SECOND SUNDAY BEFORE LENT Year B
12 February 2012 (8.00am)

There are two different ways to approach Jesus. We can approach him as a human being – in his humanity – or as God – in his divinity. And it is hard to conceive of a clearer statement of Christ's divinity than our Epistle this morning. This is Jesus, equal with God, ruler of creation, head of the Church.

Against this background John's words in our Gospel are almost a corrective. Yes, Jesus is co-equal with God, but he is also misunder-stood and rejected by his own people, a light shining in the darkness but nevertheless ignored. And John emphasises as the very climax of the passage the humility of the Word, who takes our nature and dwells among us for our sake; Jesus in his humanity.

It's a commonplace in some circles to accuse Paul of distorting the original message of Jesus: of turning Jesus the gentle Galilean preacher of home truths into Christ the mythological God-figure and object of worship … of turning him from Jesus the man into Christ the God. But the faith of the Church has always been that the human Jesus is also the divine Christ: The one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, is recognized in two natures … not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ – as the Council of Chalcedon declared him to be. Only as both can he save us.

We pray in the words of the Collect for Christmas I, used by Roman Catholics as the Collect for Christmas Day itself:

Almighty God, who wonderfully created us in your own image and yet more wonderfully restored us through your Son Jesus Christ: grant that, as he came to share in our humanity, so we may share the life of his divinity; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.