The Nativity of Christ: Homily 2: On the Divine Services of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ (Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko)

1. The Feasts of the Lord

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko 

I. The Nativity of Christ

Homily No. 2. On the Divine Services of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ

I. The solemn ringing of bells today, earlier than usual, awakens you, Christian, and calls you to the house of God for the morning doxology. Do not be lazy to rise and go there together with your family. The event which we solemnly commemorate today occurred very early — in the deep stillness of the night; our Lord was born at the time when the Bethlehem shepherds were keeping watch over their flock by night (Luke 2:8). The shepherds were deemed worthy to hear the angelic glad tidings and the heavenly doxology: go, you too, to the flock of Christ, and from the lips of the Church you will hear the same glad tidings and the same doxology. Immediately before Matins the Great Compline is read today. This bears witness that our ancient brethren and fathers, on this Great Feast, continued their prayers and chants throughout the whole night. Compline is usually joined with Vespers, but in ancient times, on this feast, Vespers and Compline were so prolonged that Compline merged into Matins, and all three services together constituted, in the proper sense, an All-Night Vigil.

II. a) At the Great Compline we hear the chanting of the prophetic hymn of Isaiah: “God is with us.” After the customary Psalms of the Great Compline begins the Lity, or public procession, which was always performed among the people, sometimes under the open sky, and now is celebrated in the narthex or in the first part of the church from the entrance. Here we attend to the sweet hymns of Saint John of Damascus. He calls heaven and earth, angels and men, to spiritual celebration and to common singing: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace.” The expectation of the Gentiles, the hope of the nations, has been fulfilled; He has come who saves us from diabolical bondage; the Light has shone forth for those in darkness; He who is to renew corruptible Adam has taken flesh. Behold, the Magi, led by the radiant star, worship the Timeless One — the Pre-eternal Child! At the Aposticha the stichera belong to the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Germanos (8th century) and Anatolios (5th century): “A great and most glorious wonder has been accomplished today,” thus sing the holy teachers, “the Virgin gives birth and the womb is not corrupted; the Word receives flesh and is not separated from the Father… Come, all peoples, worship the Savior of our souls who has been born!”

b) At Matins the Gospel according to Matthew relates how an angel resolved the perplexity of Saint Joseph the Betrothed, explaining that what was conceived in the womb of the Most Holy Virgin is of the Holy Spirit. It recalls the prophecy of Isaiah: “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Emmanuel.” And finally proclaims the joyful event: “She brought forth her firstborn Son, and he called His name Jesus.” “Glory to You, O Lord, glory to You!” the Church responds to this glad tidings of the Evangelist, and soon, under the guidance of Saints Kosmas of Maiuma and John of Damascus, begins to glorify the newborn Lord with two poetic compositions, or Canons. “Christ is born, glorify Him! Christ comes from heaven, meet Him! Christ is on earth, be exalted!” Thus begin these Canons. “The Wise Creator comes to renew fallen man; having become incarnate, He removes the curse from the wretched womb of Eve” (Ode 1). “With the flesh He has taken, the divine nature is united; from Bethlehem goes forth He who sits upon the cherubim and reigns over all” (Ode 3). “From the tribe of Judah Christ has shone forth, the expectation of the Gentiles, the Star from Jacob” (Ode 4). “The Master of the most pure powers (the heavenly hosts) lies in a manger; as a child appears the Father of the age to come, God Mighty and Almighty. God the Word strengthens our nature, which could not preserve the ancient covenant, and offers a second covenant, indestructible by passions” (Ode 6). “He came to restore human nature from barren hills to a blooming pasture” (Ode 8). “We now behold not shadows and images, but the light of truth” (Ode 9). For this the Holy Church glorifies and thanks the Lord. The joyful hymns of praise are concluded by the following song, which briefly portrays the whole essence of the feast: “Today Christ is born in Bethlehem of the Virgin; today the Beginningless begins, and the Word is made flesh; the heavenly powers rejoice and the earth with mankind is glad; the Magi bring gifts to the Master; the shepherds marvel at the One born, and we unceasingly cry: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those whom He is pleased!” Finally, all the chanting of Matins is concluded with the Great Doxology, which is especially fitting for this feast, since it begins with the same angelic doxology — “Glory to God in the highest” — sung at the hour of the Savior’s Nativity.

