In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

As the years are passing on, so much more the importance of our celebrating this festival of the Incarnation of our Lord, God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ, because the world is having a yet harder time accepting the fact. You turn on the radio nowadays, and you hear stupid programmes speculating on whether there really was such a thing as the virgin birth, and whether Jesus is really the Son of God. (Although I am happy to hear that there are more real Christmas carols this year than I’ve heard for a while – at least it seems like that.) Always, while the light is shining, always, the darkness is trying to overcome this light, as it is said at the beginning of the Gospel according to St John. It’s more, and more important for us Orthodox Christians to take seriously the implications of the Incarnation, because this, and the Resurrection is what the Orthodox Church is all about in the world. The Word of God took flesh, and dwelt among us – that is what this feast is about.

It doesn’t matter how people want to re-interpret the Scriptures. The Scriptures are quite plain about what happened, and it’s important for us to take the Scriptures for what they say. God loved the world, so that He gave His Only-begotten Son (cf. John 3:16). He loves us, and so He emptied Himself. He took on our humanity in order to redeem it, in order to reunite it to God the Father, from whom we had separated ourselves in the earliest times by our selfish rebellion, by our thinking that we know better. That spirit of thinking that we know better, trying to avoid God’s love somehow, wanting it, asking for it all the time, but running away from it at the same time, has been our perpetual characteristic. And so, in our day, we are in a society that is hungering, and thirsting for the truth of Jesus Christ’s love. Yet, when faced with that love, people run away from it. You, and I, ourselves, know how that can be, because we, ourselves, in our daily lives, are not a hundred percent faithful to our Saviour. We, ourselves, give in to selfishness, to our self-will. But mercifully, we have confession; we have a spiritual doctor to go to. We can have this selfishness again and again washed off. We have new chances, because of the Lord’s loving mercy, yet again to give over to Him.

People talk about the various interesting, and often, they say, "quaint" Orthodox customs that we have, and about all sorts of things – not just holy suppers at Christmas time, and other details like that. There are all sorts of things – how you bake bread on certain occasions (because there are different sorts of breads for different occasions); how you bake things one way at one time of the year, and another way at another time of the year; even how we dance; and what sorts of things we sing at what time of the year (because, especially among Ukrainians, there are not just Christmas carols – people can sing songs in Ukraine for all sorts of different occasions during the year). Those are the sorts of things that people will say are quaint, cute customs.

In their running away from the Lord, people try to say that these are somehow customs that go back into pre-Christian times. Most of the customs that we follow don’t, in fact, go back into pre-Christian times. Those customs about how we eat, how we drink, when we do this, and when we do that, how we sing, and how we dance, are all reflections of how Christ baptises cultures, those Orthodox Christian cultures. And so, while Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Serbs, Romanians, Greeks, Albanians, Syrians, and many others (Georgians in particular), all sing, dance, and eat different ways; how they live their lives is very similar. Their day-to-day lives are all geared around the cycle of the feasts of Christ during the year. They follow the feasts, and the fasts; and the differences between how they eat, drink, dance, and sing are determined only by how they are living in the climate of the land on which they live. However, their sensitivity about how the Christian lives life is all the same. They have the same concern, really, and that is to be Christians, to be known in, and by Christ, to serve Christ, and to be like the Mother of God, ultimately, obedient in love.

When we are worshipping here, especially now when a bishop happens to be here, people from outside think it’s awfully grand, and they think it’s awfully imperial, and they think it’s a lot to swallow. But the fact is, it doesn’t have to do with the bishop by himself. How we are serving, is serving the best we can, not for any bishop, but for Whom the bishop is re-presenting. Who is that? Christ. Just as the great martyr Ireneus said: The bishop is Christ in the diocese. So the bishop has to re-present Christ as well as his fallen humanity will allow. But even if his fallenness does not allow it very well, because he is a bishop, he still has to re-present Christ. If there is any respect, and honour given to him, it is only because of Jesus Christ. As in an icon, all the respect that is given to a bishop or to a priest, is passing on to Christ, whom they re-present. It is because of Christ that a bishop or a priest or a deacon or anyone, is anything to the Church.

So, St John Chrysostom would say, when we are receiving Communion, the presence of Christ is so much in us that we really ought to be making prostrations before each other, because of the presence of Christ in each other. Everything about the Orthodox life is focussed on Jesus Christ. Everything about how we live, what we say, how we worship, everything is about Jesus Christ, about His Incarnation, and our gratitude for it. Everything is about His love for us, and our gratitude for His love. Everything is Jesus Christ, because as the Apostle is saying to us, and is reminding us this morning: in our baptism, in our incorporation into His Body, having been baptised into Him, having put Him on, as we just said, we have become children, and heirs. We are not outside. As members of the Body of Christ, we are inside; we are with God. It’s not for nothing that we sing, and love to sing that “God is with us”. He is with us. He is everything to us.

Our responsibility, brothers, and sisters, is to try our best, day by day, even with our failures, to be faithful to His love, to call upon Him for help, to take His hand of love, and allow Him to hold us up, to support us, to direct us, to nurture us, to correct us, to feed us, and save us. He gave everything, and is giving everything to us for love, even though that love is so beyond our ability to comprehend at all. Nevertheless, let us receive it, and try with His help – always with His help (we could never do anything alone) – to live by it, and give glory to Him in our day-to-day lives, shining with the light of His love. May others be able to see the hope that we have, and come to join us in this hope. Let us glorify our Saviour, Jesus Christ, our beautiful, beloved Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with His Father, who is from everlasting, and His all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America