I’d like to start this discussion about the Nativity with a life-affirming phrase: “God exists.” God didn’t just exist sometime and somewhere in the distant past. He exists. The Lord didn’t stay back in the tenth century, in the time of St. Symeon the New Theologian, who heard from his fellow countrymen: “Symeon, you speak too highly. Perhaps you’re unwell…” In the fourteenth century, St. Gregory Palamas disputed with a learned theologian that God isn’t an abstract concept, but a Personal Being with Whom we can speak and build our relationship. Then this learned theologian started a whole war against the Athonite monks, but the truth still prevailed.
I want to repeat: “God exists.” He didn’t just remain in the times of Batiushka Seraphim of Sarov who said that “God’s grace and help for the faithful and those who seek the Lord with all their hearts is the same now as it was before, for, according to the word of God, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” It is we who lack determination; we’ve become very timid and we think too much.
Christ came to the Apostles at Lake Gennesaret and told them to leave all their possessions and follow Him. In those days, a boat and nets weren’t a luxury, but survival tools (if you catch something, it means your family will eat today). But the Apostles had the determination to arise and follow Christ. After that, they were given great grace. The more a man is willing to sacrifice, the more he receives from God.
In the Old Testament, the relationship between God and men was built as with someone right there in front of you. Abram was ninety years old and nine, and the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before Me, and be thou perfect (Gen. 17:1). This walking before God stimulates mystical fear and awe in a man and forces him to live piously, fulfilling the commandments of God. But this isn’t a perfect state.
Remember yourself from confession to confession. What causes us to come to this Sacrament time and again? Fear and conscience—fear that our entire life could go down the drain; and conscience is that little worm that sharpens the heart and gives it no rest. But we depart from the analogion and do the same thing again. We sincerely confess, we weep, and we say: “Lord, I really won’t do it anymore.” And once again we lie to ourselves, to the priest, and to God. There is sincerity in our words, but no power—that mystical power that can overcome our “I can’t.” Desire alone isn’t enough. We need a supernatural power that will inspire and become our inner core. And it’s not our own strength, not our will, our sincerity, our obstinacy—none of this is enough. To all our human efforts, we must add a great mystical power from God’s side—the grace of the Holy Spirit.
That’s why in the Old Testament, although men knew the moral law and God’s law and tried to “walk before God,” this didn’t fundamentally change anything in mankind. Then suddenly, Jesus Christ, the Son of God comes…
The Nativity of Christ is a great miracle that every one of us needs to comprehend and understand deeply. We’re used to taking Christmas as just a holiday, reducing it to some external attributes—a Christmas tree, a feast, gifts. But the Nativity isn’t just a sentimental event with a set of cliches about a Baby, a star, and sheep with shepherds. The Nativity is a great event.
What happened on Christmas night? God, the Creator of the universe, goes beyond His perfection into the limitation of human flesh. He—boundless, limited by nothing—descends from Heaven and becomes an Infant for each of us, for you personally, to become close to you and even more—to become part of you.
The Apostle Paul says: It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20). This is the state when the Lord becomes our mind, heart, and will. After all, only by His supernatural power can we change something inside ourselves, can we fix that wormhole of the Fall, which mankind couldn’t fix before the coming of Christ.
This is the main principle of Christianity: Christ didn’t bring us a teaching—Christ brought Himself to every one of us. This is what happens when we commune at Liturgy: The Lord enters into the form of bread and wine and allows us to unite with Him.
When you experience the Nativity like this, along with the joy of the feast comes the tears of tenderness and gratitude to God—the God Who loves you very much. He loves you so much that He’s ready to follow you not only to earth, but even to hell, which He did thirty-three years after His Incarnation.
This is why the feast of the Nativity is both joyful and bright, but also a little sorrowful—you feel your unworthiness before His love, your insignificance before His majesty and holiness. And on such a day, you want to shake off this dirt at least with a word, and you come to Confession to say: “Lord, forgive and accept me, I’m going to try. You’ve given me another year of life; perhaps now at least I’ll pull myself together and begin to change.”
I wish everyone to experience spiritual joy on this day, which is immeasurably more than just a holiday with a feast and the breaking of the fast.
