Eternally Begotten of the Father

Christmas Mass of the Day

We celebrate birthdays because it recalls the beginning of human life. Well, that isn’t exactly true. Life begins from the moment of conception but the pro-choicers, of course, will argue that this is a disputed fact.

But is this the reason why we celebrate this day with such great fanfare - for isn’t this the day of our Lord’s birth? Yes, but Christmas does not mark the beginning of the life of Christ. The glory of Christmas is that it is not the beginning of Christ. Most people would be familiar with the Christmas story told at the Christmas Mass during the night. Few remember the larger story which is told this morning, a story which is as essential to Christmas as the story of the birth in Bethlehem.

Long before that first Christmas, our Lord’s story had begun — not just in various prophecies, but in a divine person. Christmas may be the opening of the climactic chapter, but it is not the commencement of Christ. Christmas does indeed mark a conception and a birth. We rehearse the tale of Mary giving birth in the Bethlehem stable, and the shepherds’ visit to pay homage to her new-born son, and read she “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart”. For mere humans, no doubt, such is the stuff of our origins, memories to be treasured and cherished. Prior to earthly beginnings, we simply did not exist.

But it is not so with the Son of God. His “coming forth is from of old, from ancient days” (Micah 5:2). Unlike every other human birth, Christmas is not a beginning, but a becoming. Christmas isn’t His start, but His commission. He was not created; He came. No other human in the history of the world shares in this peculiar glory. As remarkable as His virgin birth is, His pre-existence sets Him apart even more distinctively, even as He is fully human, He is also fully divine.

This is what we profess in the Creed. Christ, the Word made flesh, is eternally begotten of the Father. He was not “made,” He was not “created.” Unlike us who are created from nothing, there wasn’t a time when He was not! He was “begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.” This eternal generation from the Father happens outside of time, in the mystery of eternity. Yes, we acknowledge that through the Virgin Mary, He was born in the flesh, He was born in time. But being God, He existed before His human mother. In fact, it was Him who created His own mother, something none of us can claim.

Christmas is far more than the celebration of a great man’s birth. God Himself, in the second person of the Godhead, entered into our space, and into our frail humanity, surrounded by our sin, to rescue us. He came. He became one of us. God sent God. The Father gave His own Son for us and for our salvation.

The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem is the birth given most attention at Christmas. But if you don’t see this birth in connexion with the eternal birth of the Word from the Father, then you miss what is essential. Then all that is left is a warm fuzzy story: a sweet child who for a few moments may touch your heart, but who is really not allowed to seize your heart. You may have another tale of the birth of a great hero, but not a saviour which this world really needs.

God’s Incarnation is the greatest mystery in Christianity, the most incomprehensible and unfathomable. How can the great God make Himself so little? How can this vulnerable, crying baby be “my Lord and my God”? It is precisely this mystery that is the great stumbling block for non-Christians; but is the very same mystery which defines us as “Christians.”

If you believe this truth, you have the solution to all the riddles and difficulties in the world. Then you can no longer doubt that God loves His creation. That the Almighty God has become a little child, for our sake, is a definitive proof of the definitive victory of His love. To doubt that you are loved by God is only possible if you forget the manger. And if you do not wish to forget the manger, never forget that this Child is eternally begotten of the Father before all ages. Jesus is the Son of Mary but He is also the Son of God. Gloria in excelsis Deo!