About the Nativity of Jesus Christ

In the presented essay, Rev. Nicodemus the Holy Mountain reflects on the spiritual meaning of the Nativity of Jesus Christ. The author reveals the event of the Incarnation as a decisive battle with the “passionate world,” which, according to the Apostle John the Theologian, consists of three main sinful passions: love of wealth (love of money), love of pleasures (lust) and love of glory (love of glory). St. Nicodemus consistently shows how the birth of Christ in extreme poverty (in a cave, in a manger), in conditions of deprivation and suffering (cold, lack of amenities) and in deep humility (in obscurity, under the rule of Caesar) becomes a spiritual weapon against each of these passions: - the voluntary poverty of Christ exposes the madness of the love of money and calls believers to non-covetousness and generous alms; - the suffering of the Infant Jesus from the first minutes of his life teaches a Christian to mortify carnal lusts, accept sorrows and see in suffering the path to true repentance and salvation; - humility and humiliation of God, who took the form of a servant, serves as an example for the fight against pride and vanity, indicating that true glory is in the hidden life with Christ. The author uses rhetorical questions, vivid imagery, and calls for self-examination to encourage a person to make a choice between Christ and the world, between living according to the Gospel and living according to the passions. Contents 1. Love of wealth 2. Love of pleasure 3. Love of fame With His Nativity, Christ entered into battle and healed: 2. Love of pleasure. Think, beloved, that just as there is this huge visible world, perceived by our senses and consisting of different creations, so there is also another world - invisible, but contemplated by the mind, consisting of sinners and having in itself three perverted types of love, which John the Theologian gives: the first is the love of wealth, the second is the love of pleasures, and the third is love to glory: “For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16) 1. Now this evil world, completely opposing the intention of God and being in the power of the fallen star (who is therefore called the ruler of the world) is that very great enemy, which the born and incarnate Word of God and the Father came to overthrow, first by His silent example, and then in due time by His word and teaching. Therefore, think about the fact that He first crushes the insane love of wealth with His poverty. A worldly person usually thinks that everything good in life is found in temporary blessings, and therefore, in order to acquire them or to avoid losing them, he spends almost all his time, which God gave him to acquire incorruptible blessings. And now the eternal Word, the Son of God and the Father, descends from heaven to free us from this delusion and to tear out from our hearts this accursed root of all evil - the love of money, as the divine Paul calls it: “For the love of money is the root of all evil things” (1 Tim. 6:10). But look to what suffering and humiliation He reduced Himself to out of love for us, He Who Himself distributes all the riches and treasures of both this life and the future: “My silver and my gold, says the Lord Almighty” (Hag. 2:9). Now think: where are the palace chambers in which He was supposed to be born? Where are the preparations? Where are the servants during childbirth? Where is the royal bed? Where are the vessels for ablution? Where is the escort of slaves? Where is the warmth of the hearth and relaxation? Where is the help of relatives and friends? Enter at least partly with your mind into this beggarly cave and see where He was born, look into this humble manger in which He reclines, and then not only will you not find anything superfluous in it, but on the contrary, you will see extreme poverty in everything necessary, for our sweetest Jesus is born almost in the open sky, at midnight, in the very middle of winter, in solitude, with only His Matter and His named father, without the blankets and hot food that even the poorest babies usually have at birth, deprived of even the smallest consolations that He later had in his poor home in Nazareth. Moreover: in addition to the poverty He freely chose, He desired another, almost involuntary, since He determines that in this cave He would not be given any reception or hospitality from any person, in order to differ in this from many of the rest of his relatives, who also went to Bethlehem for the census and were well prepared for the journey, being in comfort and finding overnight accommodation in houses, as the Evangelist Luke testifies to this: “Not There is no place for them in the monastery” (Luke 2:7). And since the world not only abhors poverty and considers it a great shame for itself, but also teaches people to pretend to be rich while being poor, then Jesus Christ is not ashamed of His poverty, but on the contrary - He openly announces it and calls angels from Heaven, and from the fields and villages - shepherds, so that they come and worship Him in the unsettled and meager situation in which He is, where a wretched manger served as His throne, and the poorest cave served as His royal court. Oh, the richest poverty, oh the highest condescension! What will you say now, having learned from these truths? Which of these two, who are in great enmity towards each other, do you think has more power to defeat and dominate you - the world or Christ, who conquered the world? The world encourages you to seek first of all earthly goods and inspires you to