You have a croaking preacher today and I
hope nevertheless that the voice will come through
and that the good Lord will help us.
He has promised and so we trust him.
I don't think I would have come to
the service this morning did I not feel
very sure that the Lord had given me
a message that I dare not keep to
myself.
And however one feels physically I certainly feel
thrilled by the word of the Lord which
has come to me and based upon the
words that you will find in Hebrews chapter
2 verses 14 and 15.
Since the children have flesh and blood he
too shared in their humanity so that by
his death he might destroy him who holds
the power of death, that is the devil,
and free those who all their lives were
held in slavery by their fear of death.
Christ's birth and death's doom.
I shall spare myself any introductory words this
morning and I will come immediately to the
two main things that occupy us in this
very wonderful passage.
This is no superficial passage this is no
passage that simply tells us even the historical
details that relate to the incarnation of our
Lord.
In this passage the inspired writer is taking
us to the heart of the meaning of
the incarnation.
And I want us to be looking this
morning first of all at the liberating intention
of it all and then secondly at the
liberating action involved.
First of all the liberating intention.
Look at verse 15 we work backwards in
the text this morning rather than forward as
we more generally and more normally do.
Notice these words and to free those who
all their lives were held in slavery by
their fear of death.
Why did Jesus come?
Why was he born?
Why the incarnation?
Here is the answer of the writer of
the epistle to the Hebrews at least in
part.
He came in order to free those who
all their lives were held in slavery by
the fear of death.
Do you fear death?
I have good news for you.
It is unnecessary.
You do not need to fear death.
God sent his son to deliver you and
to deliver me from slavery to the fear
of death.
We look first of all in this connection
that man's dread slavery.
Born in total freedom under God's beneficent rule
and care.
The Bible tells us that man sinned his
liberty away, sinned his priceless privilege away and
landed himself in slavery.
And that slavery is fundamental.
It is possible for man to be liberated
from unjust political structures and from dehumanizing social
conditions.
To be socially free and in other respects
free.
But this fundamental tyranny may still remain holding
him in its chains.
Fear of death.
The tyranny of the fear of death.
Man is subject to the law of sin
and death.
And in the wake of this multitudes indeed
most normal men and women know something of
the tyranny of fear.
Now there seems to be a sinister league
abroad in our day and age to play
down the reality of death.
The fact of death and the inevitability of
death.
Time was when death was spoken of very
generally.
You go back to the Victorian era for
example and even before that.
And you will find that people spoke seriously
about death.
In our day and age the theme has
switched to the beginnings of life.
Sex is everything today.
Don't let me go off at a tangent
but that is true.
In the old days men and women were
more seriously inclined and they thought of the
exigency of death.
And they talked about it and they wrote
about it.
The Greek philosophers for example would have thought
you a strange thinker if you did not
at some stage or other address yourself to
the issue of death.
They all did.
Because they were not superficial thinkers.
And having so done they had not only
addressed themselves to the subject.
But they tried to work out some hypothesis
on the basis of which they could understand
what the whole thing meant.
Now in the event of course they may
not have had any real answers to give
humanity.
But at least they asked the right question.
In our day however we tend to hide
the fact of death from everyone.
From our loved ones.
If they're unwell we we say hardly anything
about the possibility of death.
Or the inevitability of death.
We shield our children from the mention of
it.
And as people gradually get older death is
the forbidden subject.
But the ogre the monster still remains.
You may be silent about it.
Come it will.
You may refuse to read about it.
Come it will.
Death remains.
Death is nonetheless very much a fact of
life.
However much we turn our eyes away from
the from the reality of it.
And shut our minds to the fact of
it.
And every silent cemetery and every puffing crematorium
bears its silent and unsolicited testimony to the
fact it is appointed unto men once to
die.
And after that the judgment.
True one hears from time to time of
people who say that really they have no
fear of death at all.
Never have had any in some cases.
They would be very rare exceptions if they
actually existed.
Of course there are ways and means of
at least temporarily overcoming the fear of death.
There are various ways various means of doing
that.
But the fact is we still have the
phenomenon the universal phenomenon of the fear of
death.
You say isn't that an exaggeration?
I don't think so.
I'll tell you why.
I'll put it in one sentence.
This is not my theme but we're on
the way to it.
