Word for the Nativity of our Savior Jesus Christ

The mystery is extraordinary and wonderful. – Joy on the occasion of the Birth of Christ. – Purpose of incarnation. – Birth of the Lord of Nature from the Virgin. – Adam and Christ. – The coming of God to earth to raise man to heaven. – Judea and other nations in relation to the kingdom of Christ. - Eve and the Ever-Virgin. – Doxology to the incarnate Word of God. I see an extraordinary and wonderful sacrament: the shepherds fill my ears, uttering not a desert song, but chanting a heavenly hymn. Angels sing, archangels sing, cherubim cry out, seraphim praise, everyone triumphs, seeing God on earth and man in heaven, high below, according to His economy, and low above, according to (God’s) love for mankind. Today Bethlehem has become like the sky, having received singing angels instead of stars, and inexplicably containing the Sun of Truth instead of the sun. Do not investigate how this is; Where God wants, the order of nature is overcome. He was willing, able, descended and saved; everything obeys God. Today Jehovah is born, and Jehovah becomes what He was not; being God, He becomes man without ceasing to be God; without losing divinity, He became man, and, on the other hand, not through gradual advancement from man became God, but, being the Word, He became flesh, so that His nature remained unchanged in its dispassion. When He was born, the Jews rejected His extraordinary birth, the Pharisees falsely interpreted the divine books, and the scribes spoke contrary to the law; Herod sought the one who was born, not in order to honor Him, but in order to destroy Him. Today people have seen all the opposites: “it is not hidden,” says the psalmist, “from their children to the next generation.”) (Ps. 77:4) 1. The kings came and marveled at the heavenly King, how He came to earth, having with Him neither Angels, nor Archangels, nor Thrones, nor Dominions, nor Powers, nor Powers, but, having passed through an extraordinary and impassable path, He came from an inviolable womb, without, however, leaving His angels without His leadership and without losing His own deity through incarnation with us. Kings came to worship the heavenly King of glory, and warriors came to serve the Commander of the forces, wives came to the One born of a woman to change the wife’s sorrows into joy; virgins - to the Son of the Virgin, wondering how the Creator of milk and breasts, who produces streams flowing by themselves from the breasts, accepted infant food from the mother - the Virgin; babies - to the one who has become a baby, so that “from the mouths of babes and sucklings You may bring praise” (Matthew 21:16; Ps.8:3); the youths - to the Youth, who made them martyrs because of Herod’s fury; men - to one who became human and healed the illnesses of slaves; shepherds - to the good Shepherd, who laid down His soul for the sheep; priests - to him who became high priest according to the order of Melchizedek; slaves - to him who took the form of a slave, in order to decorate our slavery with freedom; fishermen - to him who made them fishers of men from fishermen; publicans - to the Evangelist who revealed the Evangelist from the publicans; harlots - to him who stretched out His feet to the tears of a harlot; in short, all sinners came to see the Lamb of God, taking away the sin of the world (John 1:29), the wise men - giving Him honor, the shepherds - glorifying Him, the publicans - preaching the gospel, the harlots - bringing ointment, the Samaritan woman - thirsting for the source of life, the Canaanite woman - having undoubted faith. So, when everyone is rejoicing, I want to rejoice, I want to rejoice, I want to triumph. But I rejoice, not playing a zither, not setting a bow in motion, not holding a flute in my hands, not lighting torches, but instead of musical instruments, accepting the shrouds of Christ; they are hope for me, they are life for me, they are salvation for me, they are a pipe for me, they are a zither for me. That is why I come, taking them, so that by their power I may receive the power of speech and say with the angels: “Glory to God in the highest,” and with the shepherds: “And on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14). He who was inexplicably born of the Father is today incomprehensibly born of the Virgin for my sake. But then He was born by nature from the Father before the ages, as He who gave birth knows; and today He was supernaturally born, as the grace of the Holy Spirit knows. And His birth above is true, and His birth below is not false; He was truly born as God from God, and truly He was born as man from the Virgin. Above He is one only begotten of one, below He is one only begotten of one Virgin. Just as it is wicked to represent the mother in His birth above, so it is blasphemous to represent the father in His birth below. The Father gave birth to Him without seed, and the Virgin gave birth to Him incorruptibly; neither God suffered division when giving birth to Him, because He gave birth to God, nor did the Virgin, when giving birth to Him, experience corruption, because She gave birth from the Spirit. Therefore, neither His birth above can be explained, nor His coming in the last times admits of investigation. That the Virgin gave birth to Him today, I know; and that God begot Him without time, I believe this; but I learned to honor the manner of