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He is called by the Greek term Christ, or the Messiah (as foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures), that is, the “Anointed One,” because He has been anointed with the Holy ghost without measure. “God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the Oil of Gladness above Thy fellows” wrote King David of Jesus [Psalm 45.7]. God in the hidden internal workings of His Trinitarian economy has anointed the Second Person, the Son, from before all eternity to be your Bloody Substitute because of all the bloody rebellion and carnage your sins have caused. Because your sinful nature acts out like a spoiled child, a screaming infant, the Lord was born a babe, gifted with myrrh as a foretelling of being embalmed with it on Good Friday. He was born a perfect baby yes, but also a real baby!

A problem which occurs at this time every year is that most completely ignore the so-called “reason for the season.” But I am not here to cast criticism at the pagans, the consumerist culture which simply uses “Winter Break” and “Seasons Greetings” as a way to sell more mammon. The Law also crushes all who claim to be “Christians” without truly believing who the Christ is; not was; but is.

The Babe which you represent on your mantles and under your trees, in your crèches, is not a role model, enabler, coach or reminder of being peaceful and nice. The infant in the stable is not a prompting aide to help the poor and feed the hungry and thus create goodwill toward all men. The fleshly creature who came from the Virgin’s womb is no creature; no super-angel, no powerful teacher-guru. He is God. He is creator. But far more important He is Lamb, sacrifice, a Man; the second Adam. Saint Thomas names the Bethlehem gift correctly one week after His still scarred crucified body stood alive in front of him in an upper room: “My Lord and my God.” This is what the pastor say as well, under his breath, as he kneels while elevating the consecrated host and chalice. And you are all most invited to do so as well. This is what the magi must have said when they kneeled in front of the manger and offered their gifts: “My Lord and my God;” the anointed and long waited for Messiah.

But, as important and crucial it is for faith to correctly seize on to the real Jesus, Jesus who is not just “Son of God” but, as the Nicene Creed confesses: “God of God, light of light, very God of Very God, homousias—of the same substance as the Father God,” so too must belief accurately grasp the real Nazarene Who is true That’s what the Christ-mass is all about. It’s not so much a commeration of His birthday as it is a Mass celebrating His Incarnation; His “Enfleshment.”

You believe, teach and confess that God is Man, because Scripture says so and because the Creed, Symbols and Church have thus taught in accordance with Apostolic doctrine for over two thousand years. The Apostle wrote to Saint Timothy and to you: “There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” [ 1Tim. 2.5 ]

What makes the 25th of December so important for you, the follower of this living Messiah, is that it gives you another chance to kneel at His cradle, to worship Him for Who He really is, with the other “wise men” from the East, and to let Him feed you with His same Body and Blood which was conceived in the Virgin’s womb, which was born forth from her body, which grew and matured, which ended up not in Bethlehem but in Jerusalem: stripped, bloody, pierced and elevated on a tree. Christmas Eve and Good Friday are united; Christ-mass and Easter are united in the Man/God Jesus Christ.

The Lord did none of this to show his awesomeness or His power. The Lord’s Incarnation is pure Gospel. Pastors do preach the Commandments, the Decalogue, in order to kill you with the demands of a perfectly Holy Lord, true, but at the end of the day, at the end of the sermon, at the end of the Mass, all you really have to know is Immanuel, God with you… the real God, the Jesus God who is The fact of his “man-ness,” His full humanity is the good news.

You get hungry. You have other physical pains and necessities. Many, most in the world, are malnourished, starving, and sick as well. Jesus understands fully the feeling and sensation for Jesus is man. He hungered.

You get tired, exhausted, run down and weary. You feel as if you can’t go on. Your body ages and suffers the ravages of living in a hostile world. You need sleep and rest. Jesus understands. He slept. He even slept the sleep of death on your behalf so that He might be your true and lasting Sabbath rest.

You get thirsty, and not just for water or other cooling drinks. You thirst for that same feeling of spiritual quenching that the woman at the well sought. You crave the water of life not just the water of momentary appeasement. He knows, for Jesus thirsted. He was as a dry, brittle and water deprived tree burned in the bonfire of hell as He was staked to the cross. To become your everlasting Tree of Life, He endured the bitter draught of suffering. He even began to be “dried out and thirsty” for you when He let them take His blood as an eight-day old; mere hours removed from His Bethlehem manger.

You cry, you mourn and you sorrow over your own sins. You weep over the loss of loved ones and the tragedies in the world, in your own world of family and friends. But you will never be alone in these long dark nights of the soul for your Lord Jesus; the Man Jesus knows full well what you experience. Jesus wept. He cried at the temporary loss of His friend Lazarus, we wept over the city of Jerusalem even as He weeps now in perfect mediation and intercession for all His tender Lambs. His tears are the holy and perfect water of love and acceptance; of remission and pardon.

You suffer many things. You are beset daily by challenges, trial and calamities that are not just physical. You feel as if you are literally overwhelmed, buried and swamped by all sorts of enemies, your own inadequacies and sins chief among them. The Messiah knows. Jesus the Man, the Man/God suffered and died… not for Himself, not for an example or motivating event, but for you.

All of this Gospel the blessed Virgin carried in her belly when she visited Elisabeth early in her pregnancy; when she made the trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem in her ninth month; and when she and Joseph huddled together in the stable. This Gospel is Christ, Jesus in the flesh! This is the Message of Advent, of Holy Week, of Good Friday, of Easter, and of this coming Sunday… Jesus, my Lord and my God, yes… but OH Yes -- Jesus true Man born of the Virgin Mary; for you. Hear and believe; take eat and take drink and believe.

Amen