All over the world men and women of
all nations and of all ages can generally
be persuaded to say things and do things
at the threat of death.
That they would never do and never say
were it not for the threat of death.
Upon the threat of death men and women
everywhere will do things, say things, go places.
That nothing else and nothing less would produce
that effect.
And why is that?
It is because irrespective of what we profess
there is innate in the human soul some
dread of the monster.
So we turn from man's dread slavery to
God's promised liberty.
And free those, says my text, who all
their lives were held in slavery by their
fear of death.
Just imagine it.
From all eternity God had a plan.
And the plan envisaged the deliverance of men
and women from the fear of death.
And in the fullness of time he sent
forth his son, made of a woman, made
under the law, conceived of the Holy Ghost
in the virgin mother's womb.
God sent him forth to engage in the
work of deliverance.
And though the term deliverance conceives of many
things beyond this.
It conceives of this.
It envisages this.
How merciful our God is.
Even at that moment in the Garden of
Eden when death first invaded our human race.
He said to the tempter in the hearing
of our first parents.
He said I will put enmity between you
and the woman.
And between your offspring and hers.
And he will crush your head.
Now the text doesn't end there but I
want to stress that.
When death comes invading the hearts of the
souls of Adam and Eve.
God says this is not the end.
This is not the end.
There's a seed of a woman coming and
he will tread on your head.
He'll deal with you.
When Jesus went into the synagogue of Nazareth
at the beginning of his public ministry.
You remember Luke 4 tells us that he
took the parchment and he read the reading
for the day which came from the book
of the prophet Isaiah.
And when he had done so they were
they were bewildered by him.
They were bewildered and they were challenged because
these are the words he read.
Among others I'm just choosing out this segment.
The spirit of the Lord God is upon
me.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for
the prisoners.
Now it's a larger passage it includes much
much else.
But Jesus says the spirit of the Lord
Jehovah is upon me.
He has sent me to proclaim deliverance to
the captives.
I've come into this world he says to
open the prison doors.
And among the prisoners he had come to
release from their fetters were prisoners to the
fear of death.
That was the purpose envisaged by God in
the words of the prophet.
A purpose fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ.
And if the Son shall make you free
you will be free indeed.
And that liberty included and still includes freedom
from slavery to the fear of death.
Salvation includes this aspect of emancipation.
Do you know it?
Are you enjoying it?
Moreover and we have to bring this in.
The New Testament shows us that the early
church almost on block as far as we
can read moved into the experience of this.
This was a characteristic of the early Christians.
They were delivered from the fear of death.
There were many other characteristics of course but
this was one of them.
Wherever they went they were they differed from
other people because they did not live under
the tyranny of death.
They joyfully anticipated the eternal fulfillment of their
Lord's promises that death was the stepping stone
to glory.
Therefore they didn't worry all that much if
they were put in prison.
If they had to oppose the authorities under
threat of death it didn't worry them all
that much because you see death to them
was the way home.
This is an element of the gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ my friends that we
need to proclaim today to people that will
not come to hear it proclaimed from the
pulpit.
You need to proclaim it.
I listen to the great Apostle Paul in
the epistle to the Romans.
I'm just going to cull a few words.
I'm missing a lot out.
Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecutions or famine
or nakedness or danger or sword?
No he says in all these things we
are more than conquerors through him who loved
us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor
life will be able to separate us from
the love of God that is in Christ
Jesus our Lord.
Now listen to this.
He's writing to the Philippians and he says
I eagerly expect and hope that I will
in no way be ashamed but will have
sufficient courage so that now as always Christ
will be exalted in my body.
Christ will be exalted in my body whether
by life or by death.
For to me he says to live is
Christ and to die is gain.
Now that kind of man is indomitable.
You can't beat it.
He says he says the whole purpose of
my life is that Christ may be magnified
in me in this body of mine whether
by life whether by death it makes no
difference because to me he says to live
is Christ and die is gain.
Brothers and sisters have we got into this?
Are you living there?
Can I quote another one from a different
context altogether excuse me.
Paul was writing to Timothy to Timothy chapter
1 and he was afraid that the young
Timothy was a little bit a little bit
ashamed of him because he was in prison
and his body was lacerated.
He had wounds and wheels and sores all
over his body but now he was in
prison and and a young Timothy the young
Christian.
