"Awake, mankind! For your sake God has become man. Awake, you who sleep, rise up from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you. I tell you again: for your sake, God became man.
You would have suffered eternal death, had he not been born in time. Never would you have been freed from sinful flesh, had he not taken on himself the likeness of sinful flesh. You would have suffered everlasting unhappiness, had it not been for this mercy. You would never have returned to life, had he not shared your death. You would have been lost if he had not hastened to your aid. You would have perished, had he not come.
Let us then joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption. Let us celebrate the festive day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short day of time." –Saint Augustine
"How shall I describe this Birth for you? For this wonder fills me with astonishment. The Ancient of Days has become an infant. He who sits upon the sublime and heavenly Throne, now lies in a manger. And He who cannot be touched, who is simple, without complexity, and incorporeal, now lies subject to the hands of men. He who has broken the bonds of sinners, is now bound by an infant’s bands. But He has decreed that ignominy shall become honor, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of His Goodness.
For this He assumed my body, that I may become capable of His Word; taking my flesh, He gives me His spirit; and so He bestowing and I receiving, He prepares for me the treasure of Life. He takes my flesh, to sanctify me; He gives me His Spirit, that He may save me.
Come, then, let us observe the Feast. Truly wondrous is the whole chronicle of the Nativity. For this day the ancient slavery is ended, the devil confounded, the demons take flight, the power of death is broken, paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed from us, error driven out, truth has been brought back." –John Chrysostom
"In a culture that uses this season to get children to dream about how their lives would be made better by possessing a certain material thing, where Christmas has been reduced to a shopper’s nightmare and a retailer’s dream., it is vital to draw the wonder of our children away from the next great toy and toward the wonder of the coming of our great Lord and Savior, Jesus. ...Take a few moments every morning or at the dinner tablet to take the thoughts of your children away from trees, carols, toys, snowballs, and cookies. Invest the time needed to introduce them to the multifaceted glory of the grace that is displayed in the coming of the promised Messiah to earth." –Paul Tripp
"The baby was found wrapped in swaddling band. The one who can bind the chains of the constellation Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion lies now in a manger. His little body, only a few pounds in weight, is firmly bound with cloths because it was feared that otherwise his limbs would be in danger of malformation. The Creator becomes subject to the antiquated health practices of the first century. The one who populated the forests with trees lies within the bark of one. The one who has always been face to face with his heavenly Father now stares into the eyes of his teenage mother. The one whom the heavens cannot contain is contained within a stable. He who cradles the universe is himself cradled in an animal’s feeding trough. Yes, this is the kind of Saviour who is suited to the needs of lowly shepherds! Indeed, if he can save shepherds, not one of us is beyond his ability to save. He has stooped to the lowest of the low in order to raise them up to ‘God in the highest.'" –Sinclair Ferguson
"Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honor, all reputation, all vanity, all individualism beside the manger; whoever remains lowly and lets God alone be high; whoever looks at the child in the manger and sees the glory of God precisely in his lowliness." –Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"A very singular thing is this, that Jesus Christ was said to have been 'born the king of the Jews.' Very few have ever been 'born king.' Men are born princes, but they are seldom born kings. I do not think you can find an instance in history where any infant was born king. He was the Prince of Wales, perhaps, and he had to wait a number of years, till his father died, and then they manufactured him into a king, by putting a crown on his head; and a sacred chrism, and other silly things; but he was not born a king. I remember no one who was born a king except Jesus; and there is emphatic meaning in that verse we sing:
Born thy people to deliver;
Born a child, and yet a king.
The moment that he came on earth he was a king. He did not wait till his majority that he might take his empire; but as soon as his eye greeted the sunshine he was a king; from the moment that his little hands grasped anything, they grasped a scepter, as soon as his pulse beat, and his blood began to flow, his heart beat royally, and his pulse beat an imperial measure, and his blood flowed in a kingly current. He was born a king." –Charles H. Spurgeon
"Come and behold him, born the king of angels. Speak to him or be silent before him. In whatever way seems right to you and at whatever time, come to him with your empty hands. The great promise is that to come to him who was born at Bethlehem is to find coming to birth within ourselves something stronger and braver, gladder and kinder and holier, than ever we knew before or than ever we could have known without him." –Frederick Buechner
The Advent Project by Biola University’s Center for Christianity, Culture, and the Arts
The Jesus Storybook Bible Advent Printables and Christmas Ornaments
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