Advent - Both

On this final Sunday of Advent I invite you to look back and look ahead. Back to our Lord’s first coming and ahead to our Lord’s Second Coming. Back through the mists of time to a cattle stable in Bethlehem. Ahead through the lens of faith to the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord. Down, down into that cold stone stable. Up, up for your redemption draweth nigh. But first, let’s look back.

What Child is this, who, laid to rest,

On Mary's lap is sleeping?

Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,

While shepherds watch are keeping?

What Child is this? That is the question of the ages.

I used to tell myself, as well as my homiletic students that December is not the time to preach heavy theology. People are too distracted making their lists and counting them twice. But I felt compelled this morning to raise the question ‘Who was Jesus of Nazareth?’

The early Church grappled with this same question. So much so that by 300 AD a great fault line had appeared in North Africa. Most believed that Jesus was God come in the flesh. But a charismatic preacher by the name of Arius taught that Jesus was great man created by God the Father. And so, the lines were drawn.

The newly converted Emperor could not, would not tolerate his Empire to split and so 1,700 years ago, the church leadership sat down at the ‘request’ of the Emperor Constantine and wrestled with this question for many weeks in the small Turkish village of Nicaea. Was Jesus Christ similar to God the Father or was he the same as God the Father? The big word that was used is substance or being. Was Jesus Christ of the same ‘stuff’ as God the Father or was he only of similar ‘stuff’.

When the early Church leaders gathered in 325 ad they never did define or describe the substance of God the Father because they knew that God is incomprehensible - unimaginable. What little we know of God comes only through Divine Revelation. As it turned out the vast majority of the Nicaea fathers were convinced that whatever the substance of God the Father was Jesus was the same. There were about 320 bishops at the Council of Nicaea – only three dissented from the majority view that Jesus is of the same substance as the Father.

This was not a time for compromise. Most fought long and hard for the full deity of Jesus Christ. One story goes that St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (the man who by the 21st Century would come down chimneys, dress up in a red suit and sit for hours in front of a camera at the Mall). This same Nicholas became so incensed at Arius who was the main push behind the ‘similar to God’ view that he punched the heretic in the face. So much for Ho, Ho, Ho.

In Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches we repeat the statement that was hammered out long ago called the Nicaean Creed. Most Evangelicals do not repeat the Creed, but all true Christians believe what it teaches.

When you look into the manger again this Christmas season and gaze at this baby you are looking at God. Mark Lowry was right when he wrote his carol – Mary, did you know when you kiss your little baby, you’ve kissed the face of God.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

The Baby

The Boy

The Baptism

The Prophet

The Preacher

The Healer

The Saviour

The Cross

The Resurrection

The 40 Days

And on the 40th day after the Resurrection he turned to his small group of followers and said, let’s take a walk. They crossed the Brook Kidron, and up the Western slopes of the Mount of Olives, past Absolum’s Tomb, past the Garden of Gethsemane, past thousands of Jewish graves until they reached the top of Olivet. On a clear day one can see all the way to the Mediterranean Sea to the west and to all the way to the Dead Sea to the East.

There Jesus stopped and as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.

The 11 men went back to Jerusalem. Spent the rest of their lives preaching the good news, all but one died a martyr. But by 325 Christianity had become the State Religion of the Roman Empire. Shortly after the Council of Nicaea Constantine’s mother Helena went on the Church building spree. She was the push behind the Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. She was the who started the Great Church of Holy Wisdom in Istanbul, and she was the one who planted a church on the top of the Mount of Olives called the Church of the Ascension.