Mystery of the Incarnation

"The mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to His saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Colossians 1:25-27

Agnus Dei graphic from Christian Clip Art
Review.

      "For the sun to fall from it's sphere and be degraded into a wandering atom, for an angel to be turned out from heaven and be converted into a fly or a worm, had not been such abasement, for they were but creatures before, and so they would abide still, though in an inferior rank. But for the Infinite, glorious Creator of all things to become a creature is a mystery exceeding all human understanding." John Flavel

"A Little Child Shall Lead Them"

       Christmas is the apotheosis of enfeeblement. It is the exaltation of childhood. It is the glory of the little child.
       We celebrate this festival in bleak December, the uncrowned month in our northern zone, lighting its dull skies by the eternal fires of love in human hearts.
       There is not in all this land a home where rain beats through the roof, where the mother and father gather the children more closely to shelter them, but the Christmas truth is shining, "Blessed are the poor."
       There is not a homeless boy who in the December night creeps out of the snow into an empty dry goods box in the alley, not a little fellow up under the rafters of the poor house on the county farm, not a foundling left in a basket at the rich man's door, not a shivering, tiny girl unfitted for a flight with the storm, but the new truth of the Christmas spreads its wings over them.
       "When I am weak, then am I strong." Who is weak? Who is infirm upon his feet and walks with a crutch? Who is afraid of the northeast wind? Who says: "I am better; yes, I think I am getting better. But somehow I do not get my vigor back?" Who leans up against the bale of goods in the half hidden counter and knows that she came back to work too soon? Who was born blind?
       To all of you the Christmas has its meaning. There never was a conqueror like the child in the cradle. God hath chosen the weak things to confound the mighty. For 2,000 years the history of the world's civilization has been the story of the gentler virtues, the poem, the song and the triumph of suffering well. The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Every letter of that sentence is eternally true.
       The grandest things that were ever done on earth were done by men and women who had the spirit of the child. The sublimest work of the Creator is the sweet-faced little child, heaven please --all harvests, all gold, all schools, all trade, all government, all the coming better times. Christmas means, "And a little child shall lead them." Emory J. Hayne