c) At the Liturgy, instead of the Trisagion, the hymn is sung today: “As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” This reminds us that in ancient times, on the eve of this feast (as on the eve of other Great Feasts), the catechumens were baptized, and on the feast itself they heard the whole Liturgy for the first time and partook, together with the other faithful, of the Holy Mysteries. With the baptismal hymn the Church then greeted her newly born children. The Apostle (Gal. 4:4) points out to us the purpose of the incarnation of the Son of God: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son (the Only-begotten), born of a woman, born under the law.” And the Gospel (Matt. 2), recounting the coming of the Magi to Jerusalem and Bethlehem and their worship of the newborn King-Child, teaches us also to worship Him. Instead of “It is truly meet,” the choir sings the irmos of Ode 9, “It is truly right for us to love.”

d) After the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy, celebrated “early,” a thanksgiving moleben is served in remembrance of the deliverance of the Church and the Russian state from the invasion of the twelve nations in 1812. It begins with the solemn hymn of Isaiah, “God is with us”; after the Great Litany, troparia are sung to the glory of the Prince of Peace, the Lamb of Bethlehem, who has trampled down the lion and the serpent; then, in an exalted prophecy of Isaiah, the fate of the king of Babylon is depicted, and in his person that of every proud conqueror who boasts of ascending to heaven and setting his throne above the stars of heaven, but to whom it is proclaimed: “Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit” (Isa. 14:15). The Apostle Paul recalls the feats of ancient men who by faith conquered kingdoms and put foreign armies to flight (Heb. 11:33–34), and invites us humbly to place all hope of salvation in the Author and Finisher of faith, Jesus; and in the Gospel the Lord foretells coming wars and comforts us with the hope that these sorrowful days will be shortened for the sake of the elect. The moleben concludes with a tender prayer with kneeling and the Great Doxology, “Glory to God in the highest,” or with the solemn hymn, “We praise You, O God.” 

III. Such is the briefest outline of that solemn, deeply instructive, and at the same time joyful divine service which is celebrated on the feast of the Nativity of Christ. Let us rejoice, brethren, and be glad with spiritual joy on this day, glorifying and thanking the Lord for His innumerable benefactions toward us, sinful and unworthy servants of His; above all, let us with all our soul and all our heart offer thanksgiving to the Lord for His love toward us that surpasses our understanding, by which He sent His Only-begotten Son into our sinful world for the salvation of man from sin, curse, and eternal death.

Appendix to Homily No. 2: Some Accounts from Ancient Christian Writers Concerning the Signs and Events That Preceded and Accompanied the Nativity of Christ

1. There exists a tradition, recorded in history by Nikephoros Kallistos, that Emperor Augustus, toward the end of his long reign, wished to learn through an oracle the future fate of the world-wide Roman Empire founded by him. For this purpose he went to the Delphic oracle of Apollo to offer there the greatest and most solemn of pagan sacrifices of that time — a hecatomb (of a hundred oxen or other animals) — and then asked the oracle who would rule the Roman Empire after him, Augustus (it is known that Augustus had no male heirs). Despite the great sacrifice just offered, Apollo remained silent. Augustus brought another sacrifice and expressed his natural astonishment that the oracle, always so prolific and sometimes even verbose, should now suddenly utter no sound; and after some time he received the following answer, enigmatic to him:

“A Hebrew Child, Himself God, ruler of all gods,
Has commanded me to yield my throne and return to the underworld.
Do you also obediently depart from our altars here.”

Having received such an answer, Augustus returned to Rome and there, on the very Capitol, in the most honored and central place of the city, erected a great altar with the Latin inscription: “Altar of the Firstborn God.”

