Word for the day by Christian Education Forum

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A Blessed and Merry Christmas to All!
Our Lord Comes

Rev. Manoj Idiculla

Carmel Mar Thoma Church, Boston
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Vs.14
 John starts his Gospel by referring to Christ as the Word of God. The first five verses of John's Gospel says quite a lot about Jesus. It is a grand introduction to the Son of God and the Savior of the world. The rest of the book is a record which was written to show "that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name." John 20:31.
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” We are celebrating the coming of our Lord Jesus today. Christmas is God continuing to give life to His people. Christmas, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, is the “festival of re-creation.” It is God giving God’s own life to His people. It is as if God said, “I want humanity to see my face. I want them to hear my voice. I want them to touch me. I want to live their life. I want them to live my life.” This is God in the flesh, the divine human, holy humanity.
Michael K. Marsh says, this festival of re-creation is God’s celebration of humanity. It is God entrusting God’s self to human beings, to you and to me. It is God’s reaffirmation of humanity’s goodness. It is the sharing and exchanging of life between God and you and me. That’s why the early church could say that God became human so that humanity might become God. The Son of God became the son of man so that the sons of men might become sons of God. Divinity was clothed in humanity so that humanity might be clothed in divinity.
 It means we are holy and intended to be holy, not as an achievement on our own but as a gift of God. This is the gift of Christmas. God sees humanity as the opportunity and the means to reveal Himself. Yet far too often we use our humanity as an excuse. “I’m only human,” we declare, as if we are somehow deficient. We fail to see, to believe, to understand that in the Word becoming flesh and living among us we are God’s first sacrament.  There is the sacramental image of God in us.  We have been given the power to become children of God. This happens not by blood, or the will of the flesh, or the will of people, but by God.

PRAYER

Lord, fill us with your Holy Spirit and help us to be a living sacramental image of God. Amen
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
Human beings are the tangible, outward and visible signs and carriers of God’s inward and spiritual presence. -  Michael K. Marsh 

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