THE 40 DAY JOURNEY TO MEET OUR LORD CHRIST ON THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH CHRISTOUGENNA

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God, and Savior,

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

The 40 Day Journey to Meet Our Lord Christ On The Day of His Birth
[CHRISTOUGENNA].

Katavasias [Hymns] of
CHRISTMAS

CHRIST IS BORN!
Glorify Him1
Christ is come from
heaven! Go and meet
Him! Christ is on earth!
Arise to Him!
Sing to the Lord, all you
inhabitants of earth, and
all you peoples, praise Him,
and with merriment extol
Him Who is glorified!

TO the Son,
begotten from the Father
unchangingly before the ages,
and now becoming incarnate
from the Virgin without seed;
to Christ God let us cry aloud,
You have exalted the horn of our
strength. Only You are Holy,
O Lord!

A rod has come forth from Jesse’s
root, and You its flower grew from it,
praiseworthy Christ, now born of the
Virgin, whom Habakkuk called Paran,
shady thickly wooded mountain.
From her who knew no man You came
incarnate, O immaterial God.
Glory to Your strength,
O Lord!

O God of peace and Father of mercies,
You have sent to us the Wonderful
Counselor, the Angel of Your Great Counsel,
granting us peace. And now to light of
knowledge of God we have been guided,
and we rise from night to dawn and glorify
You, O Benevolent Lord.

JONAH long ago was hurled from the belly
of the whale as he went in, like a newborn babe.
With the Virgin now, when the Logos/Word had
dwelt in His Mother’s womb, taking flesh, He then
emerged, preserving her intact. Yielding not to
changeability, He preserved her unaltered in
childbirth.

BROUGHT up together piously, the Servants with
contempt regarded the impious king’s decree.
The threat of the furnace did not frighten them.
Rather, standing in the midst of flames, they
prayed and sang, "Blessed are You, O Lod God
of our fathers!

The Magnificat. Mode 1.

Verse: My soul magnifies the
Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced
in God my Savior.

GREATER in honor than the
Cherubim, and in glory greater beyond
compare than the Seraphim; you
without corruption gave birth to God the Logos/Word,
and are truly Theotokos,
You do we magnify.

Katavasia Hymn. Mode 1.

O my soul, magnify the woman
Who is higher in honor and in glory
than the armies of heaven.

I see here a new and paradoxical mystery.
For the cave resembles heaven,
the Virgin, the Cherubic Throne, the
manger, a grand space, in which He Whom
nothing can contain was laid, Christ our God;
Whom we extol in song and magnify.
+++

As everyone can see the Orthodox hymns reveal the mystery of Christ’s birth by describing the simplicity of the story and the depth of God’s agape. The hymns are not just religious songs sung in the divine services to enhance the beauty of the ritual. They are instruments and means of conveying the theology of the Orthodox Church, in this case to explain the mystery of the divine Incarnation. Just as with the hagiography or iconography of the Orthodox Byzantine tradition has a greater purpose than decorating the walls of the churches. This is why it is so important that the Orthodox faithful pay close attention to the words or the individual holy icons which they speak to the believer and increase their knowledge of the Faith. "Thus, the icon is also a theology, a theology in color, expressing the experience of God with lines and paints rather than with discursive language. The goal of the holy icon and that of written theology are the same – to LEAD OTHERS TO THE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE OF GOD. The icon artistically depicts the experience so that others may approach the mystery and be invited to share in it."

Hagiographers and Cantors have a great responsibility to translate and interpret both hymns and holy icons correctly and according to Orthodox theology and tradition. Some examples of hymns that explore the mystery of Christ’s Birth include:

Irmos of the 9th Ode of the Nativity Canon

The Church chants with awe, "I behold a strange and most glorious mystery." The hymn describes the cave as heaven, the Virgin as a Cherubic Throne, and the manger as a noble space for Christ. The hymn at Vespers describes the simplicity of the story of Christ’s Birth, which reveals the depth of God’s love for mankind. Eternal God: a little Child. The hymn describes the wonder of the birth of Christ, where a virgin becomes a mother and gives birth to God. They mystery of Christ’s Birth is also known as the Mystery of Incarnation. It refers to the mystery of God the Son descending from heaven and taking on flesh and a rational soul from the Holy Virgin Mary.

Nativity Icon
Explained
by Father Jeremy

CENTER

In the center is the infant Christ lying in a manger. The Virgin Mary (Theotokos) is beside Him, and an ox and an ass are behind Him. Christ being born in a cave is not in not in the Holy Bible, but it is an ancient tradition, dating back to the first and second centuries. He is dressed in burial clothes to foreshadow His death. His location in a cave also foreshadows the grave in which He would be buried and where He would resurrect.

