Advent 2023: The Greatest Wonder of All
The Greatest Wonder of All: Children of God
December 17, 2023 • Brian Zahnd
The Word joined us in humanity that we might have power to become the sons and daughters of God. God in Christ became a child of woman that we might become children of God. What Jesus Christ is by nature, we are called to become by grace.
The Greatest Wonder of All: A New Humanity
December 10, 2023 • Brian Zahnd
"You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains. The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God." –St. Athanasius (296–373)
The Greatest Wonder of All: The Word Became Flesh
December 3, 2023 • Brian Zahnd
Long before the birth of Christ the poet-prophet Isaiah of the Exile gave lyrical expression to Israel’s longing for God to decisively intervene when he sang, “O that you would rend the heaven and come down!” And in the fullness of time God did rend the heavens and come down when sent forth his Son into the world born of a woman. But it was a long wait. From Isaiah’s poetic cry for God to come down until the babe of Bethlehem was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger was more than five full centuries. Advent is our humble reenactment of this long wait.