A Devotional on the Paradoxes of the Incarnation by Augustine

Augustine

He who had brought all things into existence, was brought into existence in the midst of all things. He made the day—He came into the light of day. He who was before time, set His seal upon time. Christ the Lord was forever without beginning with the Father; but look what He is today! It is His birthday. Whose birthday? The Lord’s. He has a birthday? Yes, He has. . . . If He had not been begotten as a human being, we would not attain our divine rebirth; for He was born that we might be reborn. . . .

His mother carried Him in her womb; let us carry Him in our hearts. By the Incarnation of Christ was a virgin made fruitful; let our breasts be made fruitful by the faith of Christ. She gave birth to the Savior; let us give birth to good deeds. . . .

Journey to Bethlehem

Leland Ryken

In this collection of 30 Christmas hymns, poems, and prose, literary expert Leland Ryken highlights how each passage is edifying and stylistically satisfying—allowing Christians to experience these classic works in a fresh way.

When we say, “He was born of a virgin,” this is something extraordinary, you marvel. He is God! You must not marvel. Let our surprise yield to thanksgiving. Have faith; believe, for this really so happened. . . . He deigned to become man; what more do you ask? Is it not enough that God has been humbled for you? He who was God was made man. . . .

In His birth of a mother, Christ became manifest in weakness; but, born of His Father, He shows His great majesty. Among time-bound days He has His day in time; but He Himself is the Eternal Day. . . . He lies in a manger, but He holds the world. He nurses at His mother’s breasts, but He feeds the angels. He is wrapped in swaddling clothes, but He gives us the garment of immortality. He is given milk, but at the same time is adored. He finds no room at the inn, but He builds a temple for Himself in the hearts of those who believe.

That infirmity might be made strong, strength has been made weak. Let us, therefore, admire the more His human birth instead of looking down upon it; and let us in His presence try to realize the abasement that He in all His majesty accepted for our sakes. And then let us be kindled with love, that we may come to His eternity. . . .

In that bridal chamber, that is, in the Virgin’s womb, His divine nature united itself to the human; and thus the Word was made flesh for us, that, proceeding from a mother, it might dwell among us; that, going before to the Father, it might prepare a place for us in which to dwell. Let us, therefore, joyfully and solemnly celebrate this day; and through the Eternal One who was born for us in time, let us faithfully long for the day eternal. . . . Let us, all of us, one heart and soul, with chaste hearts and holy desires, celebrate the birthday of the Lord.

Devotional Thoughts

Most of the prose authors represented in this section wrote so much about the nativity and incarnation that individual books have been published containing their most famous Christmas writings. One such book is Augustine’s Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany. Obviously Augustine’s (354–430) thoughts on the paradoxes of the incarnation are only one aspect of his Christmas writings.

Before we look at Augustine’s paradoxes of Christmas, we should note his importance as someone who lived through the great change in religious thinking that occurred in the Western world when Christianity replaced ancient paganism as the ruling thought system. Augustine himself has recorded his breakthrough encounter with the idea of the incarnation. He had been raised on classical philosophy and mythology. When he read the prologue to John’s Gospel, everything initially seemed familiar because John had imitated the language of familiar pagan writing, including a hymn to Zeus that Greeks had been reciting for centuries. To speak of God as a divine word (logos) was familiar to the classical mindset. But as Augustine kept reading, he was shocked by the sudden infusion of something new: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” ( John 1:14). This, writes Augustine, is something that the philosophers had not taught him. The Christmas season is an excellent time for us to allow the shock of the incarnation to seize our imagination as we seek to realize the fact of deity becoming human.

He finds no room at the inn, but He builds a temple for Himself in the hearts of those who believe.

Turning to the meditation printed here, it is in the very nature of the incarnation to be paradoxical. There is no other way to express the phenomenon of Christ being both divine and human. A paradox is an apparent contradiction that, upon analysis, can be seen to be true. In other words, a paradox needs to be resolved. It is akin to the genre of the riddle in needing to be “figured out.”

Three motifs converge in Augustine’s meditation on the incarnation. One is that Augustine has collected some striking paradoxes of the incarnation. It is our task to ponder these seeming contradictions and determine how both halves of the equation are true. Secondly, Augustine the preacher is fully evident in the passage, as he intermittently exhorts us toward religious actions, such as fruitfulness in good works and being kindled in love for Christ. Thirdly, we should relish Augustine’s gift for metaphor, as when he sees an analogy between Mary’s carrying Jesus in her womb and our carrying him in our hearts.¹

As we cast a retrospective look at Augustine’s meditation on the incarnation, we can resolve to allow the paradoxes of the incarnation to be a permanent part of how we understand the incarnation and to heed Augustine’s prompts toward a proper devotional attitude toward Christmas.

In the spirit of Augustine’s emphasis on the paradoxes of the incarnation, 2 Corinthians 8:9 gives us the paradoxes of the rich one who is poor and the poor one who is rich:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

Notes:

The paradoxes of the incarnation stated by Augustine were gleaned from a book of Augustine’s Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany, trans. Thomas Comerford Lawler (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1952), 98–99, 104–6, 115. Reprinted by the gracious permission of Paulist Press. A succinct summary of the relation of John’s prologue to the Hymn to Zeus and of Augustine’s encounter with John’s statement about the Word becoming flesh is available on a single page in William M. Ramsey, The Westminster Guide to the Books of the Bible (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 530.

This article is adapted from Journey to Bethlehem: A Treasury of Classic Christmas Devotionals by Leland Ryken.

Leland Ryken (PhD, University of Oregon) served as professor of English at Wheaton College for nearly fifty years. He served as literary stylist for the English Standard Version Bible and has authored or edited over sixty books, including The Word of God in English and A Complete Handbook of Literary Forms in the Bible.

A Devotional on the Birth of Jesus by Martin Luther

Leland Ryken

December 23, 2023

I would not have you contemplate the deity of Christ, the majesty of Christ, but rather his flesh. Look upon the Baby Jesus. . . . See how God invites you.