“There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus …” (1 Timothy 2:5).

The message of Christmas & of the Epiphany is one of revelation, salvation, redemption and reconciliation through the Incarnation & Manifestation of the Son of the Father, born of the Virgin Mary and named “Jesus”. But it only makes sense against the background of the biblical message of creation and human sinfulness.

There is the Creator and there are the created: there is God and there is mankind. God, the Creator and Judge, is eternal and dependent upon no other for he is self-existent and self-sufficient. In contrast, humankind is wholly dependent upon God for its existence. Human beings require God’s invisible presence and power to live, to procreate and to fulfil themselves as creatures.

The eternal and infinite God is a Trinity of Persons, who exists as a threefold communion of divine love. It is from this inter-personal communion of love that the Father through the Son and by the Holy Ghost creates human beings, made in the image of God and for friendship and communion with the same Holy Trinity.

For man, a rational creature, genuinely to love God and commune with him, he must be free to do so. Thus God made human beings free. Yet, they have used their God-given freedom to think and act in ways contrary to the known will of God. Thereby they became sinners and even enemies of God for they worked against the purposes of God. The whole human race has thereby lost its relation to God of communion and friendship and has come came under his judgment, as his disobedient creatures.

Thus God and man, though intimately related as Creator and created, are separated by an infinite gulf with no spiritual communion of friendship between them. So in mercy the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son & the Holy Ghost began his work of redemption by his choosing of Abraham and his descendants ( Israel ) and in his mighty deeds on their behalf and in his revelation to them. For the content of this important message we turn to and read the Old Testament.

Then in “the fullness of time” God the Father brought his revelation and his redemptive work to a wonderful and glorious climax. This climax is the story of Christmas and Epiphany – of the advent of the One Mediator, who is One Person with two natures, divine and human, even Christ Jesus , the Lord, the Incarnate Son of the Father.

Out of the Communion of love of the Holy Trinity, the Father sends the Son by the Holy Ghost into space and time to receive, in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a human nature. The only-begotten Son of the Father becomes the Son Incarnate, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, now possessing not only his divine nature but also a full human nature, and born as the son of Mary, and named Jesus by his adoptive father, Joseph.

Mary , who brings forth her first-born son and lays him in a manger, is later called by the Church, the Theotokos, the birth-giver of God [the Son]. Her son, who is the eternal Word made flesh is named Jesus [= Joshua , the Lord our salvation] and is Emmanuel [God with us].

The choirs of heaven greet the birth of the Mediator in Bethlehem and express glory to God. The Jewish Shepherds and the Astrologers /astronomers from the East are guided to offer worship and gifts to the new-born Mediator, Messiah of Israel and Saviour of the world. They represent the Jews and the Gentiles and they both see in the one infant the “one Mediator between God and mankind, Jesus the Christ.”

In this Jesus there is reconciliation between Jew and Gentile and more importantly between God and man. Jesus as Man fulfils the duty that the human being was created by God to achieve, the loving of God with heart, soul, mind and strength and the loving of the neighbour as one self. Then in his Death Jesus stands in the place of the human race offering to the Father a perfect obedience and a perfect sacrifice.

Since Jesus is the God-Man, what is achieved by his life of perfect obedience, love and faithfulness and by his perfect sacrifice in death offered to his Father, is of infinite and eternal worth. For while he lived and died as man, the fact that he is the Incarnate Son (one Person with a divine and human nature) means that there is an infinite value in his active and passive obedience. Thus he is the perfect Representative of and Substitute for mankind. Through, in and with Jesus there is a sure and everlasting way for man back to the Father. He is the Mediator through whom comes salvation, redemption. reconciliation and communion with God the Father by the Holy Ghost.

Thus those who repent of their sins, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and are baptized in water and the Spirit are adopted as children of God and restored to communion with God.

In The Book of Common Prayer, Christmas Day (Dec 25) and the Feast of the Epiphany (Jan 6) are major feast days when the Incarnation is celebrated in the Nativity of Jesus and when the manifestation of the Lord Jesus to the Gentiles is proclaimed. The twelve days of Christmas between the se Festivals is a special time not only of celebration of the Incarnation but also for the keeping of several other lesser but important holy days – St John the Evangelists Day (Dec 27); The Innocents’ Day (Dec 28) and the Circumcision of Christ (Jan l).

The Rev’d Dr Peter Toon December 2004