The Message of Christmas- God's free Grace given to us in Christ Jesus

I love the readings for Christmas. The message of Christmas is a message of Grace. Christmas beautifully expresses the Catholic emphasis on the Incarnation and the Evangelical emphasis on Grace.

In many religious systems, human beings grope after God. But in Christianity, God comes to us, God seeks human beings. God is the one who takes initiative in salvation. Not content to wait for humans to respond to God, God came to us in the Person of Jesus Christ. God not only came to us, but as John's Gospel says,  "became flesh and lived among us (literally, 'tabernacled among us,' or 'pitched his tent among us')." 

God shared our life, that we might share God's life. Joan Osborne had a hit in the 1990's called, What if God Was One of Us? But Christianity claims that God indeed was, and is, one of us. 

God was born of a woman, experienced birth and was an infant. Luke's gospel states that Jesus "grew in wisdom and stature," just like all human beings must do. He suffered. He experienced pain and hunger, heart ache and sorrow, joy and happiness. Jesus is like us in all things, yet, "without sin" the writer of Hebrews tells us. 

The Incarnation is an expression of God's grace. In the Incarnation, God unites human and divine nature, by God's own initiative. 

The readings for Christmas reminds us that we are saved by God's grace, and that we only need to receive Christ in order to be saved, and have communion with God. 

The gospel reading from John chapter 1 says,  "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God (John 1.13)." 

The epistle reading from Titus 3 says "But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit." 

We cannot be saved by our good works, but only by the grace of Christ. This grace is clearly shown us in the Incarnation. We need only to receive Christ to receive God's Grace. 

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Collect:
"Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen".

-Collect for the Nativity of our Lord from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer

Epistle Reading:

But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. - Titus 3.4-7, NRSV

Gospel Reading:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” ’) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

- John 1.1-18, NRSV