Christmas Chilli

What do you have to eat on Christmas Day?

Perhaps turkey, or duck or goose, or maybe something less expensive. I wonder if it should be a bowl of Chilli Con Carne!

The apostle John begins his gospel with:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

He goes on to say:

"And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."

You see God became man.

100% God and 100% man.

Fully divine and fully human.

It’s important to understand that I am not saying that the man Jesus became God. No man or woman can become God.

Although I think some people would like to!

Jesus was and is and always will be God

the coeternal, coequal second person of the Holy Trinity

God the son, together with God the father and God the Holy Spirit.

That’s why He was born of a virgin!

Theologians have a big word for it. INCARNATION.

INCARNATION

And that brings us to the bowl of Chilli Con Carne.

You see it has the same Latin root as incarnation.

Carne – it means meat or flesh.

Chilli with meat. With flesh.

That’s what it means. Incarnation: that Jesus is God come into human history in flesh.

So you may not have eaten Chilli Con Carne for Christmas lunch but if and when you do eat it I hope that you will remember this:

That Jesus Christ is God in human flesh and that He has broken into human history to bring salvation to all who believe.

Jesus is called many things.

The alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the bright morning star.

Wonderful counsellor, prince of peace, son of man, the bread of life, the gate for the sheep, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way the truth and the life, the true vine, the light of the world.

Redeemer, saviour, the king of the Jews, the king of kings, and Lord of Lords.

He’s all these and much more.

He is God in the flesh.

If you know Jesus as God then my prayer is one of praise.

If you don’t

                    YET- then I pray that through the amazing truth of God becoming flesh – INCARNATE – you will come to understand that He did it for your salvation.

Not through His birth in a stable BUT through His death on a cross!

He came from Heaven to Earth

               From a place of honour to a place of humility

                                         From sovereignty to servant hood

St Paul put it like this:

"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Amen