What is there to keep him in fellowship
with a man who's in prison?
Why should a young fellow with all the
promise of life before him recognize as his
friend a fellow who's in a Roman jail?
Oh says Paul join with me he says
in suffering for the gospel by the power
of God who has saved us and called
us to a holy life.
The grace was given to us in Christ
Jesus before the beginning of time he says
but it has now been revealed through the
appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus who has
destroyed death and he was living on that
level you see.
Christ Jesus who has destroyed death and brought
life and immortality to light through the gospel.
Life and immortality were facts of where they
were real before but they were not brought
to light.
They've been brought to light through the gospel
he says and we see the light and
we see death in the light of the
gospel and immortality in the light of the
gospel and it is eternal life of glory.
Now he goes on and of this gospel
I was appointed a herald and an apostle
and a teacher that is why I am
suffering as I am yet I am not
ashamed because I know whom I have believed
and I am convinced that he is able
to guard what I have entrusted to him
against that day.
Paul why are you the unashamed?
Well he says the gospel has taken the
sting out of death and out of suffering.
My very sufferings, my very wounds of a
glory and my very chamber of horrors is
the stepping stone into the presence of God.
But you say what is all that to
do with Christmas?
This is why Christmas was necessary because God
wanted you and wanted me to live like
that.
Brothers and sisters let me say to you
eyeball to eyeball insofar as that is possible
from a pulpit like this.
God wants you to live like that and
that's why he sent his son that's why
Christmas.
Martin Luther was right when he said he
who fears death or is not willing to
die is not sufficiently Christian.
As yet such people lack faith in the
resurrection and love this life more than the
life which is to come and so was
Calvin right when he wrote something similarly.
Although we must meet death says Calvin let
us nevertheless be calm and serene in living
and in dying when we have Christ going
before us.
If anyone cannot set his mind at rest
by disregarding death that man should know that
he has not yet gone far enough in
the faith of Christ says Calvin.
In other words the Reformers expected what the
New Testament promises that we should live without
the tyranny of this fear.
Liberty was anticipated and this is why Jesus
was born.
Child of a virgin, born in a stable.
Why oh why?
Here's one reason and it's as relevant this
morning probably within these walls of Knox as
it ever was in the history of civilization.
You can be saved from the tyranny of
this fear because Jesus was born and lived
and died.
That brings us to the liberating action since
the children have flesh and blood he too
shared in their humanity so that by his
death he might destroy him who holds the
power of death that is the devil.
Now look at it like this.
The ultimate end in view is what we
have noted.
The liberation of the children men and women
given to our Lord Jesus by the father
as the fruit of his passion to liberate
believers from the fear of death.
That's the ultimate end in view.
Now look at the proximate goal what has
to take place in order to make that
possible?
Since the children have flesh and blood he
too shared in their humanity so that by
his death he might destroy him who holds
the power of death that is the devil.
Now I want you to notice two things
here.
I'll be very brief with a second.
I want to say a little more about
the first.
There are two things here that we're moving
backward towards the incarnation rather than forward from
it.
The first act envisaged here is the an
act of destruction.
The second act is an act of incarnation.
We look first at the act of destruction
that he might destroy him who holds the
power of death that is the devil.
I'll be coming in a moment to the
meaning of that word destruction but let me
let me say a word like this at
this stage.
In order for you and for me to
be saved from the tyranny of the fear
of death the devil has got to be
destroyed.
And Jesus came to deal with our foe
whom we could not deal with in our
own human nature under the curse of the
law.
He came to do it for us and
in company with him.
With him as your shepherd and your Savior
and your Lord you and I can walk
into the not only the shadow of death
but into the reality of death knowing that
if the Lord is your shepherd you will
not want anything.
Now that's the gospel.
Now let's examine it just a little.
First of all I want you to notice
these words referring to him that had the
power of death.
Now those words can be misleading if we
overstress them because the ultimate power of death
of course resides in God not in the
devil's hand.
Now we've got to be clear about that
there is a secondary sense in which death
is the weapon used by Satan and that's
what we have here.
But let me stress the other.
The ultimate power over death resides in the
hands of the Almighty God for whom and
by whom all things were made according to
verse 10 in this very chapter.
Death is under his control and subject to
his command as scripture clearly shows.
He warned Adam and Eve before they sinned
that death would come if they did.
