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Office Of Readings | Christmastide | 4th January | A Reading From The Five Centuries Of Saint Maximus The Confessor | The Mystery Ever New
‘The mystery ever new.’
Saint Maximus the Confessor reflects on the incarnation as a mystery that is complete in itself and yet continually active in the life of the believer. Christ was born once in the flesh, in history, but he is also born spiritually in those who desire him. This second birth does not add to Christ, nor does it repeat the incarnation. Rather, it describes how the life of Christ takes shape in the believer through faith and virtue.
Maximus stresses that Christ reveals himself according to a person’s capacity to receive him. This is not because Christ withholds himself, but because human understanding and spiritual maturity are limited. The mystery remains the same, but our grasp of it grows. For this reason, Christ is described as ‘ever new’. The reality does not change, but our participation in it does.
The text also emphasises the full divinity and full humanity of Christ. The Word, through whom all things were created, truly became man, taking human nature without sin. Maximus insists that sin is not part of what it means to be human. By assuming human nature and removing sin, Christ restores humanity to its original purpose.
The imagery of the star and the wise men highlights the relationship between revelation and fulfilment. The Law and the Prophets guide understanding in the same way the star guided the magi. When read with faith, they lead beyond themselves to Christ. Sensory knowledge and reasoning are not rejected, but they are completed by faith.
Maximus also uses strong symbolic language to describe Christ’s victory over evil. The humanity of Christ becomes the means by which evil is overcome, not through force but through the hidden power of the divine life within him. What appears as weakness becomes the place of defeat for evil and restoration for humanity.
The final emphasis is on faith. These realities cannot be fully grasped by reasoning alone. Faith does not replace understanding but grounds it. It allows believers to hold together what exceeds explanation: that Christ remains fully God and fully man, one person, without division or confusion. This mystery remains inexhaustible and is the foundation of Christian life.
A Reading From The Five Centuries Of Saint Maximus The Confessor | The Mystery Ever New
The Word of God, born once in the flesh (such is his kindness and his goodness), is always willing to be born spiritually in those who desire him. In them he is born as an infant as he fashions himself in them by means of their virtues. He reveals himself to the extent that he knows someone is capable of receiving him. He diminishes the revelation of his glory not out of selfishness but because he recognizes the capacity and resources of those who desire to see him. Yet, in the transcendence of mystery, he always remains invisible to all.
For this reason the apostle Paul, reflecting on the power of the mystery, said: Jesus Christ, yesterday and today; he remains the same for ever. For he understands the mystery as ever new, never growing old through our understanding of it.
Christ is God, for he had given all things their being out of nothing. Yet he is born as man by taking to himself our nature, flesh endowed with intelligent spirit. A star glitters by day in the East and leads the wise men to the place where the incarnate Word lies, to show that the Word, contained in the Law and the Prophets, surpasses in a mystical way knowledge derived from the senses, and to lead the Gentiles to the full light of knowledge.
For surely the word of the Law and the Prophets when it is understood with faith is like a star which leads those who are called by the power of grace in accordance with his decree to recognize the Word incarnate.
Here is the reason why God became a perfect man, changing nothing of human nature, except to take away sin (which was never natural anyway). His flesh was set before that voracious, gaping dragon as bait to provoke him: flesh that would be deadly for the dragon, for it would utterly destroy him by the power of the Godhead hidden within it. For human nature, however, his flesh would restore human nature to its original grace.
Just as the devil had poisoned the tree of knowledge and spoiled our nature by its taste, so too, in presuming to devour the Lord’s flesh he himself is corrupted and is completely destroyed by the power of the Godhead hidden within it.
The great mystery of the divine incarnation remains a mystery for ever. How can the Word made flesh be essentially the same person that is wholly with the Father? How can he who is by nature God become by nature wholly man without lacking either nature, neither the divine by which he is God nor the human by which he became man?
Faith alone grasps these mysteries. Faith alone is truly the substance and foundation of all that exceeds knowledge and understanding.
Christian Prayer With Jesus Christ
Lord Jesus Christ,
eternal Word of the Father,
you became flesh for our salvation
and continue to dwell in those who receive you in faith.
Form your life within us,
according to the measure you know we can bear.
Free our hearts from sin
and restore in us the grace for which we were created.
Strengthen our faith
where understanding fails,
and lead us by your light
from what is known to what is revealed.
You live and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen
Glossary Of Christian Terms
The Word | The eternal Son of God, through whom all things were created and who became flesh in Jesus Christ.
Incarnation | The act by which the Word of God took human nature, becoming fully God and fully man.
Faith | Trust in God’s self-revelation, which allows the believer to receive and hold truths that exceed human understanding.
Virtue | A stable disposition toward the good, through which the life of Christ is formed in the believer.
Law and the Prophets | The writings of the Old Testament, which prepare for and point toward Christ.
Divine nature | The eternal nature of God, shared fully by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Human nature | The created nature assumed by Christ, complete and real, except for sin.
Mystery | A divine reality revealed by God that can be truly known by faith but never fully comprehended.
Salvation | The restoration of humanity to communion with God, accomplished through Christ.
Deification | Participation in the life of God by grace, made possible through union with Christ.
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