consider them as some great good. Christ, by His example and teaching, exhorts you to seek first of all the Kingdom of Heaven and to neglect all the blessings of the earth as dirt: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). And He also advises you to at least partially remain deprived of earthly goods, giving alms to the poor, or to completely free yourself from them, renouncing everything in the monastic life and redeeming for yourself an incorruptible treasure in Paradise: “Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor; and have treasure in heaven” (Matthew 19:21), and again: “Whoever does not renounce all that he has from you cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). Therefore, if you are a disciple of Christ and a prudent and prudent person, you should decide to listen to what Christ tells you, and not what the world whispers to you, and not just listen, but also do it in practice, “for they who are not hearers of the law are righteous before God, but doers of the law, these will be justified” (Rom. 2:13). It is true that if you are a layman, you are not obliged to labor in complete lack of wealth and poverty. However, you must attach such little importance to wealth and money that even all the treasures of the world cannot induce you to break even one of God’s commandments, and not to cleave to them with your heart; possess them so impartially, as if not having them at all, and freely use and waste them right and left, as Paul says: “The time is already short, so that... those who use this world, as if they do not use it; for the image of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:29–31). And the main thing in this whole matter is to seek advice from the Most Holy Infant Jesus and be ashamed of the life that you have led until now, for until now you have so treasured and loved those riches that are so despised by Him, and on the contrary, you have so much hated and despised poverty and poverty, which are so beloved by Him. Ask Him for forgiveness for all the evil you have done, that is, for the fact that you strived for wealth, earthly goods and the enjoyment of them. And ask Him to send you grace, so that, looking at how He, being rich, became poor out of love for you, so you, too, out of love for Him, could turn to poverty and become rich from His divinity: “For the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ knows that because of your poverty he was rich, so that by His poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). And in addition to this, ask Him never again to allow you to be carried away by the charms of the world, but, having a certain fortune, or being in need out of love for the Lord, not to use it for any other purpose, but solely for the sake of redeeming eternal wealth for yourself, according to the Scripture: “With his wealth a man redeems his life” (Proverbs 13:8). 2. Love of pleasure Think, brother, that the born Christ came in order to destroy the insane love for sensual pleasures with His suffering and pain. Thus, a carnal person does not believe that there can be any other pleasures other than those that are perceived by external senses, and therefore does not preserve his feelings, which is characteristic of every person endowed with reason, but allows himself to be carried away and seduced by them like some kind of unreasonable animal, and in order to obtain joy, he unbridledly rushes towards any lawlessness. Such a person seeks sensual pleasures to the end and considers them worthy of respect, despite the fact that he finds them in the most shameful and unclean deeds. But the Son of God, compassionate about such blindness of man, comes to earth to defeat and heal this great wound. And therefore, despite the fact that Christ had the opportunity to be born immediately in a strengthened, tempered and adult body, He desired to be incarnated in the tender body of a baby, more sensitive to external restrictions and inconveniences, and, therefore, to suffer even more. And after the Savior endured nine months of grueling stay in the prison of a virgin mother’s womb, the Lord wanted to endure all the torments and sufferings of an infant’s nature, becoming like one without reason. From the very beginning, it was fitting for Him to accept a body that would not only be more perfect than the body of Adam, but a body that was dispassionate, painless, blessed, and in every way worthy for the indwelling of His blessed soul 2 . However, instead of it, He puts on a body that is extremely sensitive, very weak and tender, susceptible to all pain and made in such a way that, from the side of all the senses, it is capable of receiving any suffering, in the likeness of the sea into which all rivers flow. Therefore, He compares Himself to a worm - not only because of His constant birth, which happens to worms, but also because His flesh had such sensitivity and tenderness as is characteristic of these animals: “I am a worm, and not a man, a reproach to men and the humiliation of people” (Ps. 21:7). Therefore, from the first minutes of his birth, through touch, He feels the touch of the icy winter air and the dampness of the cave, and with His voice he utters a plaintive cry, with His smell he inhales the stench from mangers and unreasonable animals, with His sight he sees a gloomy, ugly and inconsolable cave, with His hearing he hears nothing else except the piercing howl of wild animals. And in general, as soon as Jesus was born, the very first beginnings of His life were associated with great need and deprivation of all comfort, and with all kinds