He executed the order following their act of
shame.
And the scriptures elsewhere reaffirm God's absolute power
in this regard.
I can only refer to them now.
Let me just quote to you from Deuteronomy
32 39.
See now says God that I myself am
he there is no God beside me.
I put to death and I bring to
life.
I have wounded and I will heal and
no one can deliver from my hand.
That's an Old Testament expression of this sovereignty
of God in the matter of death.
And in the New Testament our Lord Jesus
put it beyond doubt.
When in Matthew chapter 10 and verse 28
and in the corresponding passage in Luke chapter
12.
He said this I'm quoting Matthew.
Don't be afraid he said to the disciples
of those who kill the body but cannot
kill the soul.
Rather he says be afraid of the one
who can destroy both soul and body in
hell.
God says Jesus is the one with absolute
power, absolute authority over life and over death.
Now whatever power the devil has he is
under the Almighty Lord God and Creator.
You must see that he says.
Having the power of death in the secondary
sense then Satan has used it to humiliate
God's creatures made after his image.
And here are some of you dear people
this morning blood-bought with the Spirit of
God in your hearts and the Word of
God in your hands and yet the devil
comes your way and he frightens you and
he gives you sleepless nights and he gives
you bad dreams and he makes you afraid
of death.
And he tyrannizes men and women.
There's no need for it.
Matthew Henry puts it like this.
Satan has the power of death in his
hands in that he was the first sinner
and the first tempter of others to sin.
And sin has the procuring cause was the
procuring cause of death.
Now there is of course an instinctive fear
of death.
Even animals have that.
Brute beasts have that.
Some of you have dogs.
I don't want to introduce a very sad
note into anybody's life this morning but I
have known what it is for a dog
just facing the end of its life to
come near one and look up poignantly as
if appealingly for help for something or other.
The poor little creature didn't know what was
going on but its big eyeballs looked.
It was aware of something.
It had a fear of death.
There is an instinctive fear but there is
also a spiritual fear of death experienced by
mankind and this is something quite different.
The element of mystery and of finality play
some part in this but the dagger point
would seem to be a sense of guilt
and of shame and of unpreparedness to meet
our God and our judge.
And so it is a rational and a
moral fear all at once.
It makes sense but it arises out of
the knowledge of who God is and what
I am.
And you see we instinctively know that we
cannot load the jury of that day with
jurors who are predisposed to gloss over our
flagrant violations of God's laws.
There will be no jury.
It will be trial by judge.
And the judge is the omnipotent Lord of
all the ages who is just and holy
against whose judgment there is no appeal.
The trial will be before the omniscient and
the just God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
And the more we know of his character
the more the more we tend to be
afraid of meeting him.
That's something that goes to the fear of
death.
Now the devil uses that.
He the accuser of the brethren comes oh
and how he rakes up our sins and
throws them in front of us.
And how he how he confuses us about
things.
Even Christian people.
And he brings out old sins from the
past that have been buried under the blood
of Jesus.
And he hurls them before us and he
says don't you remember this and don't you
remember that.
It's all unnecessary says the gospel.
It's all unnecessary.
Him that hath the power of death he
has the power of tyranny.
He is confusing us.
If we do not look to the Savior.
The only Savior that God has provided.
But look at these words.
That by his death he might destroy him
who holds the power of death.
That is the devil.
God's plan of salvation envisaged what this writer
describes as the destruction of Satan.
Now actually I hinted at this a little
earlier on.
The term rendered destroy in verse 14 needs
to be explained.
The total destruction of Satan does not seem
to have been the divine intention.
Even Satan's eventual doom is never couched in
such terms in scripture.
Now some of you may want to challenge
that.
I'd be happy to talk to you.
But I want to repeat it the total
destruction of Satan does not seem to have
been the divine intention.
Even Satan's eventual doom is never couched in
such terms in scripture.
Now some of you may want to challenge
that.
I'd be happy to talk to you.
But I want to repeat it.
The total destruction of Satan does not seem
to have been the divine intention.
Even Satan's eventual doom is never couched in
such terms in scripture.
Now some of you may want to challenge
that.
I'd be happy to talk to you.
But I want to repeat it.
The total destruction of Satan does not seem
to have been the divine intention.
Even Satan's eventual doom is never couched in
such terms in scripture.
