The Exact Imprint

A Reflection on the Second Reading for December 25, 2022:
The Nativity of the Lord

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Hebrews
1. 1-6

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the Prophets,
but in these last days he has spoken to us by the Son,
whom he appointed heir of all things,
through whom he also created the ages.
He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being,
and he sustains all things by his powerful word. 
When he had made purification for sins,
he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
having become as much superior to Angels
​as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. 
For to which of the Angels did God ever say,
“You are my Son; today I have begotten you”?
Or again,
“I will be his Father, and he will be my Son”?
And again,
when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,
“Let all God’s Angels worship him.”

He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being…

I can’t shake the power of these words. “The exact imprint of God’s very being.” There’s no way to say it more strongly than that… Jesus, Himself, is the exact imprint of God’s very being. The exact same. God reached out and touched our world and left Himself in that same fingerprint. God and Jesus are the same; Jesus a mirror to God’s glory and divinity, except shaped like us. Where we are made in the image of God, Jesus is God, and yet, He also is made in the image of God because He was born in human likeness. He is both, divine and human. 

What a glorious truth. What a glorious Father. Imagine the love with which God says, “I will be his Father, and he will be my Son.” Imagine and extrapolate from how much we know God loves us to how much God must love the angels, to how much God loves His Son. Infinite, this love. Unending, this joy.

The universe should exult, should sing and shout with joy! How can it not? 

With what love and tenderness God sent His Son, His only Son, to speak to us. God had tried to speak to His people before, through the prophets, for hundreds of years. Surely now they would listen – if He sent his most beloved, if he sent Himself. Can God feel trepidation and nervousness? Imagine entrusting your most beloved to a human girl, though she be the most immaculate of women, and to a human man, strong in faith yet tested by doubt, and seeing your Child born in a lowly manger, amongst animals, slipping into the world unnoticed by the very people He was sent to save.

What a way to speak to us – the living Word, born to live and die the truth, born to set us free. What greater Christmas gift could we ever ask for? There is no greater gift – no greater love than this. God walked among us in the person of Jesus Christ; He spoke to us; He worked miracles for us; He died for us; He rose for us.

Gift of God’s love, King of our hearts, Word by which we have eternal life – we turn to you. We worship you. We praise you. We adore you. We love you. Gloria in excelsis Deo! Exsultate! Jubilate Deo! Joy to the world!

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​Kim Tan

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