Sunday After the Nativity of Christ: David and Joseph (Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Mani)

Sunday After the Nativity of Christ:
David and Joseph 

By Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Mani

This feast of the two persons, David and Joseph, on the Sunday after the divine Nativity of our Savior Christ, is in a way somewhat distinctive. Indeed, if no Sunday falls between the 26th and the 31st of December, then the aforementioned feast is celebrated on the 26th of the month.

Thus the Church sets before us two very different figures: a monarch and a craftsman — David the King and Joseph the carpenter. The one lived a thousand years before Christ, and the other lived at the time of Christ.

More specifically, David was not only a King but also a Prophet, and moreover a poet, a musician, and a guide of the people. He was a man of many trials but also of great glory. Above all, he was the man who yearned for the Messiah, the Christ. He always thirsted for and sought the true God, from the time when he was hiding in the mountains to the time when he became a most powerful leader. Many Israelites, of course, believed in God and knew the Protoevangelium — that is, the promise of God that a descendant of the woman, who would be born virginally of her, would crush the devil. Yet David felt this with an exceedingly strong longing, with his entire inner being. He firmly believed that one day the Redeemer of the world would come — the “great Visitor” of humanity, the “expectation of the nations,” Christ. This was the central aim of his life; this filled his soul, and this he hymned in his most beautiful Psalms with his lyre. He believed that none other than God Himself would come to the earth and would not leave His creature, man, in the tragedy of his separation from his heavenly Father.

On the other hand, we have Joseph — a figure mentioned only a few times in Holy Scripture, specifically as the betrothed of the Virgin Mary, and who, after the fulfillment of his duties, is no longer mentioned in the Holy Gospels. He was a simple man, in contrast to King David: he never wrote anything, did not prophesy, did not preach, but as a simple carpenter he worked humbly in his workshop. Yet this very simple craftsman had good intentions, purity of heart, deep faith in God, and indeed was deemed worthy to become great. He came to stand near Christ, to become the protector of the divine Child and of the Virgin, and to be a witness to the great Mystery of the divine Incarnation.

We therefore celebrate two figures of Holy Scripture: one at the heart of the Old Testament and the other at the beginning of the New Testament. The one greatly glorified, the other very obscure. Yet both — King and Craftsman — meet at the cave of Bethlehem. Both point to the manger and wish to guide us, so that we too may perceive the Mystery of the Incarnate Son and Word of God, with a longing for salvation and silent reverence.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.