In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
As the years are passing by, so much more the importance of our celebrating this festival of the Incarnation of our Lord, God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ, because the world is having a yet harder time accepting the fact. We turn on the radio nowadays, and we hear stupid programmes speculating on whether there really was such a thing as the Virgin Birth, and whether Jesus is really the Son of God. (However, I am actually happy that there are more real Christmas carols this year than I have heard for a while – at least it seems like that.) Always, while the light is shining, the darkness is trying to overcome this light, as is said at the beginning of the Gospel according to Saint John (see John 1:5). It is more and more important for us Orthodox Christians to take seriously the implications of the Incarnation. The Word of God took flesh and dwelt amongst us – that is the meaning of this feast.
It does not matter how people want to re-interpret the Scriptures. The Scriptures are quite plain in describing what happened, and it is important for us to take the Scriptures for what they say. “‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son’” (John 3:16). He loves us, and so He emptied Himself. He took on our humanity in order to redeem it, in order to reunite it to God the Father, from whom we had separated ourselves in the earliest times by our selfish rebellion, by our thinking that we know better. That spirit of thinking that we know better, trying to avoid God’s love somehow – wanting it, asking for it all the time – but running away from it at the same time, has been our perpetual characteristic. And so, in our day, we are in a society that is hungering and thirsting for the truth of Jesus Christ’s love. When they are faced with that love, people frequently run away from it. You and I know how that can be, because we ourselves in our daily lives are not always 100 per cent faithful to our Saviour. We ourselves sometimes give in to selfishness, to our self-will. But mercifully, we have confession ; we have a spiritual physician to go to. We can have this selfishness again and again washed off. Because of the Lord’s loving mercy, we have new opportunities yet again to submit to Him.
People speak about the various interesting Orthodox customs that we have. Often they demean them by calling them quaint. They notice all sorts of details such as holy suppers at Christmas and Theophany, the blessing of homes and other such customs. We have very many daily customs : for instance, how bread is baked on certain occasions (because there are different sorts of breads for different purposes) ; how things are cooked one way at one time of the year, and another way at another time of the year ; even how we dance ; and what sorts of things we sing at what time of the year (because, especially amongst Ukrainians, there are not just Christmas carols – people can sing songs in Ukraine for all sorts of different occasions during the year). Those are the sorts of things that people will say are “quaint”, or even “cute” customs.
In their running away from the Lord, people try to say that somehow these are customs that go back into pre-Christian times. Most of the customs that we follow do not, in fact, go back into pre-Christian times, and certainly not pagan times. Those customs about how we eat, how we drink, when we do this and when we do that, how we sing, and how we dance, are all reflections of how Christ baptises cultures, those Orthodox Christian cultures. And so, while Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Serbs, Romanians, Greeks, Albanians, Syrians, and many others (Georgians in particular) all sing, dance, and eat different ways ; how they live their lives is very similar. Their day-to-day lives are all geared around the cycle of the feasts of Christ during the year. They follow the feasts and the fasts ; and the differences between how they eat, drink, dance, and sing are determined only by the natural environment of the land on which they live. However, their sensitivity about how the Christian lives life is all the same. They have the same concern, really, and that is to be Christians, to be known in and by Christ, to serve Christ, and ultimately to be like the Mother of God, obedient in love.
When we are worshipping here, especially now when a bishop happens to be here, people from outside think it is awfully grand, imperial, and hard to swallow. The fact is that this whole service, with its grandeur, does not have to do with the bishop himself. How we are serving (and serving the best we can) is not for the sake of any bishop, but rather for the One whom the bishop is re-presenting. Who is that ? Of course, it is Christ. As the great martyr Ireneus said : “The bishop is as Christ in the diocese”. Therefore, the bishop has to re-present Christ as well as his fallen humanity will allow. Nevertheless, even if his fallenness does not allow it very well, because he is a bishop, he still does re-present Christ. If there is any respect and honour given to him, it is only because of Jesus Christ. As an icon, all the respect that is given to a bishop or to a priest, is passing on to Christ, whom they re-present. It is because of Christ that a bishop or a priest or a deacon or anyone, has any significance in the Church.
Thus, as Saint John Chrysostom says, when we are receiving Holy Communion, the presence of Christ is so much in us that we really ought to be making prostrations before one another, because of the presence of Christ in one another. Everything about the Orthodox life is focussed on Jesus Christ. Everything involved in how we live, what we say, how we worship, everything is focussed on Jesus Christ, His Incarnation, and our gratitude for it. Everything is focussed on His love for us, and our gratitude for His love. Everything in the Church refers to Jesus Christ. As the Apostle is saying to us and is reminding us this morning : having been baptised into Him and having put Him on, we have become children and heirs in our incorporation into His Body. We are not outside. As members of the Body of Christ, we are inside ; we are with God. It is not for nothing that we love to sing that “God is with us”. He is with us. He is everything to us (see 1 Corinthians 15:28).
Brothers and sisters, our responsibility is to try our best day by day, even with our failures, to be faithful to His love, to call upon Him for help, to take His hand of love, and allow Him to hold us up, to support us, to direct us, to nurture us, to correct us, to feed us, and save us. He gave everything, and He is giving everything to us because of love, even though that love is so beyond our ability to comprehend at all. Nevertheless, let us receive it, and try with His help (indeed, we can never do anything without His help) to live by His love, and give glory to Him in our day-to-day lives. With His help, then, let us shine with the light of His love. May others be able to see the hope that we have, and come to join us in this hope. Let us glorify our beautiful, beloved Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.