Homily for the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos
By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev
By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!
A few days ago, by the mercy of God, we entered with you into the New Ecclesiastical Year, and today we celebrate the first great feast of the annual liturgical cycle—the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos.
In order to understand the meaning of this feast, and together with it the meaning of the other feasts of the Church, we must first of all remember that the life of the Church is a mystery, incomprehensible to those who are outside the Church.
It is not by chance that the most important thing in the life of the Holy Church—Her center, through which we become partakers of the grace of God—we call MYSTERIES.
By our own created mind, we could not comprehend this mystery. But the Lord, in His mercy, gradually reveals it to those who live in the Mysteries, who draw near to this source of grace and drink its living water.
There are many mysteries in the life of the Church, but one of them is constantly being revealed to believers. We enter into communion with it not only when we receive the gifts of grace through the Mysteries, but every time we are in church and participate in the divine services.
Nevertheless, for many of us who believe, this mystery continues to remain closed. In order truly to come into contact with it, we must not be mere listeners and spectators of what takes place in the church, but enter into the experience of those who were the creators of the divine services and stamped it in the prayers and hymns they composed, beginning from apostolic times, through the martyrs and venerable fathers, and ending with the ascetics of our own time.
The creators of the divine services, in complete agreement with all the Fathers and Teachers of the Church, tell us that man was created for eternal life, that the true element in which alone his soul can live is eternity.
When we bury our departed and pray for the repose of their souls, we ask that the Lord grant them “eternal memory.” But this prayer can also refer to us who are still living on earth, because we too need the Lord to have us in His eternal memory: for the purpose of our life is participation in eternity. Therefore, the very best and most precious wish of the Church is the wish for eternal memory.
But we constantly forget this. Burdened by the cares of earthly life and darkened by the temporary circumstances of our life, we forget what we were created for, we forget eternity, in which only that which was created by the Lord lives—VIRTUE.
Everything else is cast away and thrown into the fire—into the outer darkness. It only seems to us that it exists, but in reality, as one Holy Father says: “In the beginning there was no evil, because even now it does not exist among the saints, and for them it does not exist at all” (St. Athanasius the Great, Oration Against the Heathen, 2, Works, Part 1, p. 127).
In truth, only life in God exists, and that which proceeds along the path of acquiring the Kingdom of God within us. The Holy Fathers tell us that man was created according to the Image and Likeness of God, that he is the crown of nature and the king of all visible creation, and at the same time an initiate of the grace of God. They teach that by his body man is connected with all earthly creation, because the Lord created this body, “taking dust from the earth” (Genesis 2:6), while by his soul he is united with the heavenly angelic world. Man stands on the boundary between two worlds—the earthly and the heavenly. “In his creation,” as Gregory the Theologian says, “the creative Word brings into being a living creature in which the invisible and visible natures are brought into unity; creating it, taking its body from what had already been created, and placing life within it from Himself, He establishes upon the earth another angel, composed of different natures, a worshiper, a beholder of visible creation, an initiate of the creation contemplated by the mind.” (Oration 38, On the Theophany, or Nativity of the Savior, Works, Part III, pp. 199–200).
But man, created according to the Image of God and placed by the Lord on the boundary between two worlds, did not fulfill his purpose: he sinned, falling away from God, and through him the whole visible world, of which he is the crown, began to turn away from the Lord. Then the Son of God appeared upon the earth, Who by His death abolished death and by His Resurrection opened for us the way to eternal life. He gave us eternal memory as well, and not only to us who believe in Him, but also to all visible creation.
Therefore, the task of man consists in this: by cleansing his soul from sin, to raise up and spiritualize also the substance from which his body was created, making it a worthy dwelling place for the immortal soul. The Holy Fathers say that on the day of the final Resurrection, not only our souls but together with them our resurrected bodies will stand before the Lord. And in this earthly life, in his ascent to God, man can walk only along the path indicated to him by the Lord, Who placed him on the boundary between two worlds. Only in communion with both of these worlds and together with them can man, here on earth, serve God. The Holy Church constantly reminds us of this in her divine services.
Recently we celebrated the New Year service together. On that day we offered praise to the Lord not only on our own behalf, but also on behalf of the entire visible and invisible world, with which we are united in body and soul.
This is clearly expressed in the canon of that day: “All Your works, O Lord, the heavens and the earth, the light and the sea, the waters and all the springs, the sun and the moon, and the darkness, the stars and the fire, men and beasts, together with the angels, praise You” (Service of September 1, Canon for the Indiction, Ode 9).
He who believes that these words correspond to reality, and that in the divine services we truly become united with both worlds, understands what a great mystery is contained in Orthodox divine worship.
This mystery consists not only in the fact that here the boundary between man and all creation—heavenly and earthly—is destroyed, the boundary that we so clearly feel while living in this “transient world,” but also in the fact that through the divine services we overcome even the very boundaries of “the time of passing nature” and enter the world of eternity. Thus, in the divine services there is nothing temporal, but everything lives in eternity.
Usually, we see the meaning of celebrating one event or another from the life of Jesus Christ or the Mother of God in going to church, listening there to the Gospel and the hymns that tell of events that took place a very long time ago, and remembering those events. Thus we can also approach today's feast. Church Tradition tells us that about 2,000 years ago the Most Holy Virgin was born in the Galilean city of Nazareth to aged parents, the righteous Joachim and Anna. It tells us that by her birth the Virgin Mary loosed the bonds of their barrenness and brought them great joy. The hymns of today tell us about this, and apparently the whole meaning of the feast comes down to remembering these events.
