A Nativity Homily

Christos Rojhdayetsya! Slavite Yeho!  Christ is Born!  Glorify Him! 

Let us celebrate the Incarnation of our Lord!

As St. John Christostom says in his Nativity homily (SJC-NH); “Bethlehem this day resembles heaven”  The Sun of Righteousness lays in a manger.  We hear less the cattle lowing, than the shepherds proclaiming in full-voice the Glory of God;  With them, harmonize the celestial other-worldly voices of the angels and archangels; the Cherubim add their joyful praise; while Seraphim unceasingly exalt His glory.

Pre-eternal Love and Rationality – the unending wellspring of Hope and Goodness – is Incarnate in Bethlehem.  If we were to keep silent about this glorious event, then now – as in Jerusalem – even the stones would cry out in our place as nature responds to her creator.  But we do not keep silent! 

•CHRIST IS BORN!  And peace now lives amongst us! 

•CHRIST IS BORN!  And we now see the reason for our hope! 

•CHRIST IS BORN!  And all creation is perfected through the radiance of His perfection. 

Today philosophers are confounded, mighty sovereigns [are] humbled, and the humble themselves are exalted: [why? because]  the Source of Reason lives among us; the Supreme King of All has taken the lowly manger as His throne and the meek as his courtiers. 

•CHRIST IS BORN!  Philosophers and scientists: drink from the purest spring of knowledge and be refreshed with understanding.

•CHRIST IS BORN!  Might rulers: submit to the Omnipotent Master of the All and learn the true legitimacy of sacrificial benevolence and liberating authority.

•CHRIST IS BORN!  Humble poor: embrace the child born in your midst and feel the growth of unending riches as He nurses within your heart.

Is the magnitude of this occasion beyond your ken?  Are you astounded by the way of the world and the audacity of its Tyrant?  Is your mind overwhelmed by the enormity of the paradoxical juxtaposition of the unconstrainable God constrained by the wraps of His swaddling clothes?   Open your heart to the glory of His coming and your mind to the beauty of His condescension.

“For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of Him who works” (SJC-NH)

•CHRIST IS BORN!  He became flesh to the Virgin Mother in Bethlehem long before our own days began.

•CHRIST IS BORN!  It happened long ago, but you have seen this mystery with your own eyes in your own time: how the God-King makes His home not just in a manger of “Bethlehem Ephrathah, the least among the thousands of Judah” but  also here, in the parish of St. Michaels in Woonsocket, itself the humblest of cities, with this altar as His throne.

•CHRIST IS BORN!  You have seen the mystery before in your own time: how the Creator and Saviour of all is born not just in Bethlehem, but how he is born and continually reborn within the manger and altar of your heart. 

Let us celebrate the Incarnation of our Lord!   We join our voices to those of the shepherds, angels, archangels, cherubim, and the seraphim, as the entire universe and all of creation celebrates His Glory and proclaims the wonder of His Humility.  The Wellspring of Power and Perfection has been in born in Bethlehem; the Fountain of Wealth and Prosperity has come to us in New England; the Unshakable Foundation of Hope is nursing within the heart of every Christian. 

We shout out the simple truth we first proclaimed on Christmas Eve:   GOD IS WITH US!