of sorrows and trials that His body could endure at that age. Oh, let me go and fall to the manger and say to my Jesus: “What an incomprehensible condescension this is, my sweetest Jesus! You are the Messiah desired by all nations, and immediately after Your birth you plunge into such suffering? Yes,” He answers me, “for such was from the beginning the will of My heavenly Father, that through suffering I might abolish carnal lust, and I came to fulfill this Father’s will as soon as I was born into the world, about which David and the Apostle prophesied on My behalf: “Thou didst not desire sacrifice and offering, but thou didst fulfill the body: burnt offerings and no sin.” you have exacted. Then he said: “Behold, I will come... to do Your will, O God” (Ps. 39:7, Heb. 10:5–7). And now, beloved, judge and decide who should rule over you: Christ or the world? Who should you follow: the One who wants to lead you to salvation through suffering, or the one who through pleasures leads you to destruction? It is obvious that after the First: “Christ suffered for us, leave us an image, that we may follow His footsteps” (1 Pet. 2:21). And if you do not do this, then of necessity you must admit one of two things: that you are either not a Christian, or that you have no reason; but in any case you are pathetic and unhappy. Although the world is so blind that it not only does not know the truth, but is also incapable of knowing it, as the Truth itself says: “The Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him, knows Him less” (John 14:17). And yet, if you want to trust this blind man and let him rule your life according to his commands, which, naturally, are false, then there is no person more unhappy than you! For you, of your own free will, betray yourself into the hands of your fiercest enemy, just as Samson voluntarily gave himself into the hands of foreigners (cf. Judgment. 15:13), you become a clear apostate from the Lord, Who is your highest Benefactor, wanting to satiate your feelings with pleasures and preferring a pampered, easy and full of pleasures life, which Jesus hated so much from His very birth, but which is considered sinless and innocent by foolish people. Oh, brother, will you ever believe that the infinite Wisdom of God wished to give up His Most Holy Body to such great suffering, not only at His Nativity, but throughout His entire earthly life and death, because you, too, need to avoid pleasures and bridle your body? And how will such an empty excuse help you, that, they say, Christ did not give the command with His commandments to move away from pleasures and peace of the senses and body, but only exhorts, saying: “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and come after Me” (Mark 8:34). How can you subject the instructions of uncreated Wisdom to your own judgment, invent excuses for your sins and strive to manage your voluptuous life without God? Know that if you want to be worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven, you must imitate Jesus Christ, for a life full of pleasures does not at all correspond to the suffering life of the Redeemer, Who set an example for us. And listen to these terrible definitions that the baby Jesus loudly pronounces right from the manger: “Woe to you, you rich! for you have already received your consolation. Woe to you who are now satiated! for you will hunger. Woe to you who laugh now! for you will mourn and lament. Woe to you when all people speak well of you!” (Luke 6:24–26). How can you answer this, who wants to spend life in comfort and, moreover, strives to find excuses for it? Do you think that what the Lord said are empty words and that God will leave them unfulfilled? Get it out of your head! “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35). Be ashamed, be ashamed of all your carnal lusts, and consider yourself unworthy to bear the name of a Christian, for with your life and your deeds you have left a great stain of shame on your calling as a Christian and have thought so many times that it is better to please the flesh than God. Your behavior became the reason for Christianity and the all-praised name of God to be blasphemed among the pagans, as He Himself complains, saying: “For your sake My name is blasphemed among the nations” (Isa. 52:5, cf. Rom. 2:24). Therefore, make a firm decision to first renounce all pleasures that are clearly not necessary in your position, and then with thanksgiving to accept every cross and every sorrow that God sends you. Voluntarily love suffering, which contains true repentance, not wanting any other reason for it than the love that Christ showed at His Nativity. Give thanks to the Lord, Who, out of love for you, wanted to be born with such hardships, and finally, ask Him to send you grace so that, following His example, you can firmly grasp the following truth: this life is a time for crying and sorrow, and not for laughter and entertainment, as Ecclesiastes says: “A time to weep” (Eccl. 3:4), and with him the Apostle Paul: “The time is already short, so... those who rejoice [should be] as if they did not rejoice... for the image of this world is passing away" (1 Cor. 7:29-31). Think about the fact that after being born, Christ came into the world with the weapon of His humility to put to death the insane love of glory. Thus, a worldly person usually wants to be above others, to be honored and glorified; wants to appear different from other people, to command with authority, to speak down, to enjoy authority among others. And if ever he is faced with a rivalry between his personal glory and