Meditations for the Christmas Season

The awe of the Incarnation was not lost on the early church fathers. Here are a few of the fathers' thoughts on the Incarnation that are useful for meditation during this holy season:

“When seen as a babe and wrapped in swaddling clothes, even when still in the bosom of the Virgin who bore him, he filled all creation as God, and was enthroned with him who begot him.” 

- Cyril of Alexandria (Third Letter to Nestorius).

"For the actual corruption in death has no longer holding ground against men, by reason of the Word, which by his one body has come to dwell among them. And like as when a great king has entered into some large city and taken up his abode in one of the houses there, such city is at all events held worthy of high honor, nor does any enemy or bandit any longer descend upon it and subject it; but, on the contrary, it is thought entitled to all care, because of the king's having been taken up his residence in a single house there; so, too, has it been with the monarch of all. For now that he has come to our realm, and taken up his abode in one body among his peers, henceforth the whole conspiracy of the enemy against mankind is checked, and the corruption of death which before was prevailing against them is done away."

- Athanasius (On the Incarnation)

"For he was made man that we might be made God; and he manifested himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and he endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality."

- Athansius (On the Incarnation)

And finally, the words of John the Baptist upon seeing Jesus --

"Ecce agnus Dei qui tollit peccatum mundi."

- Evangelium Secundum Iohannem 1:29

"Behold! The lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world."

- Gospel of John, chapter one, verse 29