Grace Notes 2022-02-22

This week I would like to explore how the 2nd Article of the Creed can help us to articulate Christ our Lord to others. We are, after all, called to be His witnesses!

So, the 2nd Article begins, “I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.” And Luther’s explanation in the Small Catechism reads, “I believe that Jesus Christ – true God, Son of the Father from eternity, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary – is my Lord.”

When we are telling some- one about Jesus the sensible thing is to begin with basic information of who he is. You might be sharing this

information with someone who has no clue. You can begin by saying that Jesus is a historical figure that was born in Bethlehem of Israel about 2,000 years ago. His parents’ names were Joseph and Mary. You might add that ‘Jesus’ is his personal name. ‘Christ’ is a title, not a last name.

Almost immediately we are going to want to share that Jesus was like every human being while at the same time uniquely different. Unlike any other human birth in history, we believe the testimony that He alone was conceived in the womb of His mother without a contribution by a human father – that Mary was a virgin and that the conception in her womb was enabled miraculously by the Holy Spirit.

The importance of all this is that we believe Jesus to be fully human and fully God at the same time, in one person. Two natures, one person. Prior to the two natures coming together in one person, the divine na- ture has always existed. Scripture teaches that at the birth of Jesus, the eternally begotten Son of the Father became flesh. It is by way of Mary that the Son of God assumes our humanity. This mystery is called ‘the Incarnation’ (literally, ‘to take on flesh’). This will be im- portant in understanding how Jesus can save us.