Festal Nativity Icon: short homily
Nativity Vespers, Dec. 24, 2021 Luke 2: 1-20
We have been growing in anticipation of the glorious celebration of the birth of Christ since we began the Nativity fast back on Nov. 15. Through our fasting and efforts, our hearts have been preparing to receive the awesome joy of the coming of Christ! The incarnation of God Himself into the world, come to gather us into His embrace and bring us into His family! What glory! This is the central fact of all our history. The beginning of our salvation. Christ put on a body for our sake, that He the Uncreated, who created all things, might physically enter all of creation and sanctify and redeem it. Christ comes, born as a little child, that He might through His voluntary death on the cross, find death and blot it out. Eternal Immortal God, He who is life itself, is born into the world, putting on human flesh and trampling down death by His death, destroying its hold, and rescuing and restoring Adam and Eve and all of mankind into communion with Him!
In the Nativity festal icon, we see the whole Nativity story; we see the Eternal God born as a little child. He is laying in a cave, foreshadowing His tomb, surrounded with pointed inaccessible mountains representing the hostility of the world. Jesus lays in a manger that is shaped like a coffin or an Altar, and He is wrapped in windings of fine linen as was customary when preparing a body for burial. This icon of His glorious birth, points to His mission, His voluntarily death on the cross, that He might find death and blot it out! In the corner we see a bewildered Joseph being tempted by the devil to put away Mary, wrestling with doubts, as this is a miracle beyond the bounds of nature and human comprehension. Even the angels look on and are amazed and astonished, announcing this new and glorious revelation to all of creation. We see the wise men, foreigners enlightened by God, representing all who seek God from every nation, led by the star to the very cradle of Christ God.
Somehow, we are missing the rulers of the synagogues, the prestigious and respected leaders of Israel, successful and well regarded in the eyes of the world. No, as we hear in the parable of the great supper, they are just too busy. God’s chosen people are instead represented by the humble and pure hearted Shepherds, being instructed by the angels, who represent the entire immaterial creation of God. The shepherds come to worship the Shepherd of all human shepherds. In the bottom corner we see Jesus’s mid-wife St. Salome whom we are told in the 2nd century writing of the Protoevangelium of James, became the mother of the apostles James and John and one of the myrrh-bearing women. The ox and the donkey are present, reminding us of the verse in Isaiah (1:3) “The ox knows his Owner and the donkey his Master’s crib; but Israel does not know Me; and the people do not understand Me.” All of creation is present and filled with joy and awe; all has now changed. The mountains, the cave, the plants, the tree representing the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1-13), all worshiping the birth of Christ and glorifying the new peace of His kingdom and reign, ushered in by His arrival. The animals and the very air resonate with joy as the healing of all creation begins, as all of creations’ groaning cries are answered. This is the beginning of our salvation. Christ is Born!