Hail, Incarnate Diety

Every year during Advent, the global church stops for four weeks to look again at the person who is the head of all of our churches, i.e., the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask if there is something more that we might learn about who he is and why he came. For those of us who have followed Jesus for a long time, we ask if there is something about him that we must be reminded of. Is there something that we perhaps have forgotten or ignored? Amazingly, no matter how many times we look at Jesus, each time gaze at him, we learn something new and awe inducing.!

And, we also know that the very term "Lord" that we use of Jesus demands a further consideration: When we see anew who he is and why he came, we must ask what difference he makes in our lives practically.

Churches have always done this. The great carols of the past and present demonstrate that to us:

• What Child is this...? This, this is Christ the King...! Haste to bring him laud.
• Let all mortal flesh keep silence... Christ our God to earth descendeth, our full homage to demand.
• Born, thy people to deliver... Born to reign in us forever!
• Desire of nations, bind in one the hearts of all mankind... Bid our sad divisions cease...
• Infant holy, infant lowly... Christ the babe is Lord of all!
• Joy to the world, the Lord is come... No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground... He rules the world...!
• Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail, the incarnate deity. Pleased as man with men to dwell... Born that we no more may die...

Today, we will join our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout history and around the world and look at Christ Jesus, "God veiled in flesh" born in Bethlehem, yet again. To guide us, we turn to the New Testament text that speaks most majestically about him, Colossians 1:15–20. And we will ask, as we always should ask,

Who is he?
Why did he come?
What difference should he make in our lives, in our church, and in our world?

To God's Glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor