Christ is born! Glorify Him!
As I write this, I have recently come back from the Royal Hours of the Nativity, one of the many services the Orthodox Church offers her faithful in order to prepare for Christ’s birth on Christmas. Given the weight and beauty of the services and hymns during the Nativity season, I cannot help but reflect on the contrast between the popular understanding of Christmas in American Protestant culture versus the understanding of Christmas in Orthodox Christian thought.
Around this time of year, one will often see posts on Facebook saying things along the lines of, “Jesus is the reason for the season” and “Keep Christ in Christmas” and “Christ the King is born!” These kinds of posts reflect the belief that Christ must be born as King in order to die on the cross to save humanity. I have no doubt that these posts are well intentioned, nor do I necessarily disagree with the sentiments surrounding them. However, I also believe that these sayings fail to capture the depth of what Christians historically claim to be celebrating when they celebrate Christmas.
Christmas is about nothing less than God recreating the entirety of His fallen creation. God is Life. He breathed His life into humanity in the beginning, making mankind in His own image and likeness (see Genesis 1:26-27, 2:7). And when mankind separated themselves from God through disobedience, they fell into death, having gone astray from the Source of Life. It is in this way that St. Athanasius, a fourth century bishop from Alexandria, describes this event, commonly referred to as the Fall:
This, then, was the plight of men. God had not only made them out of nothing, but had also graciously bestowed on them His own life by the grace of the Word. Then, turning from eternal things to things corruptible, by counsel of the devil, they had become the cause of their own corruption in death…
God, upon seeing that the creatures He had destined for immorality were continuing in a state of death, was moved with compassion for humanity. And He sought to restore His own image in them which had become subject to corruption and death. Again, from St. Athanasius:
He saw how unseemly it was that the very things of which He Himself was the Artificer should be disappearing. He saw how the surpassing wickedness of men was mounting up against them; He saw also their universal liability to death. All this He saw and, pitying our race, moved with compassion for our limitation, unable to endure that death should have the mastery, rather than that His creatures should perish and the work of His Father for us men come to nought, He took to Himself a body, a human body even as our own. Nor did He will merely to become embodied or merely to appear; had that been so, He could have revealed His divine majesty in some other and better way. No, He took our body…
That is, God begins to breath His life back into humanity yet again in order to raise them up from their state of death and restore them to their former glory with His untainted image. He does this by taking on a human body and undergoing suffering and death, thus being able to sympathize with humanity’s weakness. St. Paul describes Christ’s incarnation in this way in his epistle to the Hebrews:
14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage. 16 For surely it is not with angels that he is concerned but with the descendants of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted. (Hebrews 2:14-18)
God understands our weakness because He willingly made Himself weak for our salvation. He became Man in the person of Jesus Christ, born in the humblest of circumstances, in a manager in a cave, with no room being found for Him in the inn. For the world did not have room for the uncreated God to dwell with them:
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. 11 He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. (John 1:10-11)
The birth of God is praised by humble shepherds and a few wise men from the east who recognized the appearance of a new star. He takes flesh from the pure Virgin Mary, with rumors of her unfaithfulness to her betrothed Joseph circulating around. King Herod seeks to have Him Who is uncreated killed, seeing another king as a threat to his own power. He who created everything out of nothing appears as a newborn Child. The Orthodox hymns clearly recognize this divine irony:
Today He who holds the whole world in His hand is born from a Virgin. (3x) He who in essence is impalpable is swaddled in rags as a mortal. God who established the heavens of old in the beginning is lying in a manger. He who rained down manna for the people in the wilderness is breastfed with milk. He who is the Bridegroom of the Church is summoning Magi. And He, that Son of the Virgin, is accepting their gifts. We adore Your Nativity, O Christ. We adore Your Nativity, O Christ. We adore Your Nativity, O Christ. Show us also Your divine Epiphany.
God has become one of us so that we may become like Him. It is indeed right for us to praise His birth.
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
