2002 Eparchy Christmas Message (12/03)

“Behold a strange and wonderful mystery!  The cave is Heaven, the Virgin a Cherubic throne, the manger a noble place where reposes Christ, the Uncontainable God! Let us praise and magnify Him.”   (Hirmos of the Ninth Ode of the Nativity)

My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

No mind can fathom and no words can adequately describe the great mystery of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us.  The Eternal One enters time; the Uncontainable One is wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger of dumb beasts; the Inaccessible One is held in the arms of His All-Pure Mother.  Indeed, the Creator of the Universe becomes a creature made of the clay of the earth.

And still there is more….  The Lord and Master of the universe put aside, as it were, His Divinity and assumed our fallen nature not as a proof of his limitless power and awesome divinity.  Rather—and herein lies the most astounding mystery of all—the Creator becomes a creature out of love for the creature who rebelled against Him!  Our Divine Savior, Whom the heavens cannot contain, became a man in order to save us from our sins. “Christ is born to renew the likeness that has been lost of old.” (Troparion of the Vigil of the Nativity)

When the Creator saw man fallen from the divine life of grace and perishing in the corruption and decay of sin, He “bowed the heavens and came down” to restore man to the glory of paradise.  When the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption. (Galatians 4:4)

Such is the superabundance of Our Lord’s divine love for us.  All other loves we can ever possibly know are but mere echoes of this awesome and wondrous Love.  Indeed, this Divine Love gives human love its very definition and meaning.

In the face of such wondrous love we can but join with the Shepherds and the Magi and bow down in humble adoration before our Divine Savior, the babe lying in the manger, who comes to save us.       

This strange and wonderful mystery of the Incarnation stands as the pivot of human history.  It is the Light of Truth that shines with brilliance upon the human generations that dwells in darkness.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  (John 1:4-5)  Yet, as in the days of Herod, the powers of darkness continue their vain attempt to extinguish the Light.  In our day, we see the frantic fervor with which the enemies of God seek to “rid” the world of all mention of Christ’s sublime and saving truth.  Not with swords of steel do they slaughter the Innocents, but rather with the weapons of secularism, as powerful and as deadly.

My dear friends, Christmas is not simply a quaint remembrance of an event that occurred two thousand years ago.  No, indeed!  Christmas is rather a sublime mystery into which, by faith, we enter and participate.  Christ is being born for the world TODAY.  This awesome mystery of Love Himself becoming man is occurring NOW, at this present moment. 

Each one of us is called to live the reality of Christmas everyday in a world that at once hungers for it and is hostile to it.  The Birth of Christ gives life a new meaning.  Jesus came down from Heaven that (we) might have life and have it to the full.  (John 10:10)  This Christmas gift of the fullness of life gives us profound joy, confident hope, and abiding peace.  It is precisely the medicine our ailing world requires.

I pray that the grace of Christ’s Holy Nativity and Theophany will strengthen us in our resolve to “shout from the rooftops” this great and mighty wonder our God has done upon the earth.  May our Divine Savior, the Lover of Mankind, Who wills “that all men be saved,” shine with brilliant light into the dark caves of secular society so that all people will “come to the knowledge of the truth” and with the Magi will worship the King of the Universe.  

I take this occasion to wish you and your family and friends all the blessings of Christ’s Holy Nativity.  May the joy that flooded the earth on the day of His birth overflow in our hearts, in our homes, and in our communities during this holy season and every day of the year.

To the one God in Whom we live and move and have our being, be glory and honor forever and ever.  Amen.

 Miilaad mubaaraq! Al Masiiah wulid! Famajjiduhu!

(Blessed Christmas! Christ is born! Glorify Him!)

Most Rev. John A. Elya

The Arabic translation is available at the Chancery Office Tel. (617) 323-9922

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