"...If the incarnation was just a ghost..."

Meditation for a Sunday Morning

" The Word became flesh
    and made his home among us.
We have seen his glory,
    glory like that of a father’s only son,
        full of grace and truth."

(Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 14, Common English Bible)

__________________________

Our guest blogger this morning is Cyril of Jerusalem, an important Christian thinker in the mid-300s, and one of the best early teachers of simple, basic Christianity. Here Cyril speaks on Jesus' "incarnation."

Believe then that this only-begotten Son of God, for our sins, came down from heaven to earth and took upon himself this human nature with the same emotions and urges as we have. He was begotten of the Holy Virgin and the Holy Spirit, and was made human, not seemingly or as a mere show, but for real. And not by passing through the Virgin like a stream, but through her becoming actual flesh. He was actually nursed on milk, and actually ate and drank as we do.  For if the incarnation was a just a ghost, then salvation is a ghost as well.

The Christ had two natures, human in what was visible, but God in what was invisible. As a human, actually eating like us, since He had the same feelings in his body as us, but as God feeding the five thousand from five loaves. As a human actually dying, but as God raising a man [Lazarus] that had been dead four days. Actually sleeping in the ship like a human, and walking upon the waters as God.

Cyril of Jerusalem (AD 313 - 386)
Catecheses number 4 section 9