A Sacrifice Pleasing to God

A Homily for the Sunday after the Nativity of Christ

For the Son of man came to seek out and to save the perishing (Lk 19:10)

At last we have awaited the feast of the Nativity of Christ, and we have bowed down before the pre-eternal Infant together with His all-pure Ever-Virgin Mother, and together with the Church we have sung of God’s uttermost tender mercy and condescension toward us, for the Son of God became the Son of man in order to save perishing humanity.

But we have not yet done anything great by bowing down before the divine Infant, for many of us bowed down only with the body, and worship with the body without worship of the spirit is a sacrifice far from pleasing to God; while His ineffable tender mercy and condescension toward men was sung, strictly speaking, by the Church and not by us: we were only listeners. I want to ask you, and to ask myself as well: are we doing anything on our part in answer to such unspeakable condescension of the Son of God? For such an extreme and astonishing self-emptying of the Son of God for the salvation of perishing humanity demands from us too, my brethren, urgent and strenuous labor of salvation. The incarnation of the Son of God—I am using a comparison—is, as it were, a strong and reliable rope let down from heaven by the heavenly Father to us who are perishing in the abyss of sins. Whoever with all his strength grasps hold of this rope and keeps hold of it during the whole time of his earthly voyage, despite the strong waves and the gusts of winds, will not drown in the abyss of sins, but will reach the quiet haven of heaven; but whoever disdains this saving rope, whoever, frightened by the winds and waves, grows faint in spirit and lets go of the threefold rope of faith, hope, and love, whoever falls away from the Church of Christ through schism, or through unbelief and heterodoxy and a corrupt life, will perish forever.

So I will say with the apostle: let us hold fast the confession of the hope without wavering; for faithful is He who promised eternal life. Let us be attentive to one another, encouraging one another to love and good works. Let us not forsake our own meetings, as is the custom of some; but let us exhort one another, and all the more as we discern the day of judgment drawing near. For if all of us, having received the knowledge of the truth, sin willfully, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain dreadful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire ready to devour the adversaries. If he who rejected the law of Moses is punished with death without mercy on the word of two or three witnesses, how much heavier a punishment, do you think, will he deserve, who tramples the Son of God underfoot, who does not regard as holy the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who insults the Spirit of grace! We know the One who said: vengeance belongs to Me, I will repay, says the Lord. And again: the Lord will sit in judgment upon His people. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God[1].

Take note, then, my brothers, that the incarnation of the Son of God, His coming to us on earth—or, better, the Christian faith itself—is, so to speak, a saving rope, which we must seize with all our strength and hold fast to from the beginning to the end of our life. This means the following: every one of us must believe with all his heart in Christ as our only Savior from the devil and from sin—for there is no other name under heaven given to men, by which we are to be saved[2]; hold fast with all his heart to His Church, the only ship of salvation, and not turn aside into schism, for the schismatic, as one who disobeys the Church, is counted by God as a pagan and a tax collector; study the word of God and the commandments of Christ unceasingly, and govern his life by those commandments; strive by every means to correct the thoughts, strivings, and inclinations of the heart; apply himself with diligence to unceasing repentance before God; visit the temple of God without laziness, unite himself with the Lord in the Mystery of Communion for the cleansing of sins and for the reception of spiritual strength for the struggle against sin, and live in mutual love and in every virtue. This is what the incarnate God the Word requires of us! The incarnation of the Son of God is the one extraordinary remedy that God, in His pre-eternal counsel, appointed for our salvation. What, then, does a dangerously sick man at the edge of the grave do when a skilled physician offers him the last and strongest remedy to save him? The sick man receives it with joy, though with effort, and in this way is often healed. But we are all dangerously sick spiritually—because we are all sick with sin, that dreadful disease that gnaws away at the whole being of man, soul and body; we are sick so severely that, like those sick with consumption, we often fail to recognize our dangerous illness and do not imagine the eternal perdition that follows in its wake; we dream that we are healthy—and just as madmen imagine that they are not only healthy but kings, and generals, and princes, or some other such thing, so we, quite in earnest, often picture ourselves as altogether other than what we really are, and in one way or another disguise ourselves—we imagine ourselves to be great personages of God knows what kind, when in actual fact we are great sinners.

So what remains for us to do, sinful brethren, when the heavenly Physician offers us, with such love, with such self-sacrifice, so powerful and extraordinary a remedy for our salvation—His incarnation, His becoming man, His self-abasement, His teaching and His miracles, His cross and His death? — Nothing else but to make use of this remedy without delay and with all earnestness, and to live according to the instructions of this heavenly Physician, instead of living so carelessly in this world as we have lived, and above all not to spend these holy days in unruly conduct. For some, like madmen, having dressed themselves in all sorts of costumes unbecoming to their persons, go about like phantoms from house to house, allow themselves unseemly gestures, unseemly words, and unseemly laughter, and turn so great and holy a feast into sinful idleness and service of Satan. When shall we spend the feasts of the Lord decently and holily, as befits Christians? When will these immodest amusements cease; when shall we remember to hallow the day of the sabbath, or of rest, so as to rest from the works of sin with a rest like the Lord’s own, for every Christian feast ought to be a sabbath to the Lord; when will the Lord, who has nowhere to lay His head within our heart because of our unceasing bondage to sin, take His rest in us? O, how constantly we demean that human dignity which the Son of God so exalted and made divine by His becoming man! If only we were ashamed, if only we were horrified to commit such disgraceful deeds and to degrade our own nature on those very days on which we celebrate the incarnation of the Son of God! In the presence of an earthly king we are ashamed and afraid to indulge in immodest amusements, still more in vices—or to besmear and deface his portraits; yet now, in the presence of the heavenly King who has taken on our form, we shamelessly and fearlessly deface and besmear with the mire of the passions His living image—our own souls; many give themselves over to drunkenness, gluttony, impurity, and unseemly amusements; painted masks are put on living faces, women dress in men’s clothing and men in women’s, contrary to the words of Scripture: a man shall not put on a woman’s garment, and there shall not be a man’s adornment upon a woman[3]. If only these people were ashamed, if only they blushed at their deeds! But they have no shame at all! O shameless faces! O satanic images!

I beseech all of you who stand here—as though God were entreating through me—to admonish the unruly and not to receive them into your houses, and to terrify them with the dread judgment of God. Entreat all who are unruly to spend these holy days of God holily, for God in the flesh is among us. God is with us: understand, O nations, and submit yourselves, for God is with us[4]. Amen.