Meditation on the Feast of Nativity By Fr. Louka Sidaros of Blessed Memory
The Holy Nativity Feast
The Invisible, Infinite, Immeasurable, Unchangeable, Incomprehensible, Timeless, Everlasting, the One Who dwells in unapproachable light. The One praised by the angels and sits on the throne of His glory. The Almighty God, Who is solely immortal…
Became man. He took the form of a servant.
The Word became flesh..
He accepted to be in the virginal womb, nine complete months as a true embryo.
The stages of His entering into the world are amazing and befuddling, mind boggling to philosophers and wise, yet His wisdom is revealed to little children.
He was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary.
God and Man
The Holy Spirit came upon her, sanctified her, purified her and filled her with grace nine complete months.
The Omnipotent became an embryo, the Word, the Son that was used to create the whole world, was born in the flesh as a child.
The timeless, Who has neither beginning of days nor end, the Everlasting, the Eternal, the Immortal was born and considered a mortal, born on a certain day and hour.
This emptying of Himself is unimaginable and unfathomable…
Who is called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace; they gave Him a name, like all other human beings, to be called.
The One to Whom every knee bows, all who are in the heavens or on the earth, received a name like everyone else, with which to be called, as a human.
Moses asked in the days of old, “What is Your name? So I can tell the children of Israel, who has met me in the wilderness.” And He appeared to me in the bush and spoke to me the word of salvation…He told me I AM who I AM…I AM, the eternal, the ever existing YAHWEH, the Mighty God.
The Ever-Existing was born from the virginal womb and was called Jesus, which means Savior.
The bush, burning with fire, gave birth to the fire that was united as one with humanity.
The speaking voice to Moses took flesh to save His people, for He had heard their groaning, and so He came down to save them.
The Timeless
Christ is beyond time. Yes! He was born in a particular day and a year, and His name was registered in the census as a child that was born in Bethlehem. That name was included with many other names that were in this small village. But Christ—the Eternal, the Everlasting, the One Who is above time—has no past or future but is present, always present. He is ever-existing, there is no time without Him. No period of time can exist without His presence. On the contrary, time reaches its fulfillment in Him and derives its existence from Him.
The Omnipotent
And you, O Bethlehem, are not the least…for out of you shall come a Ruler (Micah).
Where is the Christ born? In Bethlehem of Judea—among the smallest, the weakest, and the unknown. Among the sinners and the outcasts…
Why?
So He can change the name…
So He can change the appearance…
So He could change [our human] existence…
Why?
Because He is humble - His nature.
For He wants them – His mission.
For He is capable of salvation - His power.
For He came not to be famous by the town in which He was born, but to make that village famous by His presence.
The soul’s pride is His dwelling in it!
The Timeless
How can we limit Him in time? One day you seek Him and another you forsake Him. During times of trouble, times of persecution, times of illness, or times of…
There is a time for everything under the heavens, but Jesus is beyond time. He created time, so He has no day or hour or night or morning…
Jesus is ever-present…
In the liturgy time?
In the occasion or the feast?
The limitless, the omnipotent, the immeasurable.
Why do you limit Him in space and time by saying Christ is of this church, or Christ from that town, or Christ of this place or that?
There is no place that can contain Him, and there is no space that He is absent from.
He is Christ in the factory, in the school and in the place of work…
Even the places of entertainment and sin are not void of Him, for He sees and is watching over everything.
He is not restricted to a certain group, denomination, sect, or category of people, who could claim that only Christ belongs to them alone. No! He is the whole humanity, the world is Christ’s.
(All of this I have learned from my youth.)
Come to the true manger where the Child is, Who has willingly chosen poverty. He accepted the status and the appearance of a slave, and He accepted to live in this manner until the Cross.
The Wisemen from the East
Daniel, the Babylonian’s leader of wisemen, recorded prophecies about Christ:
The Leader who was cut without a human hand, His everlasting kingdom, the date of His atonement sacrifice, and the end of all the blood sacrifices, with the One saving sacrifice that Christ accomplished through His cross, then through His second coming, to call in all the living and the dead, sending the righteous to His everlasting glory and the evil to everlasting damnation.
