Homily

God is with us.

Nativity 2003

Christ is born! Glorify Him! Christ is come from heaven! Receive Him! Christ is on earth! Be ye lifted up! Give ear all he nations! Attend all ye inhabitants of the earth! For God is with us! “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: And the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Isaiah 9:6-7).

Tonight brothers and sisters we do the unusual! We reverse the patterns of earthly life, waking, gathering, worshipping in the midst of the night as the world sleeps! We refuse the routines of corruption because the unusual itself has taken place! We reverse the patterns of earthly life because God Himself has reversed the very fabric of human existence. We refuse the routines of corruption and the oppression of sleep because this evening, in the darkness of the night, the incorruptible One has clothed Himself in mortal flesh! Tonight the Virgin brings forth the incomprehensible One! He Who is before the ages God, today is born a child in Bethlehem. He Who called the universe into existence and fashioned man in His power takes His newly acquired hands and cups the breasts of the Virgin to His newly acquired mouth to drink. The whole universe will never be the same. Our lives will never be the same. And so we meet in the night. We worship at midnight as if to proclaim to our own hearts and to the world itself- Take heed! Sound the trumpets! Ring the bells! Christ is born to raise up the image that had fallen!

Brothers and Sisters, my flock dear to Christ, I have missed you! What a four months it has been. We have lived these months six thousand miles away, cherishing our communion with each of you in this beacon and outpost of paradise that we call St. Andrew Church, cherishing our communion I say, by means of letters, emails, and an occasional phone call that was like a long drink at an oasis in the midst of the desert. When I saw one of the children of the parish this last weekend he looked at me and simply said, “Father, four months is too long!”

With this earthly experience in mind brothers and sisters consider the glory of this holy night. Thousands of years ago our first parents lived in unceasing communion with the Holy Trinity. They radiated the grace of God, and lived in an unspeakable joy and happiness in the presence of the Lord. This precious pearl, this angelic life, they defiled and trampled under foot by their passions. Passions for food, for artificial glory, and self-importance, and they found themselves lamenting bitterly as they tasted what the devils had to offer. They were cast from Paradise, and found themselves separated from God. The distance was far greater than the 6,000 miles we were separated by. They were separated by something more profound than geography. They had lost their friendship, and their privilege of intimacy. They had become strangers, aliens, outcasts, even enemies of the Almighty. But God did not do what we humans so often do when we are betrayed. He did not abandon those who had spit in His face. He began to devise ways to recover man. He spoke to our fathers once again. Again we heard His voice.

But it was not as we had heard it in Paradise. God spoke to our forefathers long ago in the prophets in many portions and in many ways. God inspired men to speak as His ambassadors. These were the prophets. Pure men. Holy men. Men and women devoted to seeking the face of God and refusing the pleasures of this world. To these prophets the Lord God delivered messages of hope for His people and inspired writings that over the centuries we have gathered together and preserved for our salvation. We heard through these prophets that a day would come in the future when the Fall of our first parents would be undone. Cryptically, mysteriously, we heard that somehow our separation from God would be reversed and overcome, and that God Himself would come to us. In the meantime we cherished the letters, the occasional phone calls, so to speak, when we could hear His voice, on the top of Sinai, in the quiet breeze, and in the bush that burned yet was not consumed. And we waited. We did not wait four months for reunion, but four thousand years.

We waited until the fullness of time came when God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the Law that we might receive adoption as His children (Gal. 4:4) and our intimate communion, face to face friendship, and familial relation would be restored. And not just restored but made more solid, deep and abiding than ever it was in Paradise of old. Oh we cherish the letters. How they have preserved us! How they have guided us in our darkness. How they have enlivened us! But they have always reminded us of our distance! Tonight brothers and sisters we receive no letter from a distant land. We receive no picture in the mail and no messenger. Tonight we, on behalf of the world, welcome the Co-Eternal Son to the earth as a man! We witness the birth in the flesh of the Son of God! God is with us! Never to leave us again! Almighty God, in His great condescension and love for us has come down from on high, bending over and kissing the earth! He has cradled us in His arms and assumed our nature! He has joined what was thought impossible to join: divinity and humanity.

What a humble God we serve! Indeed, humility is the very raiment and clothing of the Godhead! He did not consider becoming like His creatures beneath Himself! Nor to be despised of men! Nor to be born in a cave and laid in a manger! Nor to embrace our poverty, diseases and sins! Nor to be attacked by ruthless kings! Brothers and sisters God’s humility has saved us. His lowliness has lifted us high. His poverty has made us rich. His willingness to be numbered among men, has made us gods.

We who worship such a humble God, Who has traversed the heavens and bowed down to earth for us, can we not bow down to one another? We, Who have benefitted from such humility, can we not also be humble? Can we not also bow down before and obey our elders? our parents? our teachers? our rulers? Can we not also bow down before and obey our pastors and spiritual fathers? before those more holy and Christ-like than we? Even before those whose innocence proves them to be our superiors, such as young children and the mentally handicapped who have never committed sin? Certainly we can mightily show ourselves to be Christians and servants of the humble God by so doing, and especially by bowing down before the providence of our God in our lives. By believing He knows best, and embracing His will, instead of following the path of modern man as he attempts to control everything in his life down to the very color of his artificially conceived children’s hair. We can also be humble in the face of God’s providence, and accept His will with joy.

And if Christ’s humility this evening has saved us and has solved our every problem, no matter how large, even our overpowering enemies: death, sin and the devil, is there any problem we have now that Christ cannot solve? Is their any misery of ours that He will disdain to bear if He has already done the unimaginable and become a man? And indeed our jubilation is tempered with our personal sorrows. These past few days I have been weeping with some of you for good reasons. Our joy is interwoven with sorrow. Our joy always is since it is a joy that we possess in this world. This is always the case, and always will be the case until the next life. Woe to the one who thinks he can craft a life free of tribulation and sorrow! This one will be the very definition of frustration. But my fellow sufferers in Christ, the Lord has come to assume these sorrows, to unite us with them to Himself and to redeem them. To be joined to us in our misery and to lift us up. Let us trust Him Who did not despise us in our shame, but Who condescended to become man for our salvation. Let us not forget what He has done. Let us not turn our minds away from what has been accomplished between us, what has been restored, what has been given. We have the first-fruits, and of the increase of Christ’s peace and rule in our lives, brothers and sisters, there will be no end. Thus saith the Lord. Christ is born!