the glory of God, he disdains the latter and chooses his own. All these are ridiculous lessons about the world that he gives to his students. From this destructive error the Redeemer came to heal us from the very beginning of His life on earth. He could, while still an Infant, immediately begin to do things appropriate for adults, that is, He could immediately after His birth begin to pronounce words clearly and clearly; He could begin to speak the languages ​​of all the nations of the earth; He could surround Himself with thousands and millions of beautiful bright angels who would personally stand before Him to serve, not only as God, but also as a person. From the very first moments of His earthly life, He could, without wasting time, rush into the world and fill it with the greatness of His miracles, enlighten it with the brilliance of His teaching, instruct it with the holiness of His examples and the power of His preaching to convert people to the truth. With all this, He could glorify His name more than all the ambitious people who once lived on earth, and the kings of the earth, and nobles, and rulers and all nations from the four corners of the universe would move from their places to come to Jerusalem and hear the heavenly wisdom preached by the Child, as the Queen of Sheba once did, who rushed from prosperous Arabia to listen to the wisdom of the twelve-year-old boy Solomon (cf. 1 Kings 10:1). And everyone would see how this Baby gives sight to the blind, cleanses the lepers, corrects the lame, raises the dead, heals the sick, and performs other stunning and amazing miracles, and everyone would praise, glorify and exalt Him. But Jesus did not want such vain human glory, no, but “He made Himself of no reputation, and took on the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of mankind, and being found in the likeness of a man” (Phil. 2:7), and after His coming He hides in one of the most unknown places of Judea, in a haven for wild animals, hiding all the treasures of His wisdom under the garments of mortal flesh and under the foolishness of an unknown and silent Child, “in Him are all the treasures of wisdom and understanding hidden” (Col. 2:3). Therefore, the prophet Isaiah said the following words about the infantile ignorance of this child: “Before you know how to call a child father or mother” (Is. 8:4). And at a time when the kings of the earth, I mean Caesar Augustus, rule kingdoms through the census, give laws to peoples and appear powerful before everyone, He who is the King of kings is born and lives in complete obscurity and is considered by everyone to be nothing. Oh, how incomprehensible is Your humility, Jesus, the sweetest God both in essence and in name! It led the prophet Habakkuk almost into a frenzy, so that he exclaimed: “Lord, I understood your works and was horrified: in the midst of two animals you will be known” (Hab. 3:2). This same humility prompted St. Isaac to say the following sublime words: “Humility is the robe of the Divine. The Word made man clothed itself in it and through it became part of us in our body... so that the creation would not be caught by the vision of this” 3 . The reason for the fall of both angels in heaven and people on earth was the erroneous division of things into greater and lesser things, therefore You, the Word of God, by Your birth remove from this world this great temptation that leads it to destruction. And You, Who are greater and above all that exists, becoming lesser and last in everything, by Your example you endow with equal honor all Your creations, both great and high, and small and low, and show us the path to the highest ascension, which is humility, as Your Saint Gregory of Thessalonica theologizes: “In a miraculous way He removes the reason for falls that was from the beginning; this reason was: the superiority and humiliation observed in creatures, and as a result of this envy and deceit, as well as open and hidden hostility... So, having now deigned to abolish the basis for pride, which destroys His rational creation, God is completely likened to it: and since in His nature He is equal to Himself and unchangeable, He makes the creature equal in nature to itself and unchanged. And how does he do this? - Because God the Word Himself is from God, having inexpressibly exhausted Himself and descended from His height to the last depth of human nature, and uniting it inextricably with Himself, and having humbled itself and become impoverished in our image, He has made what is below to be above. It’s better to say: he brought both of them into one, combining the Divinity with human nature. Thus, He showed everyone the path leading to what is above - humility, offering Himself today as an example to people and the holy Angels" 4. Now, beloved, can you find a greater contrast between God and the world than this? Therefore, which of these two, in justice, should rule over you - Christ or the world? Of course Christ. For Christ does not deceive and is not deceived Himself, and the world knows nothing else but to deceive and be deceived. Think, further, that Christ was not satisfied only with the fact that he was born under the rule of Caesar Augustus, but also wanted to be born at a time when, throughout the entire universe, subordination to Caesar was being carried out in practice: “And it came to pass in the days of thee, that a commandment went out from Caesar Augustus to write the whole universe” (Luke 2:1), and wished to disrupt the entire customary order of things, only to bow under the yoke of this subordination: “Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem... to be married to Mary as his betrothed wife, who is not idle” (Luke 2:4–5). But you, brother, seem to prefer to turn everything upside down and throw the whole world into confusion, just to fulfill your will, just to subjugate everyone to your opinion, just to appear strong and be glorified by the world. It seems that by all this you are saying: “I would rather follow the example of the world than the example of Christ, I would rather prefer the glory of the world than the glory of Christ.” But, alas! - Yes, I must neglect my honor and humble myself for the sake of Christ, but the ignorant world begins to despise me and consider me as nothing. - Well done, you answered correctly. But it is better to let your honor and life remain hidden from the world and be neglected, so that when Christ appears, you will appear in honor and glory: “When Christ appears, your life, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4). Let the world have its say. What do you care about him? Follow the guidance of the wisdom of Jesus, and not the madness of the world, which is your personal enemy and the enemy of your Redeemer - so irreconcilable that when Christ, during His suffering, prayed to the heavenly Father even for His crucifiers, He did not want to ask for peace: “I pray for these, but I do not pray for [the whole] world” (John 17:9). Therefore, only one of two things is possible: if you are a friend of Jesus, then you must be an enemy of the world; and if, on the contrary, you want to become a friend of the world, then you will certainly be the enemy of Jesus: “Adulterers and adulteresses! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity against God? So, whoever wants to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4). Does it bother you that the world despises and hates you? You are a foolish man! This hatred and this contempt serves as a good sign that you are a disciple not of the world, but of Christ: “If you were quicker from the world, the world would love its own: as you are not from the world, but I chose you out of the world, for this reason the world hates you” (John 15:19). So begin, brother, to finally open your eyes for the benefit of your soul and make the decision to stop from now on believing this world, which is a liar and a traitor, as the wise Sirach advises you: “Do not trust your enemy forever” (Sir. 12:10). Make a firm decision to always learn and follow the light under the guidance and example of Jesus Christ, Who, from the swaddling clothes of His baby, with His babbling tongue, loudly communicates to you this terrible accusation: “How can you believe, receiving glory from one another, and seeking not glory other than that from the One God?” (John 5:44). And since He endured so much suffering to instruct you in the truth, ask Him to enlighten you with grace, so that you will deeply understand and internalize His example and His teaching; so that, on the one hand, you love His humility, which is filled with true height and glory, and on the other hand, you hate and turn away from the glory and honors of the world, which in reality are dishonor and disgrace. Not only because they deprive you of true glory, but also because in the end they always turn to dust and dung, according to the curse uttered by David: “Let the enemy marry my soul, and let him comprehend... and place my glory in the dust” (Ps. 7:5). When the Lord ascended the mountain and was tempted by the devil, he battled these three lusts of fallen human nature. He conquered the lust for pleasures by the fact that he did not want to turn stones into bread and be satisfied, saying: “For man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Deut. 8:3); He trampled on his love of glory by the fact that he did not want to cast himself down from the heights of the church, so as not to be glorified as having received no injury, saying: “Do not tempt the Lord your God” (Deut. 6:16); and the love of money because he did not want to bow to the devil, who showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, saying: “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve Him alone” (Deut. 6:13). Read about this also in the 3rd part of the Teaching: “On the life of the Lord, considered as a whole.” Some theologians argue that the Body of the Lord during His earthly life was not characterized by bliss, but His Body became like that later, as happened with the saints, since He was subject to natural passions and death, so that through them He could suffer and fulfill the economy of our salvation. In his soul, He was blessed in everything, for He possessed not only natural knowledge and wisdom, but also a divinely inspired and blessed vision of the Divine Face, thanks to which He, even in this life, enjoyed the contemplation of God, which saints are granted only after death). Therefore, Saint Augustine, in his book on the agreement of the Evangelists, says that in this Christ differed from other people, for no one in this life was given the opportunity to see God as He did. This is confirmed by the following words of the Gospel: “No one has seen God anywhere: the Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, is the one who confessed” (John 1:18), and again: “And no one has ascended into heaven, except the Son of Man who came down from heaven, who is in heaven” (John 3:13). From this it is clear that Christ was in heaven during this blessed time. See also the word on the Annunciation of St. Athanasius of Alexandria. Isaac Sirin 2008. pp. 283–284. St. Gregory Palamas. Word for Christmas.