A homily on the Blessed Nativity of our Lord and Saviour
Galatians 4: 4-7; Matthew 2: 1-12.
Rejoice for today we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour – that which was foretold millennia ago by the Holy Prophets of God has happened. Christ is born! Christ is born that we might be united to our God. Christ came that all might have the opportunity to have life and live it to the full (John 10:10). This life transcends all that we can know and experience in our day to day lives for it comes from God and is freely given to those who seek it via through the graces bestowed through the Holy Mysteries of Christ’s Orthodox Church.
Saint Gregory the Theologian puts it in this way:
"This is our festival, this is the feast we celebrate today, in which God comes to live with human beings, that we may journey toward God, or return—for to speak thus is more exact—that laying aside the old human being we may be clothed with the new, and that as in Adam we have died so we may live in Christ, born with Christ and crucified with Him, buried with Him, and rising with Him. For it is necessary for me to undergo the good turnaround, and as painful things came from more pleasant things, so out of painful things more pleasant things must return. "For where sin abounded, grace superabounded," and if the taste of forbidden fruit condemned, how much more does the Passion of Christ justify? Therefore, we celebrate the feast not like a pagan festival but in a godly manner, not in a worldly way but in a manner above the world. We celebrate not our own concerns but the One who is ours, or rather what concerns our Master, things pertaining not to sickness but to healing, not to the first shaping, but to the reshaping (Oration on the Nativity)."
What the Saint highlights here is that this Feast is one of the great Feasts of our salvation and being such, should not be celebrated in the ways of the world. The ways of God are not the ways of the secular world – consumerism and commercial interest have no place here! We are to celebrate this Feast as a reminder of the Coming of the God-man being fully aware of what His coming teaches us about a life lived fully in Christ.
Christ came as a human being born with all our weaknesses and vulnerabilities – yet this little baby was God. This notion that God would come as a vulnerable baby goes against every hope about the Messiah which the Jews of His age had had. Yes, He is the King of Kings, yet His Kingdom is the complete opposite of what those of His age would have hoped it to be. Christ shows this to us when He says to Pilot:
…”My Kingdom is not of this world. If my Kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now; my Kingdom is not here … “You say rightly that I am a King. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I came into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice (John 18: 36-37).
What truth does our Lord and Saviour come to proclaim to the ends of the earth?
Well John 3: 16-17 expresses this truth where he writes:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
Here we have it written plainly for us by Saint John why Christ came and at the core of this message is love; love who opened His arms on the Holy Cross. This again is another sign that Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world for Saint Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1: 17-19:
“For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the Cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’”
What this demonstrates for us is that God chose to show strength in what might be perceived to be the greatest humiliation – death on a cross. To those who make an idol of reason a King who dies on a cross could be mocked as being defeated, unworthy of praise. The logic here, in their minds, is that a King who is worthy of praise would never let himself be humiliated on a cross!
But God’s ways are not the ways of the supposed wise, for he revealed His kingship in the middle of suffering as Saint Isaiah writes in Isaiah 53: 1-8:
“O Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? We proclaimed His presence as a child, as a root in a thirsty land. He had no form or glory, and we saw Him; and He had no form or beauty. But in comparison to all men, His form was lacking in honour. He was a man in suffering and knew how to bear sickness. His face was turned away, and He was dishonoured and not esteemed. He bears our sins and suffers for us, yet we considered Him to be in pain, suffering and ill treatment. But He was wounded because of our lawlessness, and became sick because of our sins. Although He was ill-treated, He opened not His mouth. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, as a lamb silent before His shearers, so He opens not His mouth. In His humiliation His judgement was taken away, and who will declare His generation? For His life was taken from the earth, and because of the lawlessness of My people He was led to death.”
Moreover, what this passage demonstrates is the reality that Christ came to suffer so that all may have the opportunity to be saved should they desire salvation. Yet in His Crucifixion He was robbed of all beauty and became a man to be scorned by His enemies; yet He who was born of Saint Mary, the God-man could not be contained by death.
Also, in this allegory by Saint Isaiah we have Christ painted as an icon of the poor, the suffering, and the needy. For Christ came to save these very little ones and was not afraid to take on their humiliation for it is through this humiliation they will be raised up.
Christ took on our nature which had been corrupted by Adams fall and nailed it to the Holy Cross so that through His resurrection our human nature might be raised up and restored through the Mystery of His holy resurrection.
In other words, the God-man being both human and divine, two natures perfectly joined in one Holy Person, raised our fallen nature; restoring what Adam had lost through the fall in the Garden of Eden.
Saint Paul puts it in this way in his first letter to the Corinthians chapter 15: 54-58:
“So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written:’Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is thy sting? O hades where is thy victory?’ The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
What Saint Paul means by the Law (the two great commandments) is that because of the Law through the consequences of unrepented sin, sin can sting us in so many ways. However, through communion with our Lord and Saviour, through the worthy reception of the Holy Mysteries, we are made alive and immune to the power of sin and able to fight the good fight and win the race (2 Timothy 4: 7-8).
Those who reject communion with our Lord and Saviour expose themselves to the full consequences of the Law and will ultimately place themselves in a place where there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13: 36- 43). Of course, it must be noted that those who end up in this place will have done so by their own actions and disbelief; every action done or not done to another is an action done or not done to Christ (Matthew 25: 31-46).
Therefore, what a great gift we have in the incarnation of our Lord and Saviour! Through this great event the God- man came into this broken world and proclaims to each of us:
“Come to me, all you that labour and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yolk is easy and My burden light (Matthew 11: 27-30). “
For by accepting the yolk of the lord – Holy Baptism followed by Holy Chrismation- we are joined to Him and made able to receive the Hevenley food needed to sustain us for our journey home; the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist.
For once the burden of sin is removed from our shoulders through the worthy reception of the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist, the shackles of sin fall from our hands and feet allowing us to grow spiritually through communion with our Lord and Saviour.
No sinful man in the valley of death, can grow in his relationship with his God for he is crushed down by the burden of his sins. His very disbelief and scorn for God cut him off from the very source of his life.
Yet Psalm 22 (23) shows us what can be if we listen and Like saint Samuel are willing to say, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening (1 Samuel 3:10)’, for it says:
“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and staff they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord to the end of my days.”
What a beautiful summary of how, once we are committed to our Lord and Saviour, He guides, protects and nourishes us in His Holy Orthodox Church. This Psalm of Saint David is a prefiguration of what was to come in the New Covenant - the fulfilment of God’s promises to His people via the sanctification of man through the New Israel; Christ’s Bride the Church.
As I have mentioned before, the whole of salvific history tells the story of a loving God who seeks to bring His lost children to Him. For it is through Him, in His Holy Church we that we are conformed to Him.
Therefore, let us always strive to imitate He who is worthy of being imitated. He came that we might have the opportunity to be saved; if we choose to walk this path with Him, He will guide us.
Moreover, always pray that those who do not believe may have the opportunity to experience Christ through the actions of us who are His hands and feet in the world. For it is by showing others the love of Christ that others are brought to Him who is the source of our life.
Finally, let us ask His mother the All-Holy Theotokos that she may pray for us this day of His Holy Nativity. Let us ask her that she might intercede to Him for all the graces we need to live a faithful Christian life conformed to Christ.
Christ is born; let us glorify Him our Lord and Saviour.
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