But if we turn to the text of the hymns themselves and try to enter into the meaning of what their authors say, we will become convinced that such an attitude toward the feast belongs only to those who are external, who do not understand the mysteries of the life of the Church. In reality, the hymns of the feast say something quite different. In the stichera of today's Vespers we heard: “Today the barren gates are opened, and the divine maiden's door comes forth,” “Today the proclamation of universal joy; today the winds have wafted, heralds of our salvation; the barrenness of our nature is loosed,” and finally, “Today barren Anna gives birth to the God-Child” (Service of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos: at “Lord, I have cried,” Stichera 4, 5, and 6).
What, then, does this “today” mean? (“Today the barrenness is loosed,” “today Anna gives birth to the God-Child.”) Are these merely devices of figurative poetic speech, or is there some other meaning contained in these words?
If we reason from the standpoint of the wisdom of this age, then asserting the real meaning of these words is madness. For all this took place a very long time ago. But for those who “set their minds on spiritual things” (Romans 8:5), everything that happened “for us men and for our salvation” not only took place in time, but also abides in eternity.
Therefore, when today we hear that “now the pure Virgin proceeds from Anna,” the gates of Eternity are opened to us.
The divine service of today tells us that the birth of the Most Holy Virgin was a joy not only for Her parents and relatives who lived in Nazareth, but became a universal joy; that it loosed the barrenness not only of the holy righteous Joachim and Anna, but that in it “the barrenness of our nature is loosed” and a “life-bearing fruit” is born for the world.
The divine service reveals to us that the Nativity of the Mother of God was significant not only for those who lived in Nazareth in those days, but took place “for us men and for our salvation,” that with Her birth “today a bridge to life is born” (Service of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, Canon 1, Ode 2), leading us into eternity.
Glorifying the Lord, we conclude every doxology with the words: “now and ever and unto the ages of ages.” By these words the Holy Church tells us that the divine service which we perform “now” will be performed “both now and ever and unto the ages of ages,” because even now it is being performed in Eternity and makes us partakers of eternal life.
In this lies the great mystery of divine worship that the Holy Church reveals to us.
Take away from the divine service its hidden meaning, contained in the words “now and ever and unto the ages of ages,” and for us the source of eternal life flowing within it will be closed; you will forever remain torn away from that which was and has passed into an irrevocable past, for no human being can be present at the birth of his mother or his father. But we know that the greatest among our ascetics, those who were the creators of liturgical hymns and canons, drank from this source of eternal life. Through experience they came to know that the divine services open to us the knowledge of Eternity.
And for us sinners, the most important thing—and this must always be remembered—is to touch this source of knowledge that is opened to us through the mystery of divine worship.
And for this purpose, while you are still here on earth, receive with faith, reverence, and the fear of God everything that you see and hear in the church—all that is performed, sung, and read during the divine services.
And when once again today we enter into the annual cycle of divine worship, let us remember WHO we are and TO WHAT WE ARE CALLED.
And as we enter more deeply into it, the great mystery of Eternity will be revealed to us more and more.
The Holy Church believes that we do not perform the divine service alone, that together with us the angelic powers and the whole Heavenly Church pray and glorify the Lord. “Now the heavenly powers invisibly serve with us,” we sing during Great Lent at the Liturgies of the Presanctified Gifts.
And not only on these great days, but on all the days of the Church year, at every Divine Liturgy, before the Little Entrance, the priest prays: “And make our entrance to be an entrance of holy angels, who serve together with us and glorify Your goodness.” It is precisely from this coexistence and concelebration with us of the angels and saints who have already attained Eternity and live eternal life in the Lord that the striving toward Eternity is born in us as well.
Therefore, during the Divine Liturgy, after offering to the Lord the thanksgiving service for all the saints and “especially for our Most Holy, Most Pure, Most Blessed, Glorious Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary,” the priest commemorates the living and the departed and prays that the Lord remember them in His Kingdom, that is, make them partakers of His Eternal Memory, which is the Kingdom of God.
From this it should be clear to us that the divine service performed here on earth is nothing other than the successive unfolding in time of the mysteries of Eternity. And for each one of us who believes, it is the path leading us to eternal life.
Therefore, the feasts of the Church are not an accidental collection of memorial days, but points of Eternity shining within our temporal world, the passage through which follows an unchanging spiritual order. These points succeed one another in a definite sequence; they are connected with one another like the steps of a single ladder of spiritual ascent, so that while standing on one of them, we already see the light illuminating us from another step. Thus, today the reading of the canon is accompanied by the singing of the Katavasia of the Exaltation of the Cross, “Moses, having depicted the Cross.” It would seem that it has no relation to today's day, but in reality this is not so. It speaks to us of the unbroken spiritual connection between the Church feasts that follow one another.
This is the light of the Exaltation that shines upon us from afar, so that already today we begin to enter into it.
The mystery of divine worship is the greatest of the mysteries of the Church. We ourselves cannot comprehend it at once. But we know that it was revealed to the great and greatest of the servants of God. Therefore, by entering into their experience through those prayers and hymns in which they stamped it, asking their help and prayers for us sinners, we too can gradually begin to touch this great mystery.
And as, through this, the elements of Eternity are born and grow within you, we shall also relate differently than we do now to our temporal life. Then we shall understand that it is only a path leading us from the earthly to the heavenly, from the temporal to the eternal.
And then, when departing from this life, we may be vouchsafed the eternal Kingdom prepared by the Lord for those who have already here, on earth, begun to enter into His Eternal Memory, which is the greatest attainment for a man journeying from the earthly to the heavenly.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
