From Monachos.net
During the Advent season I was honoured to have been able to minister to a parishioner who was very sick—in fact who was dying. Why I say 'honoured' is because there is, in the mystery of dying, an especially intense state that allows one to approach Christ in a way we of the 'normal' world often find very difficult. So in some very special way when we minister to the sick it is an honour, for we are allowed to be present before a mystery of God's presence within man that we ourselves are still seeking for.
Several things were very striking and powerful while visiting with this parishioner. First was that, as time went on and the sickness progressed, there was less and less need for talk between us. In fact the whole tone of our time together gradually transformed itself to one of essentials, so much so that the hospital room was like a monk's cell wherein only reality took place, while just outside on the street was something not quite so real. As this person finally said with a faint and sweet smile, 'now I'm doing a strict fast'. In some paradoxical way, then, it was she the grievously ill who was most blessed while we the healthy were somehow unaware of something most essential.
As time went on and death more and more surely approached, what was most striking was that everyone who entered that hospital room of hers became silent. Here was something not only awesome and sorrowful, as such trials of death and parting usually are, but also a holy mystery that words could not describe. As time went on the people who witnessed this mystery themselves were changed, at least while they were in that hospital room. Here they participated in something holy and beyond themselves; for the whole context of what they were experiencing was the light of Christ, whether this was understood or not.
Preparation for the presence of Christ
As many of the holy Fathers explain, nothing in our lives is without deeper significance, although we may not notice this at the time. Just as this particular suffering was going on during the time of Advent, when we prepare ourselves for the coming of the incarnate Christ, so the deeper meaning of this suffering was revealed by the fact that this was the very time of his coming amongst us.
During the time of Advent we prepare ourselves for Christ at his Nativity. We do this of course through our fasting and prayer and attendance at services. Hopefully we have also given of alms to the best of our ability. Then there is also our participation in the life-giving sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist. We strive to deepen our lives in Christ so that we may be enabled to meet him worthily on the day of the feast itself.
All of this shows basic similarities to that other significant period of preparation which is Great Lent; but at the same time we can also see definite differences. Advent is not as rigorous in its demands as Great Lent. Its whole tone is less intense and it has a kind of soft glow to it, compared to the latter which is much more like passing through the desert in order to reach the promised land. Undoubtedly this different tone is due to the feast which each Lenten period culminates in, for Nativity has a kind of soft glow to it compared to the spectacular brilliance of Pascha. And this in itself is connected to the particular light which is revealed by Christ's incarnation.
The mystery of the incarnation
Christ's birth took place in the small town of Bethlehem. He was born in a small cave surrounded only by his mother and father and a few animals. This for the living King of creation! Here is contained a great lesson in the humility of Christ's coming among men.
If this was the extent of the incarnation, however, we would only be left with a moral lesson, and our response would be limited by this—as indeed it seems that modern Christmas has become.
This is why it is so crucial for us to understand that at his Nativity, Christ was not simply born—albeit his birth in poor conditions that would draw forth an adequate moral or emotional response—but rather, he was born as the unique God-man who would provide the new definition of human history. Coming among us as fully divine, Christ assumed all that is ours save for sin. Emptying himself so that he would appear as a little babe, he robed himself in our humanity and condition. Why he did this, however, was so that the Old Adam could be restored by the birth of the New (cf. Colossians 3
), and that mankind could find its life in him as a rescue from death and sin. In other words, the Nativity of Christ is the supremely theological event of God's providence that speaks of God's pre-eternal purpose for mankind; for whereas Pascha occurs due to the fall of man, the Nativity speaks of God's original purpose—to be united to his creature. In this way we see a double purpose to the incarnation, for not only does this refer to man being born again in relation to sin, the Nativity also speaks of that original first birth of man, when he was born virginally from the dust of the earth and God's breath as a glorious new creature of God. And maybe this is the special light we feel at Nativity, especially while attending the services. Somehow we feel more simple, childlike and innocent, able to touch—if even for a brief moment—the depth of love of God for men that Adam and Eve felt in paradise. And this experience leads us naturally to have love for God and those around us.
The purpose of God for mankind
The Nativity of Christ, as a sign of God's original purpose for mankind, is meant to touch all of us to our depths. As others so properly remind us, every feast of the Church is not simply a day of remembering a past event—it is actually a participation in God's providence and the particular way in which this was made manifest at that moment in time. To participate in the feast of the Nativity and in the preparatory season of Advent which precedes it, means in reality to have communion with Christ's grace as he manifests this providentially at this particular time. It means that we are being remade in the image of Christ's pre-eternal purpose, which at the time of the Nativity refers specifically to our original calling in paradise.
About this St Athanasius of Alexandria writes,
'The Word became flesh in order to make man receptive to his Divinity. He became poor in order that we, through his poverty, might become rich. He descended that he might raise us up. He was tempted that we might conquer. He accepted the worst, to give us the best.'
Ultimately, the purpose of Christ's Nativity is that we might find our original calling to be re-made in his image, to be re-made to such an extent that we actually are born anew.
Like the dying parishioner in her hospital room, we all find ourselves at those points where faith is put to the ultimate test. This may not yet be the death which is the separation of soul from body, but we do find ourselves being tried by the trials of life so that we are called to be separated from what is transitory and worldly. In this sense each trial is a little death, and like the dying parishioner we are called—even if in a lesser way—to the realities of our faith.
These times of trial may at first seem like a real dead end. This how our fallen understanding sees such experiences, and indeed is how the world teaches us to see trials. But as we go forward in faith we are able to find life in Christ amidst what was before most bleak. Thus also the cave in which Christ was born: from a worldly perspective it represented abandonment, but in Christ it became the door to paradise. So, then, is it the same for us as we find ourselves amidst our own trials.
Sharing our condition, joined to his life
Christ came to share in our own condition. Although he is sinless, through his incarnation he mysteriously partakes of the same fear we all share, and the same frailty—and ultimately this will lead him to partake in the death which we all share also. This is not the final goal of the incarnation, however; for if it was, the Nativity becomes merely an emotional celebration about God 'relating to us' (cf. Hebrews 2.17). If this was the ultimate purpose of the incarnation, we would all rightly feel precisely the absolute purposelessness of such an event: 'Our goal is death, God joins us in this ... so?' And indeed this is the question of modern man about God, when he encounters him in that deeper way amidst the trials of life.
Yes, if the goal of our Christian life and of the Nativity was to end here, then really we have not done much more than come full circle on ourselves. We began with death and we ended there. And modern man senses this 'dead end' in many contemporary interpretations of Christ, even if he cannot formulate this clearly.
Man's deepest yearning cannot be exhausted simply with another companion (as comforting as this is) amidst death, even if this companion is God. Man cries out for something deeper than companionship, and he senses that this cannot be God's only purpose—the actual and ultimate purpose of his incarnation. Rather, man cries out for deliverance from death; he desires not death and a spiritual dead end amidst his trials and tribulations, but to be born into life. Man desires life, and in today's society more than ever he needs the assurance of this in order to attain to health of mind, soul and body.
Through the Nativity of Christ we are shown that indeed the purpose of all creation is to find life through a rebirth into childlike simplicity. To do this we will all, like our Master Christ, have to find ourselves in what seems to be a place of abandonment, just as that cave in which he was born. But, like that cave, we also will find in Christ that we can find a new and deeper life than we have been aware of before.
May it be so!
Note: The servant of God, Lydia, reposed on 27 November / 10 December 2005, which is the feast day of the Kursk root Mother of God icon. She had a year long struggle with ovarian cancer and reposed at age 51. Please remember her in your prayers.