Who is Jesus Christ? The questions began with Mary and Joseph and were not settled in a day. He’s more than the Jewish Messiah, the Son of David. Jesus Christ is the Word of God who became flesh.
The early creeds state what we believe:
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
The feast of Christmas celebrates that same belief. .The earliest celebration of the feast appears in a Roman church calendar from 336. A 3rd century Roman theologian, Hyppolytus, describes his time as a supermarket of revelations about God, a pantheon of divine beings, all acceptably true. The Roman empire tolerated many beliefs and systems, as long as they did not threaten the empire and its institutions.
Christmas originated as a doctrinal celebration, not a devotional one. The gospel read on this feast early on was from St. John, “In the beginning was the Word…”
Hippolytus called Jesus Christ the unique Word of God. “He is the Word who made the universe, the Savior you sent to redeem us.” Those words are found today in our 2nd Eucharistic Prayer.
Addressing the Jews, the Roman theologian claimed the prophets spoke “dimly” about God’s Word. Now the Word made flesh speaks clearly through his humanity. To the gentile world, a world awash in various philosophies, Hippolytus spoke about the unique Word, Creator and Redeemer. Christmas celebrates this Christian belief.
By your Word you created the world and you govern all things in harmony. You gave us the same Word made flesh as Mediator and he has spoken your words to us and called us to follow him. He is the way that leads us to you, the truth that sets us free, the life that fills us with gladness.
Lets not turn Christmas into quaint story, with little meaning for our “real world.” Speak out, Hippolytus and those like you, even if you’re not heard. Truth must be told, and told continually..
The Victor's Place 
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now stays faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (1 Corinthians 13: 12-13)
The ‘glass’ Paul describes here is actually a mirror. The mirrors of the ancients were of polished metal, in many cases they were of brass and they required constant polishing, so that a sponge with pounded pumice-stone was generally attached to it. Paul who wrote this letter to a church in Corinth, which was famous for the manufacture of these kinds of mirrors. The images reflected in these brass mirrors were indistinct in comparison to our modern mirrors. They were seen Darkly: literally translated from the original Greek language in which he wrote, means, “in a riddle or enigma…that the revelation appears indistinctly, imperfectly.” Paul is telling us that this is the state of our knowledge of divine things–imperfect and incomplete. “Now I know in part,” Paul mourns. There were limitations upon the knowledge even of Paul; only a part was seen. But wonderfully, it will not always be so. One glorious moment in the future every single human being on earth will suddenly face Him — Jesus! –without a veil, without obscurity, Face to Face!
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