Then, when the same Emperor Augustus was entering Rome upon his return from the city of Apollonia, approximately at the third hour of the day, on the bright and clear horizon of the sky a circle suddenly formed around the sun, resembling a rainbow; and this happened, they say, on that very day on which Jesus Christ was born; thereby indicating from above that in the days of this great monarch there appears on earth He who alone could create and hold in His power both the sun itself and the whole world. Finally, when the Romans, in commemoration of their countless victories and in memory of the peace they afterward enjoyed, decided to build a magnificent temple dedicated to the goddess of peace, they addressed the whole numerous host of their gods with the question of how long the intended magnificent temple might endure, and to their amazement received the answer: “Until a Virgin gives birth.” Interpreting this answer as implying the impossibility of such an event, the Romans called this majestic building the “eternal temple.” And behold, on that ever-memorable night when the God-man, Christ Jesus, was born of the Most Holy Virgin, this magnificent building of the eternal temple, whose end the Romans did not expect, suddenly collapsed all at once with such force that scarcely any traces of the former structure remained.

2. Near the city of Bethlehem, situated on a hill in a mountainous region, at the foot of one of the rocks, there was a shelter and a manger hewn out of the rock, where Jesus Christ was born. This cramped refuge from bad weather for the nearby grazing cattle offered not even the slightest conveniences for a human being: a roof and bare walls constituted all the property of this structure, and only extreme necessity could compel a person to take shelter there. And in this very cave, it is said, during the days of the Nativity of Christ, a miracle occurred: water flowed from the rock in inexhaustible abundance, and this spring existed for a long time afterward as a special proof of the divine grace manifested here to the whole world by the birth of the Divine Child. This spring, the tradition adds, also served as the first font for the washing of the sinless body of the Divine Child. And not only Christians, but even pagans held this spring in special reverence, so that Emperor Hadrian, in order to erase among the people not only reverent feelings toward this spring but even the very memory of it, built upon this rock a temple in honor of Venus and Adonis — yet did not achieve his desired aim. With the full triumph of Christianity over paganism, the cave where Jesus Christ was born was adorned in every way — the very manger was overlaid with silver.

3. The Prophet Jeremiah, during his time in Egypt, according to tradition, foretold to the Egyptians that there would come a time when a God-like Virgin — the Mother — would come into Egypt with Her Divine Child, and then the idol images of the Egyptians, as an unclean work of human hands, would be cast down from their foundations and destroyed. A very tenuous basis for such a tradition could be provided by the prophecy of Jeremiah contained in chapter 44 of his book, where the Lord, through the mouth of the Prophet, promises to visit the people of Israel in Egypt and threatens them with destruction. The tradition adds that the Egyptians accepted the prophecy of Jeremiah with complete trust and established for themselves the custom of once a year displaying for the veneration of the people a virgin resting on a bed and an infant lying in a manger. And when some king asked for an explanation of such a mysterious custom, the Egyptians replied that it had been commanded already to their ancestors by a certain holy prophet.

4. According to the words of Thomas Aquinas, in certain accounts about the Romans it is related that in the days of Emperor Constantine the Great and his mother Helen there was found a tomb in which lay the body of an unknown man; on his chest lay a golden tablet on which was written: “Christ will be born of a Virgin, and I believe in Him. The sun will see me again in the times of Helen and Constantine.” Thomas Aquinas adds that to believe and write thus could only be one who was undoubtedly endowed with the spirit of prophecy, though he lived among pagans.

5. On the eighth day after His birth, the Divine Child, in accordance with the requirement of the Mosaic Law, was circumcised, and, as Epiphanios of Cyprus says, in that very cave in which He was born, and, according to some, by the hands of the Mother of God herself. There, too, the Pre-eternal Child was given the name “announced by the Angel before His conception in the womb” (Luke 2:21).

6. On the thirteenth day from the Nativity of Christ, to worship the newborn Savior of the world, there came from the distant lands of the East, as the Evangelist Matthew relates, the Magi, or, as ancient tradition says, Arabian kings, in accordance with the prophecy of King David, who sang of their coming in Psalm 71. The Magi made their great journey on camels; the way was shown to them by that star which they first saw in the east (Matt. 2:2), still within the borders of their own lands. Tradition says that there were three of the visitors: Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthasar. As gifts to the One who was born they brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. According to tradition, these Magi were deemed worthy of baptism by the Apostle Thomas and later were bishops in the East.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.