretch this simple metaphor to its ultimate degree, the Bank of Heaven has many locations, currently approaching seven billion on the planet: since all humanity is made in his image, everyone becomes a location where I can present an installment on so happy a debt.

If you have been taught that the only meaning of grace is free-forgiveness you will certainly take issue with this line of thinking. “That’s what grace is all about,” you protest, “we cannot pay the debt of sin, nor should we imagine we could ever earn our way to heaven.” In our day this particular truth is too true, yet I am not talking about sin. I am talking about something as different from sin as water is from sand. I am talking about the Father’s love. If Christmas were only about divine rescue from sin, then the sin-debt—paid in full—would be the end of the issue. When we understand that Christmas is not about our sin but rather God’s great love, we will see what we received at Christmas was an advance upon the love of God.

The economics of the Incarnation turn every business model on its head: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” The prudent Apostle Paul warned against the worldly debt but encouraged the debt of love: “Owe no one anything, except to love each other.” The love of God is the currency of Heaven, the coin of our payment to one another.

His genius is not compounding interest, but compounding equity. We repay the love debt with the very substance of the original act of God’s great love. All across the world, the love of God is repaid in acts of kindness done in his name. The effect is ever-increasing love, the source—and the payment—of our joyous debt.

From St. Gregory of Nazianzus (AD 380):

Christ is born, glorify Him. Christ from heaven, go out to meet Him. Christ on earth, be exalted. Sing to the Lord, all the whole earth; and that I may join both in one word, let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, for Him who is of heaven and then of earth. Christ in the flesh, rejoice with trembling and with joy; with trembling because of your sins, with joy because of your hope.

Again, the darkness is past; again, Light is made; again, Egypt is punished with darkness; again, Israel is enlightened by a pillar. The people who sat in the darkness of ignorance, let them see the great Light full of knowledge. Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. The letter gives way, the Spirit comes to the front. The shadows flee away, the truth comes in on them. Melchizedek is concluded. He who was without Mother becomes without Father (without mother of His former state, without father of His second).

The laws of nature are upset; the world above must be filled. Christ commands it, let us not set ourselves against Him. O, clap your hands together, all you people, because unto us a Child is born, and a Son given unto us, whose government is upon His shoulder (for with the cross, it is raised up), and His name is called The Angel of the Great Counsel of the Father.

Let John cry, prepare the way of the Lord; I, too, will cry the power of this Day. He who is not carnal is Incarnate; the Son of God becomes the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Let the Jews be offended, let the Greeks deride; let heretics talk until their tongues ache. Then shall they believe, when they see Him ascending into heaven; and if not then, yet when they see Him coming out of heaven and sitting as Judge.

This is our present Festival; it is this which we are celebrating today, the Coming of God to Man, that we might go forth, or rather (for this is the more proper expression) that we might go back to God—that putting off of the old man, we might put on the new; and that as we died in Adam, so we might live in Christ, being born with Christ and crucified with Him and buried with Him and rising with Him. For I must undergo the beautiful conversion, and as the painful succeeded the more blissful, so must the more blissful come out of the painful.

For where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; and if a taste condemned us, how much more does the passion of Christ justify us? Therefore, let us keep the Feast, not after the manner of a heathen festival, but after a godly sort; not after the way of the world, but in a fashion above the world; not as our own, but as belonging to Him who is ours, or rather as our master's; not as of weakness, but as of healing; not as of creation, but of re-creation.

Some things hide in plain sight. Others hide behind fancy names. And still others hide among the over-decorated trappings of tradition dressed up as garish holiday cheer. Sometimes it’s all three. 

The truth about Christmas is that God became a man. The transcendent Creator of the Universe, the One who sits outside his creation submerged himself in the work of his hands. The Playwright walked on stage in the middle of the show. The Coach became a player. The King became a commoner.

He wasn’t a Poser, pretending to be something other than what he was: he was born, and he grew; he came of age and took his place among us; he embraced his purpose and fulfilled it completely. He wasn’t slumming among us like some impostor: he laughed, he cried, he sweat. When we struck him, he bled. When we pierced him, he died.

Something as grand and wonderful as Christmas certainly has many sub-themes: peace on earth, goodwill toward men, hope for tomorrow, salvation for all, and the fulfillment of promise. We should listen to each line of the symphony and enjoy the beauty of each one. Put them all together than they point to the grand melody, that God became man.

When God became man, he demonstrated how to be human. His life, in the person of Jesus Christ, is the model of all lives, everywhere and in every time. Men from every age can look to Jesus has example. Women from every culture can discover fullness in him. God did not cheat the game by walking through life untouched by the trouble we face. He faced the same troubles we have faced, and indeed more, because to his trouble was added unique rejection of all mankind toward him. Humanity had never seen his type before, and the one encounter between God and humanity resulted in our utter rejection of him, but he responded with un-rejectable love.

You can have your shepherds, wise men, angels, and mangers. For me, the grandeur of Christmas is captured in the gospel, which places its cards on the table right from the start: 

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:9-14)

John tells us plainly, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John 1: 18)

What does God look like? He looks like Jesus. The Father spoke himself in Jesus. The countless words of every generation, arrayed in questions, arguments, songs and poems have been answered in the single Word, Jesus. The same Word that spoke creation into being speaks life into us today.

When God became man, it looked like Jesus, and he still does. If we aspire to the presence of God in our everyday, we are really aspiring to Jesus. Because he is human we have the hope of his likeness. Because he is God, we have the certainty of his promise. All other messages flow from the Word made flesh. He was announced as Emmanuel, and he continues to reveal himself as such: God is forever with us because he has forever pitched his tent in the person of Jesus, the true lesson of Christmas.

His body lies in state at Pretoria. World leaders assembled in Johannesburg, along with tens of thousands of citizens, to celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela. A great man has died and the world took note, mixed with wonder: young Mandela was jailed for violence against an unjust regime, and emerged 27 years later without anger or a thirst for vengeance.

It’s been instructive to watch the world’s reaction. Mandela’s life has been celebrated—and properly so! Still, leaders and pundits alike have referred to Mandela’s peaceful and forgiving leadership as “miraculous,” as if the man himself had no choice in his transformation. The celebration is over, and now he lies in state. It’s a time for reflection. The one question we should be asking about Mandela is how did he change?

Young Mandela had lost patience with the way of Ghandi and Dr. King. He was ready to take action. “We considered four types of violent activities,” Mandela said in his autobiography. “It made sense to start with the form of violence that inflicted the least harm against individuals.” Still, it was the path of violence. Many revolutionaries have chosen “measured” violence only to find themselves on a spiral staircase of harm.

Mandela’s long walk included heart change. It was not an accident. It was a considered choice. He was the master of those choices. The prison system could inflict harm on his body, but Mandela could still care for his soul.

Robyn Dickey’s insightful reflection in the L.A. Times observes:

Robben Island left him damaged. But without the years of self-examination and meditation — seeing positive things in his darkest hours — Mandela might never have become such a remarkable leader after he walked free.

"At least, if for nothing else," he wrote in a 1975 letter to his wife, "the cell gives you the opportunity to look daily into your entire conduct, to overcome the bad and develop whatever is good in you.

"Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying."

Mandela was a pragmatist, and that ability led him to care for his heart. The lesson for Students of Jesus is simply this: if a man, alone, left to his own resources can change and grow during 27 years of prison, how much more should we, who have the resource of the Spirit of God? Mandela's life teaches us about the nature of transformation: we have a role to play--and after we do our part, the resources of heaven can indeed turn us into miraculous brothers and sisters of Jesus.