December 24, 2022
Christ Is Born, Magnify Him! Christ from the Heavens, Go Ye Out to Meet Him
It is the time of gifts and of giving. For it is the moment when, more than ever, we must remember the Gift received by us all two thousand and twenty-two years ago: the Gift of Adoption.
Tomorrow, at matins, it will be sung: “Made like unto us in form, by mingling with the lowly dust, O Christ, and by partaking of the fallen flesh, Thou hast imparted to it the divine nature, becoming man and remaining God; Thou who hast lifted up our head, holy art Thou, O Lord.” (First Canon, Ode Three.)
This hymn clothes in poetry the truth and the fundamental essence of Christianity, expressed synthetically by Saint Irenaeus of Lyons: “The Word of God, out of His exceeding love for mankind, became what we ourselves are, that He might make us what He Himself is.” To the fallen, “the Word says, expounding the gift of His grace: ‘I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High’… For this the Word became man, and the Son of God became the son of man: that man, being united with the Word and receiving thereby adoption, might become a son of God.”
The same is said in almost identical words by Saint Athanasius the Great: “He was made man that we might be made gods. …He took the created and human body, that, renewing it as its Maker, He might deify it in Himself, and thus bring us all into the Kingdom of heaven after His likeness. But man would not have been deified… had the Son not been true God. …For this reason the union took place, that man by nature might be united to Him who is by nature God, and that man’s salvation and his deification might be assured.”
So too Saint Cyril of Alexandria expounds for us the mystery of God’s becoming man: “The Word became what we are, that He might make us partakers of what He Himself is… He took what is ours, to give us in exchange what is His,” telling us that “it was necessary that Christ should be at once God and man, so that man might be deified: had Christ not been God, He could not have changed our fallen condition into the divine nobility”, and “had He not been of one being with the Father, we should not have been partakers of the divine nature.”
I recall here only what Saint Gregory of Nazianzus tells us, who, speaking of the Nativity, of the Incarnation, presented it as the ground of deification: “When God became man, man became god,” affirming radically: “The Word is man for thee to the same degree as thou becomest god through Him.”
Therefore, brethren, it is time, more than ever, to be like Him who is born today, like the God with whom He Himself has made us one: good, forgiving and merciful.
And ready for sacrifice, as He was. Ready to give ourselves up for the Truth and for our neighbour.
Give, and give of yourselves, and you shall be gods.
A truly happy feast.
Christ is born.
Find the post on FacebookThe Facebook archive keeps no permanent addresses for posts, and this entry has no photograph from which an address could be rebuilt. The button above opens directly a search by a phrase from the text, on the author’s page.
Comments
Have your say. Comments appear once approved.