Merry Christmas everyone!

I don’t know how you go about writing a collect for Christmas Day. There are so many things you could focus on that you’re never going to do it justice. Thomas Cranmer, however, was made of braver stuff than I, so he penned this collect for today:

Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin: Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

To be honest, this collect didn’t blow me away when I first started to use the Prayer Book in my devotions, but the more I’ve reflected on it, the more I’ve come to love it. Like all Cranmer’s collects, it is a carefully structured piece which weaves together a cascade of graces that God has lavished on us.

At the head of it all, the invocation of the God who has given us his only begotten Son. It’s a clear allusion to John 3:16 that should put us in mind of the unspeakable love God showed to us at Christmas. I don’t think we often dwell on the love of the Father in the incarnation. God giving his only begotten Son calls to mind Abraham, who was prepared to give his only Son, whom he loved. (Gen 22, c.f. Heb 11:17 which, like John 3:16, uses the adjective monogenēs “only begotten”) But Abraham did not always have his son, whereas God’s whole mode of existence is eternal begetting love for his Son. But he gives him up to the vulnerability, the indignity, and the suffering that the incarnation entails for love of us.

He gave him to take our nature on him. This is much more familiar territory for Christmas reflection – the glorious mystery of God made man. Here is unfathomable humility; The one who was in the very form of God took on the form of a servant. The tiny, helpless Baby is the Lord of all. Here is unsurpassable empathy; every weakness and sorrow that afflicts humankind is familiar to him.

For a while, I puzzled over the next clause, “and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin”. Is it superfluous? Does it simply connect the incarnation, a theological concept to the nativity, the actual event Christmas celebrates? Perhaps that’s part of it. But I think there is more. By reminding us that Jesus was born of a pure Virgin, Cranmer is also underlining vital truths about the incarnation. By evoking the Blessed Virgin Mary’s purity, the collect reminds us of the holiness that surrounds everything connected with Jesus’ birth and draws our minds on to his perfect sinlessness. Mary is pure, but Jesus is purity in person. Her relative purity underlines his absolute spotlessness. By reaffirming that he is born of a virgin, the collect celebrates the way that Jesus’ birth is a miraculous intervention of God, a pure gift of grace, and a new dawn for humanity. Christ is the second Adam who not only shares our nature, but perfects it.

The petition mirrors the invocation. Just as Christ was born of a Virgin, so we have been born again – miraculously born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. This, like the virgin birth, is a pure gift of God’s grace.

As a result, we have been made God’s children by adoption and grace – God gave us his Son in order to make us his children. This completes the moment that invocation began. In giving us his Son, God is not forsaking his love for him, but drawing us into it.

So we ask God to renew us daily with his Holy Spirit. Just as his work united divinity and humanity when he overshadowed the Virgin Mary at the incarnation, so his work unites us to Christ and remakes us, that we might be drawn deeper and deeper into the life of God – he one with us in Christ and we one with him through the Spirit.

There are even greater depths to this, which are implicit in this collect, but I’ll draw them out (Godwilling) when we look at the collect for this Sunday.