His birth with silence, and was not taught to explore it with verbal disputes. In relation to God, one should not pay attention to the nature of works, but believe in the power of the Acting One. After all, according to the law of nature, it happens when a wife who has entered into marriage gives birth; and when a Virgin, who has not experienced marriage and has given birth, turns out to be a virgin again, this is above nature. So, let us examine what happens by nature; and let that which is above nature be honored with silence, not as worthy of neglect, but as inexplicable and worthy of reverence through silence. But forgive me, I ask you, if I want to stop my speech at the very beginning. Fearing to explore the highest, I do not know how or where to turn the helm of speech. What will I say, or what will I talk about? I see the one who gave birth, I see the one who was born, but I do not comprehend the method of birth. Nature is conquered, the limits of its order are conquered when God wants it. This event did not happen by nature, but it was a miracle above nature, because nature did not act, but the will of the Lord acted. Oh, ineffable grace! The Only Begotten, existing before the ages, intangible, simple and incorporeal, took upon Himself my corruptible and visible body. For what? In order to teach, having become visible, and by teaching to lead us to the invisible. Since people consider sight to be more reliable than hearing, and they doubt what they do not see, therefore God deigned to make Himself visible to the eyes through the body, in order to destroy doubt. He is born from a Virgin who did not know this matter, because She did not contribute to the event and this matter did not depend on Her, but She was only an instrument of His ineffable power, having learned only what Gabriel told Her in response to Her question: “How will this be when I do not know a husband?” He said to Her: Is this what you want to know? “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:34–35). How was He with Her and, after a little time, came from Her? Just as an artist, having found the most useful substance, makes a most beautiful vessel out of it, so Christ, having found the holy body and soul of the Virgin, built for himself an animated church, forming man in the Virgin in the way he wanted, and, having clothed himself in it, now came, not ashamed of the ugliness of nature. It was not shameful for Him to bear His own creation; and this creation acquired the greatest fame, becoming the artist’s attire. Just as at the first creation it was impossible for man to be formed before the dust was taken into the hands of God, so a damaged vessel could not be renewed if it had not become the garment of the Creator. But what will I say or what will I talk about? The miracle amazes me. “The Old One” (Dan.7:22) became a Child; he who sits “on a high and exalted throne” (Isaiah 6:1) is placed in a manger; intangible, simple, uncomplicated and incorporeal, touchable by human hands; He who breaks the bonds of sin is wrapped in swaddling clothes - because He wants it so. He wants to turn dishonor into honor, to clothe dishonor with glory, and within the limits of humiliation to show the image of virtue. Therefore, He takes my body so that I can contain His Word, and, having accepted my flesh, He gives me His Spirit, so that, both by giving and receiving, He may impart to me the treasure of life. He takes my flesh to sanctify me; gives me His Spirit to save me. But what will I say, or what will I talk about? “Behold, the virgin is with child” (Is. 7:14). And now this is not spoken of as the future, but it is contemplated as having happened. It took place among the Jews, among whom it was predicted; but it is accepted by faith among us, among whom it was not even mentioned. “Behold, the Virgin will receive with child.” The letter belongs to the synagogue, and the acquisition belongs to the Church; she received the tablets, and this one found the pearl; that one adorned the wave, and this one dressed in purple. Judea produced Him, and the universe received Him; the synagogue fed and raised Him, and the Church accepted Him and benefited. The one has the vine branch, and I have the grapes of truth. She gathered grapes, and the pagans drink a mysterious drink. She sowed a grain of wheat in Judea, and the pagans reaped the ear with the sickle of faith. The pagans piously plucked the rose, but the Jews were left with the thorns of unbelief. The chick flew away, but the madmen remained at the nest; the Jews explain the leaves of the script, and the pagans pluck the fruit of the Spirit. “Behold, the Virgin shall be with child.” Tell me, Jew, tell me, whom did She give birth to? Trust me, at least as much as Herod. But you don't trust; I know why; by his cunning. You told him to kill Christ; but you do not tell me that I should not worship Him. Whom did She give birth to? Whom? Lord of nature. After all, although you are silent, nature calls; The virgin gave birth as the one who was born himself wanted to be born. This did not happen according to the law of nature, but, as the Lord of nature, He used an extraordinary method of birth to show that, becoming a man, He was not born as a man, but was born as God. So today He came from the Virgin who conquered nature, who surpassed marriage. The source of holiness had to come from a pure and holy birth. He