The opening words of Hebrews soar with Christological passion: “In the past God spoke through the prophets. . . . In these final days, though, he spoke to us through a Son” (ceb). And who could not hear these overtones in the Nicene Creed: “We believe in the one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, . . . begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.”
God gave God’s self, in the form of the Son, as a sacrifice to cleanse people of sin. God thereby set about saving and redeeming the world in the same way God created the world—through goodness, blessing, and love.
Jesus, unlike any angel, human, or other entity of God’s creating, is exactly like God from the beginning and is God’s fullness in human form. Jesus gave himself to God’s saving work so completely that he lived and loved fully, and he gave his life as the redeeming power of God’s love and grace. In the Son, God fully closed the gap between God and humanity.
In two days we will try to take into ourselves the reality of what God did through that one birth. A son is given. “In these final days” . . . would that we could place ourselves in the bliss and urgency of “the final days” when in Christ, God perfects the world and we become all that God ever dreamed we could be. Jesus’ birth affirms again that God believes in us and is never finished with us. In Jesus, God gave God’s whole being and took up residence with us. And God will reside with us as long as it takes for God’s sovereignty of love and grace to redeem all of creation.