Heaven and Nature Sing: 5 Days to Reflect During AdventSample

By the time we reach Luke 2 and read that Mary “brought forth her firstborn son,”it’s not simply a statement about gendered birth order. There’s something more going on here, something on which all our Christian celebrations depend and why it’s fitting that we celebrate this season with evergreens as a sign of eternal life. Because Mary’s firstborn son is also the eternal Son of God.

In human terms, to be a son implies time. A son is always younger than his father, the next installment in a chronological line. But when we speak of the second person of the Trinity, of God the Son, we’re not speaking in terms of time or even status. We’re not saying that the Son is somehow younger than the Father or even beneath him. While we are beings locked in time, God exists outside of time, and his eternalityencompasses both eternity future and eternity past. In orthodox Trinitarianism, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit exist simultaneously, outside of time in perfect union and communion. As the writer of Hebrews says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,” (Hebrews 13:8).

So why do we call Jesus “God the Son”?

In part, the language of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit allows us to differentiate between the three persons of the Trinity. But the language of Father and Son also allows us to affirm that the Son, though different from the Father, is the same as the Father. Similarly to how a human man has a human son, a divine Father has a divine Son, with all the characteristics and authority that makes him divine in the first place. Or as the Nicene Creed put it:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit he became
incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.

The miracle of the incarnation is that the timeless Son entered time. God the eternal Son became Mary’s firstborn son. The Creator became part of the creation and submits himself as a man to God the Father and, in doing so, also becomes “the firstborn among many brethren,” (Romans 8:29).

Then, as a good and faithful firstborn Son, He takes responsibility to care for and protect His Father’s household. He takes responsibility for the future of family and the earth that is their home. Instead of a human sacrifice to appease the creation at the foot of an oak tree, God the Son sacrifices Himself on a tree on behalf of His creation. And because He died, we, His earthly brothers and sisters, have an inheritance of evergreen, eternal life.

Thank you for joining us on this reading plan!

This reading plan was based on Heaven and Nature Sing by Hannah Anderson. To learn more about the book and order your copy, click here.