Now some of you may want to challenge
that.
I'd be happy to talk to you.
But I want to repeat it.
The total destruction of Satan does not seem
to have been the divine intention.
Even his eventual doom is never couched in
such terms in scripture.
But rather in terms that denote his ongoing
existence in what the book of Revelation describes
as quote the lake of burning sulfur where
the beast and the false prophet have been
thrown.
They will be tormented day and night forever
and ever.
God never envisaged the total annihilation of Satan.
And when the word destruction is used here
it obviously does not mean that.
He is to be cast into a lake
of fire where he will burn forever and
ever.
That's the word of God.
And that's not consistent with annihilation.
Clearly that is not destruction in the absolute
sense.
What then does the word signify?
Not total destruction but a rendering inoperative or
ineffective of Satan's previous capacity to wield the
power of death.
It is rendering his power inoperative.
It is disabling him or crippling him from
using the weapon that he used to use.
The purpose envisaged by this word in this
context is that of rendering Satan powerless to
use death as a weapon whereby to bully
men and women into abject fear.
But how could this be done?
By the death of God's only son.
The divine plan envisaged the means whereby Satan's
power over death might be broken.
And that necessitated the death of God's only
son in human flesh.
By his dying God planned to take the
sting out of death to quote Hosea and
Paul.
To take the sting out of it you
see.
And you know once the sting is taken
out of death you can play with it
like a serpent that is incapable of doing
you any damage.
It can become the plaything of children if
it has no sting.
And the whole purpose of God is to
take the sting out of death and put
death in the hands of Satan.
And the knowing child of God need not
be terrified one moment.
By death therefore God planned to conquer death.
By the death of Christ he would seal
the doom of death.
And thus the very thing that apparently marked
Satan's perverse success.
Namely death.
The result of his seducing mankind into disobedience
and thereby earning the divine sentence of death
becomes the means of his downfall.
And the New Testament is full of this.
The Apostle Paul in writing to the Colossians
for example in chapter 2 speaks of the
death of Christ and the blessings that emanate
from it.
In these words.
When you are dead in your sins and
in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature God
made you alive in Christ.
He forgave us all our sins.
Having cancelled the written code with its regulations
that was against us and that stood opposed
to us.
Now listen.
He took it away nailing it to his
cross.
And having disarmed the powers and authorities he
made a public spectacle of them.
Triumphing over them by the cross.
He took the sting out of death.
There is no need for you to be
frightened.
Jesus came that you might have life and
life abundantly.
Like David who grappled the great Goliath and
slew him with his own sword.
The Son of God engaged himself in the
stronger than Goliath and with the devil's own
sword of death slew death on his cross.
And on the morning of the resurrection began
a new era.
Like Samson Jesus died and in so doing
he tore the whole edifice of death until
it crumbled around him.
Only unlike Samson he arose again and came
back into life and said to you I
am the first and I am the last.
I died but I am alive again and
I have the keys of hell and of
death.
I give to you eternal life and you
will never perish.
Brothers and sisters have you got it?
A friend of mine has written a commentary
on Hebrews.
He uses an illustration which I heard him
use on a platform I shared with him
once.
He is a great scholar nowadays but he
was until he was 24 years of age
a postman in England.
And in his early days he was delivering
the post.
And on this day he came to a
house where apparently he had never been before.
He was no sooner into the garden than
he was faced with a vicious dog.
I opened the garden gate he says only
to find myself confronted by the largest and
most vicious dog I'd ever seen.
It barked furiously and then leapt towards me.
I stood there helpless and terrified.
And then at last he says to my
relief I saw what I hadn't seen previously
that this massive dog was chained.
And the chain was tied to a huge
stake set in concrete.
He said I began to breathe.
But I saw this yelping dog before me.
And there it was he says and it
could come so far and I realized of
course that there was enough room for me
to go around the side and deliver the
letter.
And that's what I did.
From there on he says I hardly remembered
about the dog.
I came I knew it would be there
but I just went my way.
I didn't let him come too near.
I knew that he had limits set on
his ability to hurt.
And says Raymond Brown from that day forward
it became a kind of a parable to
me.
I've never been afraid to die from that
day.
He said that though he didn't write it
in his book.
I've never been afraid to die.
Been very sick many times in hospital and
out of hospital.
Been involved in accidents but the fear of
death has gone.
He says because I see that the great
dog is not tied to concrete but the
death of Calvary has taken the sting out
of it.
And my Lord holds him back by his
word and covenant.
But you say what's all that got to
do with Christmas?
You're talking about Good Friday man you get
all mixed up.
No no I haven't my friend.
All I want to say about Christmas is
this that Christmas was the first step in
history towards Golgotha.
On the morning of Christmas God arrived on
planet earth.
The Lord was conceived of the Holy Ghost
in the Virgin's womb.
He came to take to his deity of
our humanity and he came to do it.
You know why?
Because unless he did that he couldn't die.
And he wanted to die.
Imagine wanting to die.
Imagine foreseeing Calvary and wanting to go to
Calvary.
Is he a pathological case?
No but he loved.
He loved you men and women.
He loved you on the gallery.
He loved you downstairs.
He even loved this sinner in the pulpit.
And he came because he loved.
For God so loved the world.
That's the message.
And he went into that dingy outhouse.
However smelly it was.
Whatever about it.
I'm not sure of its character all together.
I don't think anybody is.
But whatever kind of place it was he
did not despise it.
He loved.
And he wanted to rid you of the
fear of death.
He wanted you to live.
Live with hope.
Live in the power of eternal life.
Are you there?
Well let me give you this picture as
I close.
I return to something we've hinted at already.
The strategy, the divine strategy you see was
not to bombard the devil from a distance.
God could have done that.
The almighty God could have said a word
and the devil's whole armory would have been
in disarray.
For God is omnipotent.
The devil is a creature, an angelic creature.
He's a creature of God and a word
of God could have dismantled all his arsenal.
But that wasn't the strategy.
The strategy was you see God was going
to become small enough, so insignificant as to
come inside the castle of human nature and
inside the experience of suffering and dying.
And when he gets into the experience of
suffering and dying he's going to explode the
cave of death and say there's nothing here
to fear.
I'm Lord here.
And that's exactly what he did.
Amen.
He took our nature.
He took our flesh and blood and he
came into the midst of it all.
The writer of this same epistle says he
was tempted in all points like as we
are yet without sin.
He tasted death for every man.
He went into death itself.
And he tore death to smithereens.
And the devil has got no quiver in
his armor that need frighten the child of
God forevermore.
But then brothers and sisters there's only one
thing for you and for me.
To repent of our sins.
To come to the Christ of God who
came for us.
And in coming to him trust him.
Trust him.
Have faith in him.
Rest in him.
Walk with him.
Live with him and for him.
He will not only live better he will
die better.
And when at last the end comes it
will be as with the apostle to be
with Christ.
Which is far better.
Now there's someone here this morning who needs
this message.
And there's someone here who's never received the
Savior in this sense.
You've never done it.
You're outside of it all.
Listen.
Don't let this Christmas season go by and
you know why God sent his son and
you're not profiting from it.
Don't leave.
Don't leave an imaginary bite in the mouth
of Satan.
Don't leave an imaginary sting in his mouth.
And it need only be imaginary.
Rather accept the fact of what he's done
and trust him.
And begin to walk with him.
And work for him.
Step over the boundary of a new year
if he saves us and keeps us and
leads us.
To begin an altogether new life.
Will you do it now?
Right where you are.
Now some of you who are believers have
not lived on this level.
And you know it's wrong of us.
It's sin.
We're living beneath our dignity and privilege.
If we are frightened by suffering and death
when Christ has done everything to assure us
and sends his word to be proclaimed in
our hearing that we should have peace with
God and peace in our own souls.
Let us pray.
Oh Lord our God and Father we thank
you that you have such an amazing word
in scripture to declare in the hearing of
men and women such as ourselves who know
ourselves to be sinners and unworthy of your
presence and unprepared apart from what Jesus Christ
alone can do.
Oh God should there be among us this
morning someone who knows not the Lord Jesus
in this saving intimate personal way.
Help that one to call upon you.
And should there be among us some of
your dear blood-bought children who are buffeted
and fearful and timid at the very thought
of suffering and of death.
Blessed God grant them to see the glories
of the Redeemer.
Feast our eyes afresh upon the knowledge that
the incarnation has taken place and what begun
historically in the womb of the Virgin was
concluded in the womb of death.