Christmas and Christological Confusion

Church historians know that the Council of Nicea held in 325 A.D. clearly and emphatically proclaimed the full divinity of Jesus of Nazareth and that prior to His birth at Bethlehem on that first Christmas Day He pre-existed from all eternity with the Father.  That is what St. Paul meant when he wrote that though the divine Word dwelt with the Father in heaven in the form of God, He emptied Himself and took on the form of a slave [Greek doulos], being born in the likeness of men as a little baby in a small Jewish town (see Philippians 2:5f).  It is also what St. John meant when he wrote, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

       Sounds clear enough, right?  And when Nicea insisted that the Word was “of the same essence as the Father” (Greek homoousios—i.e. as divine as the Father was) it was simply re-stating the obvious, accepted by all Christians who could read, right?

       Actually, not so much.  Arius and his episcopal supporters denied that the Word was divine in His essence as did many other (mostly eastern) bishops for the next fifty years.  Some liked wearing the radical Arian hat that said that the Word was utterly unlike the Father in the Father’s essential deity and that the Word was a mere creature, made or begotten by God at some point before time began (they used the words “made” and “begotten” interchangeably).  Others tried on other Christological hats.  How about the hat that said, “the Word is of like or similar essence to the Father” (Greek homoiousios)?  Or maybe just “the Word is like the Father”?   

There were many councils held during that time, each one disagreeing with the others, each one trying to find an acceptable alternative to the Council of Nicea with its homoousios.  Eventually, through a combination of Imperial politics and divine providence, the churches in the east united with the churches in the west and accepted the Council of Nicea as the Christological standard, the timeless proclamation of the truth.

       One might ask:  Why did it take about fifty years for this to happen?  Why all the Christological confusion over the decades? Couldn’t any of the bishops read?  Alas, it was not so simple.  For what Nicea and its supporters (such as St. Athanasius) were pushing for was scandalous.

       Everyone back then acknowledged that Jesus was distinct from God:  He prayed to God as His Father and acknowledged Him as His God (Matthew 26:39, John 20:17).  Jesus was, all agreed, also fully 100% human, exactly like us apart from sin.  How then could He also be 100% God and there not be two (or three) Gods?

       Stated differently, Nicea with its Christmas message insisted that the Creator of the universe, the One who was so vast and transcendent as to hold the whole cosmos in His hand with the ease with which a man might hold a walnut, without ceasing to be “up there”, decided to become a zygote and fetus in the womb of a Jewish teenager and to born as a helpless baby and henceforth forever also be with us “down here”.  Calling it “the Incarnation” can hide from us how unbelievable and scandalous such a notion actually is.  That the Source of all knowledge, the uncreated and infinite Deity, should become an infant who cannot speak and has to learn the alphabet?  That the Power which drives the stars should become a newborn that has no control of His bowels?  That the One who sustains all living things should become a crying, hungry baby that needs a mother’s breast to survive? 

       That is scandalous.  If you have any doubt, ask a Muslim what he thinks of the idea of Allah becoming a crying hungry baby that needs its diapers changed and gauge his reaction.  But stand well back.

       But that, as the theologian Linus once intoned, is what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.  It is about the eternal God becoming time-bound, the supreme Power becoming vulnerable— even, as Paul wrote, vulnerable enough to be killed by being nailed to a cross.  It is about One in the form of God emptying Himself and taking on the form of a slave.

       That does make one’s head spin around.  It is a paradox so amazing that the Church can’t get over it— and so it continues to hymn the Virgin Mary as the Theotokos, the Mother of God, repeating to itself in a thousand or more ways this mind-boggling, gob-smacking notion that God became Man.  The Church’s devotion to Mary is not a form of rivalry to its devotion to Christ, much less an alien import from paganism.  It is its struggling attempt to internalize and understand what God has done for us.  Without ceasing to be “up there”, God is now also “down here” among us, saving His world from the inside out.

       Perhaps that is why the World finds it all just too much— too much to understand, too much to accept.  Better to keep God, if He exists, safely up there or out there and anyways at a safe distance from us.  For if He came down to live among us and speak, who knows that He might demand?

       That perhaps explains why “Merry Christmas” is being replaced in some places with “Happy Holidays”.  Better and safer to keep Christ out of the Holidays.  Better to look at pictures of snowy evergreen trees on our Holiday cards and sing “All I Want for Christmas is You”. 

       Safer, certainly, but ultimately not happier.  Linus had it right.  Nicea is what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.  But then of course Linus could read St. Matthew’s Gospel as well as St. Luke’s.

In that Gospel he read these words: “All this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and His name shall be called “Emmanuel”, which means, ‘God is with us’”.  God’s presence among us as Emmanuel is the only way home and to happiness.

       A merry Christmas to you all!  Christ is born!