And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.
John 1:14
Christ is Risen!
May 15 marks 27 years since my ordination to the Holy Priesthood of the Orthodox Church. As I get older, I look back on the innocence of that day. I was so young and so naïve. There is still a great deal of joy that comes with this ministry, or I wouldn’t be able to keep doing it. However, that joy is also tinged with sorrow over mistakes and failures that accumulate over the years as I go along. At the ordination, they proclaim “Axios” (worthy), not “Agios” (holy). We are not saints, we are sinful people whom God somehow allows to enter into the realm of the angels and the saints. By His grace, I entered into the priesthood, and only by His grace and mercy do I continue, aided of course by your prayers and encouragement and forgiveness. Thank you for being part of my ministry. I never thought 27 years ago that I would start a “Prayer Team” or that it would last for as long as it has, ten years and going strong, or that so many people would read the things I write and offer prayers for me. Thank you. I pray that the Lord our God will remember my unworthy priesthood in His kingdom, today and always.
How shall I, who am unworthy, enter into the splendor of Your saints? If I dare to enter into the bridal chamber, my clothing will accuse me, since it is not a wedding garment, and being bound up, I shall be cast out by the angels. In Your love, Lord, cleanse my soul, and save me. Amen.
One of the challenges posed by the way we celebrate Christmas is that we put a lot of emphasis on “the birth of Christ” and this causes confusion. We know that babies are created entities, they come into being at a certain point in time. Before their conception, they are nonentities. When we focus on the birth of Christ and the baby Jesus, we might also have this idea that at some point, Christ was a nonentity, was conceived and brought into this world nine months later and this was His “creation.”
The appropriate word used for the feast known as Christmas is “The Incarnation.” The phrase in the Creed, which we translate “and was incarnate” in Greek is “sarkothenta” which means “took on flesh.” The Feast of the Incarnation is most adequately captured in John 1:14: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. This event is more than Mary and Joseph, angels, shepherds, and Magi that form the backdrop of the Christmas story we read in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and see reenacted in Nativity scenes and Christmas pageants.
We have discussed earlier that the second person of the Trinity is known as Jesus, Christ, Messiah, Savior, Redeemer, Son of Man, Son of God, Son of the Father, Logos and Word. John 1:1-3 confirms that the Word was in the beginning with God and there was nothing made in creation that was not made with the Word involved in its creation. The “Word” is not a created being. The Word is co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Again, this was central to the arguments being made at the First Ecumenical Council, that Jesus was not a created being, or a lesser being than the Father, which is why the phrase we are discussing today finds its way into the Creed.
The purpose of the Incarnation is for our salvation. The crucifixion pays the penalty of our sins. The Resurrection opens the path to Paradise. And the Incarnation paves the way for both the crucifixion and the Resurrection because Jesus cannot die for our sins and be resurrected from the dead if He is not walking on this earth.
God’s plan for the redemption of the world involved the Lamb of God, without blemish, to be sacrificed, just as the lambs were sacrificed at the Passover of the Hebrews from Egypt. And in order for that plan to happen, the Word would come down from heaven, take on flesh, and be in the world, like one of us.
We speak about the extreme humility of Christ to die on the cross for our salvation. A close second to that humility would be the humility required to leave heaven and to come down to earth. And also to do it as a humble, dependent baby. And why come as a baby? Because to be fully human, and to have the full experience of being a human being, He came into this world the way the rest of us come into this world, through the womb of our mother. And in order to accomplish that task, God chose a very special woman, the Virgin Mary, to bring the Word of God into this world as a full human being.
When we meet someone for the first time, usually within the first minute or two of conversation, the question is asked “where are you from?” Everyone has a hometown, everyone has a set of parents, everyone has a childhood that others remember. God couldn’t place His Son on earth as a thirty-year-old without these things, so Jesus came into the world as a baby, with a hometown, with earthly parents, and with a childhood that people would have remembered.
The Virgin Mary had a miraculous birth of her own, born to elderly parents, Joachim and Anna. She was conceived in the normal way, albeit by parents who were at an age where childbearing was possible, so it was indeed a miracle caused by God that they conceived their daughter. She was sent to live in the temple at the age of three and to be raised in the temple. While she was in the temple for those 10-11 years, her parents both reposed. Coming out of the temple around age 13 or 14, she was immediately betrothed to Joseph, because she had no parents to return to. It was shortly after this that she was visited by the Archangel Gabriel and told that she had been chosen by God to bear in her womb His Son. Her answer to the request of God through the angel was “Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:35)
The Virgin birth of Christ is also central to our faith. Christ was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. Her delivery was without travail. She remained a virgin before, during and after birth, remaining a virgin for the rest of her life, and not having other children. The role of Joseph also bears mentioning. There was a great deal of faith and trust on his part, to remain with a woman who was pregnant but not by him, a woman who was betrothed but not married, and a woman who people knew had been raised in the temple. He risked both his reputation and hers, and yet he stayed faithful to God’s call for him to be the earthly father of Jesus.
Today’s prayer is a hymn from the Feast of the Nativity which captures in song the phrase of the Creed we have reflected on today:
He whom nothing can contain has been contained in a womb. He is in the Father’s bosom and His Mother’s embrace. How can this be, but as He know and willed and was well pleased. Fleshless as He was, He willingly took flesh. And He Who Is became what He was not, for us. And while departing not form His own nature, He share in our nature’s substance. So Christ was born with dual natures, wishing to replenish the world on high. (Kathisma, Orthros, Feast of the Nativity, Trans. by Fr. Seraphim Dedes)
St. Athanasios wrote in his book “On the Incarnation,” that “God became a man so man could become like God.”
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