S’Rozhdestvom Christovym!  On this great feast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, our one Holy Catholic Apostolic Orthodox Church affirms two seemingly paradoxical truths:  the eternally divine existence of the person of the Son of God and the incarnation in the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ at a particular point in the history of the world.   This paradox of faith is not confusing to us if we remain mindful of the Holy Church’s true dogma. 

In the words of our symbol of faith, the Nicene Creed, our Lord Jesus Christ is “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages.  Light of Light, True God of True God, begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made.”  This means that our Lord Jesus Christ, as one of the divine persons of the Holy Trinity, has existed eternally together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  As God, He has no beginning in time.  Yet the Creed continues:  “who for us and our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became human.”  This means that the divine person of the Son of God, at a particular point in time, entered into the Virgin Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit, and fashioned a human body and soul from His mother.

 He was born, as all human beings, are, as an innocent and tender infant, like us in every manner except that original sin was not transmitted to Him from His most immaculate mother.   He became human so that He could save our race from sin and death, and for that reason this feast can be thought to anticipate the joy of the feast of feasts, Holy Pascha.  Let us therefore rejoice and cry out to our infant Savior:  Christ is Born!   Glorify Him!

Fr. Sophrony Royer, Rector