is the One who in ancient times created Adam from virgin soil, and from Adam without a wife formed a wife. Just as Adam without a wife gave birth to a wife, so today the Virgin without a husband gave birth to a husband. He is a man, says the Scripture, but who can know Him? Since the female sex owes to the male sex that Adam produced a wife without a wife, therefore today the Virgin gave birth without a husband, paying this debt to her husbands for Eve. So that Adam would not be proud that he gave birth to a wife without a wife, therefore the Virgin gave birth to a husband without a husband, in order to show the equality of her nature by the sameness of the miracle. Just as God took a rib from Adam and through this did not reduce Adam in the least, so He formed an animated church in the Virgin and did not deflower Her. Adam remained intact even after a rib was taken from him; The Virgin also remained intact after the Child departed from Her. Therefore, He did not build a church for Himself out of anything else, nor did He create and take upon Himself another body, so that it would not seem that He was humiliating the being of Adam. Since the deceived man became a weapon of the devil, He chose this fallen man for himself in the animated church, in order, through affinity with the Creator, to ward him off from communion with the devil. However, even by becoming a man, He is not born as a man, but is born as God. If He happened through an ordinary marriage, like me, then for most it would seem like a lie; and now He is born of a Virgin, and, being born, keeps Her womb intact and keeps Her virginity intact, so that the extraordinary way of birth will serve as the basis for me of great faith. Therefore, if a pagan or a Jew asks me whether Christ, God by nature, became man supernaturally, then I will say: yes, and I will point to the intact seal of virginity to confirm my word. Thus, He is God, conquering the order of nature; Thus, He is the creator of the womb and the author of virginity, and therefore He was born in an immaculate manner of birth and inexplicably built a church for Himself as He desired. Tell me, Jew: did the Virgin give birth or not? If She gave birth, then confess an extraordinary birth; and if she didn’t give birth, then why did you deceive Herod? When he asked: “Where should Christ be born?” , you said that “in Bethlehem of Judea” (Matthew 2:4–5). Did I not know this village or place? Did I not know the dignity of the Born? Didn't Isaiah speak of Him as God? “She will give birth to a Son,” he says, “and they will call His name Immanuel” (Is. 7:14). Was it not you, ungrateful enemies, who declared this truth? Didn't you, the scribes and Pharisees, zealous keepers of the law, teach us everything about Him? Don't we know the Hebrew language? Were you not the ones who interpreted the Scriptures? After the Virgin gave birth and even before She gave birth, so that the explanation of this passage does not seem to be made to please the Lord, did you not, in response to Herod’s question, bring the prophet Micah as a witness to confirm your words? “And you,” he says, “Bethlehem Ephrathah, are you small among the thousands of Judah? out of you will come to me one who is to be ruler in Israel” (Mic.5:2; Matt.2:6). The prophet said well: “from you,” because from you He came out and came into the universe. The One who exists comes, but the one who does not is created or created. He was there then, and he was before, and he always was. But he was always like God, ruling the world, and today he came as a man; as a man, He shepherds the people, and as God, He saves the universe. O good enemies! Oh, benevolent blamers, who, unbeknownst to themselves, revealed the God born in Bethlehem, who made known the Lord hidden in a manger, who involuntarily opened the one lying in the cave, and, unwillingly, did good, wanting to hide - they opened it! Do you see ignorant teachers? What they teach, they do not know; They feed the hungry, they give them drink when they are thirsty, they enrich them when they are poor. Come, let us celebrate; come, let us celebrate. The type of celebration is extraordinary, because the way of birth is also extraordinary. Now the ancient bonds are broken, the devil is put to shame, the demons are put to flight, death is crushed, paradise is opened, the curse is destroyed, sin is removed, error is destroyed, the truth has returned and the teaching of piety has been scattered and spread everywhere, the higher life is planted on earth, angels enter into communication with people and people calmly converse with angels. Why? Because God came to earth and man to heaven; everything came together. He wholly existing in heaven came to earth, and he wholly existing in heaven appears entirely on earth. Being God, He became man without ceasing to be God; being the passionless Word, He became flesh—made flesh to dwell in us. He did not become God, but He was; but became flesh, so that, Whom the sky could not contain, the manger would receive Him. For this reason He was laid in a manger, so that He who nourishes everything would receive infant food from the Virgin Mother. For this reason, the Father of future centuries does not shun the embrace of the Virgin, like a suckling child, in order to become accessible to the Magi. Now the Magi have come, having made the beginning of their departure from the tormentor, and