At the Manger of the Savior

A Sermon for the Day of the Nativity of Christ

For our sake is born the young Child, the Pre-eternal God (Kontakion for the Nativity of Christ)

The Eastern Orthodox Church today celebrates with its customary solemnity the Nativity according to the flesh of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ—an event of infinitely great importance.

The Beginningless, All-good, Almighty Creator and King of the ages bowed the heavens and today came down to earth; the Bodiless One became a Bearer of flesh from the Most Pure, ever-virgin Maiden, by the action of the Holy Spirit. — And where was this wondrous Child-God born? In a poor shepherd’s cave, for there was no room for Him in the inhabited city.

Come here, and press close with mind and heart, with sight and hearing, to everything glorious on the earth, everything great, noble-born, intelligent, and enlightened, and marvel at the unspeakable condescension of God—at this Infant and Pre-eternal God—and listen with an intelligent ear to the angelic song: Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, and goodwill among men![1] Stand here at the manger of Bethlehem, you ranks of rhetoricians, philosophers, theologians, and interpreters of the stars—strain the whole power of your purified mind, your sound philosophy, and your pure theology, and weave a crown of words for this Infant God, Whose lineage no genealogy can trace and which is fearsome—for He is the only-begotten Son of God, before Whose fearsome majesty heaven and earth tremble, and before Whom all the powers arrayed against Him are shaken and vanish away like smoke. Come here, earthly nobility, riches, royal dominion, every authority; come, youth, manhood, old age, men and women—and prostrate yourselves with faith, humility, and love before Him Who, being the beginningless God Whose dominion rests upon His shoulder[2], humbled Himself for our sake to the likeness of a slave and became Man, in order truly to exalt man and deify him. Now heaven and earth form one assembly, and together they glorify the birth of the God-man.

Let us press close with a philosophizing mind into the mystery of the Incarnation, insofar as the Word of God Himself has opened it up to us.

For our sake He is born,—as is sung in the Church’s nativity hymn — a young Child, the Pre-eternal God. This means: for our sake the Pre-eternal God became Man, without ceasing to be God, but always remaining God, without confusion and without division of the natures.

Lift up your drooping head, sinful man, or lower your proud brow, you who are puffed up with earthly wisdom, power, riches, glory, strength, beauty, and with whatever else is earthly and vanishes like smoke. You were cast away from God, the source of life, for your sins, for the countless passions to which you had enslaved yourself; you bore on yourself the mark of God’s curse, you dwelt in shadow and in the shadow of death, and you would have remained through endless ages in the bonds of death and the torments of hell. And now, out of mercy alone, for the sake of His boundless goodness, God Himself came down to the earth for you, to seek you out, strayed and perishing; He Himself became Man and was made like you in everything except sin, to come closer to you—more tangibly, more visibly—to enlighten you in your darkness, to lift you up when you had fallen, to cleanse you who were defiled, to steady you who wavered like a reed shaken by the wind[3], to break down the insurmountable barrier that sin had set up between God and man, to abolish the curse and take that curse upon Himself through the fearsome sufferings of Golgotha and the most agonizing death on the cross—to pour forth the blessing of the heavenly Father upon all who believe, to destroy hell and lead out of it all whom God’s righteousness and boundless mercy found worthy of deliverance from that dungeon prepared for the devil and his servants, to conquer death and raise all the dead by His glorious resurrection, and to bring the worthy up to heaven for eternal life and co-kingship with God in light and blessedness.

Here is what the words of the church’s truth, sounding so often in our ears on today’s feast, mean: for us is born the little Child, the Pre-eternal God. Such are the wondrous, sweet, life-giving fruits of the incarnation of the Son of God!

Rejoice and be glad, all the earth; shine forth, O Church of Christ, who have received from your Head, Christ, all the riches of His redemption and blessing, and the countless spiritual gifts—righteousness, peace, sanctification, and countless wonders. You have already enlightened, sanctified, and strengthened, by the invincible power of Christ, in their struggles for the faith, and saved, a countless multitude of the chosen—Apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, ascetics, and righteous ones, who everywhere and from every station of life pleased God, being wholly reconciled to the everlasting justice of the heavenly Father and receiving from Him honors worthy of the high calling, for which the incarnate Lord Jesus opened the gates of the Kingdom of heaven, transplanting them from earth to heaven—our true homeland.

So the Pre-eternal King has come to earth for us. And what must we do on our side? Reciprocity is needed. If such condescension, such self-emptying, has come from God’s side, then self-denial is required from us as well. The Lord gave Himself wholly for us: let us give ourselves, and our whole life, to Him, our Lord and life everlasting. He desires to draw near to Himself and make His own us, who became strangers to Him because of our sins, through faith, repentance, and virtue: let us draw near to Him with our whole being: let us surrender to Him our mind, heart, will, soul, and body. The Lord drew near to us, clothing Himself with the whole man: let us also put on Christ, according to the word of the Apostle: all of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ[4]. The Liberator has come to us, captives of sin and death: let us hasten, in our turn, to be set free from the captivity of the passions: for our whole soul and our whole body, all five of our senses, are in captivity to sin, our whole heel, of which it was said to the enemy who beguiled the first men: you shall watch his heel, while the Seed of the Woman, that is, the Redeemer of man, shall crush your head[5]. The Renewer of our nature, grown old through sin, has come: let us hasten to be made new and to strip off the old man with all his dead works, with all his passions. The Lord broke down the strong barrier that separated us from God, destroying it by His cross and death, and brought us near to God, His heavenly Father: let us then go to God earnestly, firmly, swiftly, with a repentance that never turns back, with good works, while we still have time to act, before death deprives us of the ability to hasten toward eternal life. The Lord stretched out to us a hand of help, without which we would have perished beyond recall: let us grasp His saving right hand, so as not to drown in the abyss of sin that floods the world. The Lord founded the Church on earth, to which He entrusted all the means, all the grace-filled powers, for a righteous life: let us hold fast with all our heart to His Holy Church, be instructed from the Gospel, receive the saving Mysteries, be edified by the divine services; obey the pastors appointed by God, and beware of schisms and sects.

May all tribes and peoples be united in love and mutual goodwill; may there be established on earth—peace, unity of mind, honest labor, well-intentioned learning and useful arts; mutual obedience and respect for every authority; the obedience of children to their parents; reverence for marriage and the steadfastness of the marriage bond. And let us all now cry out, as with one mouth and one heart: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill among men! Amen.