Fitting Words on Christmas Eve

Every now and then you come across some words that stick with you through the years. Words that you can't shake. Words that say it better than any other words could. Well, every Christmas I am reminded of these words of a Christian pastor from long ago. Leo was the Bishop of Rome who wrote these words in the year 449. He was writing to the Bishop of Constantinople in order to help clarify the Christian understanding of who Christ is. The letter of Leo has become a classic statement of orthodox Christian teaching on the subject, and this sentence from it captures not only the essence of that teaching but for me the very heart of what Christmas is all about. I first read these words as part of a seminary class, but they continue to echo in my being with new reverberations of meaning and deeper wonder. And so, I allow Leo the Great-as he has come to be called-speak for himself and for me:

"Lowliness was taken up by majesty, weakness by strength, mortality by eternity. To pay off the debt of our state, invulnerable nature was united to a nature that could suffer; so that in a way that corresponded to the remedies we needed, one and the same mediator between God and humanity the man Christ Jesus, could both on the one hand die and on the other be incapable of death. Thus was true God born in the undiminished and perfect nature of a true man, complete in what is his and complete in what is ours."

Merry Christmas!

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