the sky boasts, pointing out its Master with a star, and the Lord, sitting on a light cloud of His body, strives for Egypt, apparently avoiding the wiles of Herod, but in fact fulfilling what was said by Isaiah: “On that day,” he says, “Israel will be third with Egypt and Assyria; blessing will be in the midst of the land, which the Lord of hosts will bless, saying: Blessed are my people the Egyptians, and the work of my hands the Assyrians, and my inheritance Israel” (Is. 19:24-25). What are you saying, Jew? You, the first, became the third? The Egyptians and Assyrians are placed first, and the firstborn Israel is counted after? Yes, and rightly so. The Assyrians will be first because they were the first to worship Him through the Magi, and the Egyptians will be after the Assyrians, because they also accepted Him, fleeing from the wiles of Herod; the Israelis are considered the last, because after leaving the Jordan they recognized Him through the apostles. He came to Egypt and shook the hand-made Egyptian idols, not without reason, but because he had once sealed the Egyptian dwellings with the destruction of the firstborn. Therefore, now He came as the firstborn to stop the crying caused by ancient sorrow. And that Christ is called the firstborn, the Evangelist Luke now testifies to this when he says: “And she gave birth to her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). So, He came to Egypt to stop the crying caused by ancient sorrow, introducing joy instead of torment, giving the light of salvation instead of night and darkness. The water of the river then became unclean from the killing of young babies; Therefore, He came to Egypt, having once stained the waters, and made the streams of the river exude salvation, cleansing their defilement and uncleanness by the power of the Spirit. The Egyptians once became embittered and furiously rejected God, so He came to Egypt and filled God-loving souls with the knowledge of God; He gave the river the power to produce martyrs more abundantly than ears of corn. However, due to the shortness of time, I want to end my speech here, and I will end it here, adding how He, being the impassive Word, became flesh, and His nature remained unchanged. What will I say or what will I talk about? I see the carpenter and the manger, the Child and the swaddling clothes, the virgin birth, deprived of everything necessary, all in poverty, all in misery. Do you see wealth in this great poverty? How did He, who was rich, become poor for our sake? How did He have neither a bed nor a bed, but was laid in a naked manger? Oh, poverty that serves as a source of wealth! Oh, immeasurable wealth that has the appearance of poverty! He lies in a manger and shakes the universe; wraps himself in swaddling clothes, and breaks the bonds of sin; had not yet uttered an articulate sound, and taught the Magi, and showed them the path to return. What will I say or what will I talk about? Here is a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger; Mary, Virgin and Mother is coming; Joseph, who is called His father, was also present. He is called the husband, and She is called his wife; the names agree with the law, but do not mean their combination. Understand here only the names, not the deeds. He was only Her groom, and the Holy Spirit overshadowed Her. Therefore, Joseph, at a loss, did not know what to say about the Child. He did not dare to attribute Him to adultery, he could not utter a blasphemous word about the Virgin, and he did not dare to call Him his own son; he knew well that he did not know how or from what He was born; therefore, when he was perplexed about this event, a suggestion was brought from heaven with the voice of an angel: “Do not be afraid to accept Mary your wife, for that which is born in Her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20). The Holy Spirit overshadowed the Virgin. Why is He born of a Virgin and keeps his virginity intact? Since in ancient times the devil deceived Eve, who was a virgin, therefore Gabriel preached the gospel to Mary the Virgin. But the seduced Eve uttered a word that caused death; and Mary, who received the gospel, gave birth to the Word in the flesh, who acquired eternal life for us. The word of Eve indicates the tree for which Adam was expelled from paradise; and the Word, born of the Virgin, revealed the cross, through which the thief was introduced into paradise in Adam’s place. Since neither the pagans, nor the Jews, nor the heretics believed that God gave birth incorruptibly and dispassionately, therefore, he who now came from a passionate body kept the passionate body dispassionate, in order to show that, just as he who was born of a Virgin did not violate his virginity, so God, without corruption and change and His holy nature, gave birth to God in a divine way, like God. And since people, having left Him, sculpted humanoid idols, which they served to insult the Creator, therefore now the Word of God, being God, appeared in the form of a man in order to destroy both the lie and turn the reverence of God imperceptibly onto Himself. Let us give glory to Christ, who made the inconvenient comfortable, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen. Translation by P. Yungerov – Editorial office of “ABC of Faith” The paragraphs in the text were arranged by us. – Editorial staff of “ABC of Faith” You might be interested in: