Read Together: Hebrews 1

Christmas day has now come and gone, but holiday season or not, it is always beneficial to reflect on the truths we celebrate at Christmas. I think we all would agree that the incarnation of Jesus is central to our faith through every season. This is the amazing truth that the baby in the manger that we’ve sung about, read about, and seen represented in nativity sets over the past few weeks is God’s Son.

Yet, the inevitable question arises: how could God the Son become a man? This question gets at the mystery of Christmas. It is a mystery that is so deep, we will never be able to reach the bottom of it. The baby in the manger, human through-and-through and needing to be sustained by Mary, was at the same time the radiance of the glory of God and the one who sustains the universe. He is the One superior to the angels, the One whom angels heralded. He is the Word, the revelation from God and the One who fulfills the revelations given through the prophets. He added to himself the nature of creation, though he is the Creator.

The proper response to this Christmas mystery is to fall on our knees in wonder and exceeding joy. In our finitude, we may never fully understand how these things work, but like children who know little of astronomy still gaze with wonder at the night sky, so we should gaze with joyful wonder at the incredible truth that God became a man. And so, as our calendars move on from the Christmas season and turn the page to a new year, let’s seek to enter 2023 with the awe and joy fitting of those who belong to Emmanuel, God with us.

Discussion Questions

1. What does Hebrews 1 teach us about Jesus?
2. How does the mystery of the incarnation push us to joy?
3. What are some other ways we should respond to these truths about Jesus?

Ideas for Younger Kids

• Read “The Light of the Whole World” in The Jesus Storybook Bible (pages 184–91).
• Discuss the following question: “Who is Jesus?” Talk about how Jesus is God’s Son. He is fully God and fully human at the same time. This is something that is really hard to understand, but it is what our faith in God is all about.

Memorization: “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” (Hebrews 1:3a)

Song: Listen to “Who Would Have Dreamed” (Sovereign Grace Music). Much of this song is a reflection on the mystery of Christmas: “But the Sovereign of all looked helpless and small/As God gave the world His own Son”.

Pray Together

• Praise God for the depths of his wisdom in sending his Son to take on a human nature and dwell among us, even though we cannot fully comprehend all the details of how God could become man.
• Confess before God our lack of wonder and joy at the mystery of Christmas, the incarnation of God the Son.
• Give thanks to God for the cleansing from sin we have through the work of Jesus.
• Pray that as we enter 2023, we would do so with wonder and joy at who Jesus is and what he has done.

Go Together

• As we enter a new year, sit down together and look back and reflect on 2022. List all the things you thank God for. Commit together to enter 2023 with thanksgiving for what God has done and with faith in the reality that God the Son is even now sustaining our crazy world by his powerful word—and he is coming soon.