When Aadam and Eve were first created, they were clothed in the glory of God. That was their natural state. But when they fell into sin, they lost this clothing of glory and became aware of their nakedness. Clothed in animals skins (which represent death), they went to exile outside of the Garden. Christ likewise condescended from His state of glory to become one of us, which in some sense meant He was exiling Himself form heaven. He wrapped Himself in the mortal flesh’s sin and death, as Scripture states, "God made Christ who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ" [2 Corinthians 5:21).

BOTTOM LEFT

Unlike most icons that feature both Christ and the Virgin Mary, she is not looking at Him. Instead, she is looking at her betrothed, Joseph, interceding for him. The Protoevangelium tells us that after the birth of Jesus, he walked out of the cave, battling doubts. The old man next to him is supposed to be the devil who is, of course, filling his mind with all sorts of doubts and angry thoughts.

We may sing "What Child is This?" but Joseph’s questions was "Whose child is this?" since he knew he was certainly not the father. Yet Joseph has a halo, which indicates his sanctity.

Sometimes when God shows up in our lives, it raises questions and doubts. God bestows His grace upon us, but then He seems to withdraw a little bit, allowing difficulties to test and deepen our faith. We may wonder why things happen the way they do. But if we persevere, then things will
gradually become clear.

TOP AND MIDDLE

At the very top is a blue shape sometimes called a mandorla. It signifies the presence and the glory of God. It beams from the heavens, pointing to the Christ Child, which shows His descent from heaven to the earth. On the left, the three kings (magi) are travelling from afar, following the star in the sky. Angels appear in the heavens above and tell the good news to the shepherds (on the right) in the field so that they can see this Divine Child born in the little town of Bethlehem.

I sometimes wonder if the shepherds and Angelic Chorus appeared after Jesus’ birth more for Joseph’s sake than anything else. These divine interventions affirmed the dream that God granted Joseph and helped him to trust God. Our Church’s hymns mention this struggle and Joseph’s victory over doubts.

"Joseph when he beheld the greatness of this
Wonder, thought that he saw a mortal wrapped as
a babe in swaddling clothes, but
from all that came to pass he understood that it
was the true God, who grants the world great
mercy." (Vespers of the Forefeast of the Nativity
of Christ)

May we be comforted in the fact that our Savior has come into this world to heal every messy, doubting, sinful part of us. There is nothing a repentant heart has done will permanently push God away from it. And there is nothing that you have done that He has not already helped someone else through, someone else what is considered a Saint.

BOTTOM RIGHT

The women at the bottom right are midwives who display that the Son of God was truly born as a human, and did not merely appear to be human as some early heretics claimed. There is a fountain that they are about to wash the Christ Child in because He had, in some sense, an ordinary, messy birth.

FURTHER DEVELOPING THE SYMBOLISM

The ox and ass are two of the most ancient symbols that appear in nativity icons and sculptures. In the ancient Church, the OX symbolized the Jews, for it was a clean, kosher animal that they could eat. It could also be easily trained to pull a plow and assist in various ways. The Jews had the Law of Moses and it helped keep them (or at least, a remnant) clean and obedient to God.

The ASS, on the other hand, is a stubborn and wilder animal. It is unclean and not kosher, therefore, it represents the Gentiles who did not have the Law of Moses to guide them away from their pursuit of indecent and immoral behavior.

In Christ, these two seemingly opposed groups came together to form one people. As the Holy Bible says, "For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility" (Ephesians 2::14).

MEETING IN THE CENTER

Above are the Angels, below are the shepherds, midwives, and people. To the left are the three wise men, the three kings, the magi who travel a great distance bearing expensive gifts. To the right are simple, poor, uneducated shepherds, In the center is Christ, Who brings all of these different people together in Himself. He united heaven and earth, rich and poor, wise and simple, educated and uneducated, locals and foreigners, obedient and rebellious men, the confident and doubters, all these find their place in Christ.

THE CAVE AND THE HEART

Christ was the mystery hidden throughout all ages — just as His Coming in the cave was hidden from most people. But the glory of this mystery is Christ in you (cf. Colossians 1:26-27). In this way, the cave became an icon of every heart that opens itself to Christ.

Caves, with all of their mystery and darkness, hidden chambers, and secret places, are truly a reflection of the dark, mysterious heart within earth one of us. But like the cave Christ entered on Christmas day, our hearts can become the dwelling place of His majestic glory. Like the ox and ass, we have both clean and unclean thing in our hearts – the things that are good and not so good. We have the devil whispering doubts or evil things to us. But we also have the Theotokos praying for us.

All the distractions in our lives pull us outside of our hearts. Because of that, we have terrible self-awareness. But when we enter into our hearts, we find that Christ is there. But what does that mean?

Imagine Joseph getting up and waling away from the devil, saying, "I’m tired of listening to you and your lies." He prays to God to help him, he gets up and walks to the cave where Christ and the Mother of God are. That is the beginning of descending into the heart. Of finding the mystery hidden from all eternity, dwelling within our hearts as He once dwelt in a cave near the little town of Bethlehem.

__________
"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
– Saint John Chrysostomos
+ + +

With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George