There is an amazing sequence of salvation revealed in Scripture, which centres on the reality of the Incarnation. 

In the beginning, God made us in His image as creatures of flesh and soul. Through transgression, our flesh has been corrupted by sin and enslaved to its wages, death. Where once there was man in the image of God, a great chasm opened up:

“All flesh is grass,
    and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
    when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
    surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
    but the word of our God will stand for ever.” (Isaiah 40:8-10)

But the great gift of God for the fallen world is that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). God Himself, eternal life-giver, shared in the mortality of our flesh so that out of His flesh, we may receive immortality.

In the life-giving washing of Baptism, in the preaching of the eternal Word, in the union of our mortal bodies with the ever-living and life-giving body and blood of the Son of God in the Sacrament of the Altar, the miracle of the Incarnation is echoed again and again, as the promise of God’s word is fulfilled: “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:31-32).

May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who did not consider it beneath Himself to share our lowliness in order to share with us His glory, bless you and all whom you love this Christmas and throughout 2024.