Christ is Born! Glorify Him! The Word Became Flesh

My dear brothers and sisters! From my family to yours I am wishing you a blessed feast of the nativity and may the feast of the incarnation bring you joy and happiness! The following is a sermon by St. John of Kronstadt. May these words bring us joy and happiness to our families and loved ones! May it be a blessed season for all! 

The Word became flesh; that is, the Son of God, co-eternal with God the Father and with the Holy Spirit, became human – having become incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. O, wondrous, awesome and salvific mystery! The One Who had no beginning took on a beginning according to humanity; the One without flesh assumed flesh. God became man – without ceasing to be God. The Unapproachable One became approachable to all, in the aspect of an humble servant. Why, and for what reason, was there such condescension [shown] on the part of the Creator toward His transgressing creatures – toward humanity which, through an act of its own will had fallen away from God, its Creator?

It was by reason of a supreme, inexpressible mercy toward His creation on the part of the Master, Who could not bear to see the entire race of mankind – which, He, in creating, had endowed with wondrous gifts – enslaved by the devil and thus destined for eternal suffering and torment.

And the Word became flesh!...in order to make us earthly beings into heavenly ones, in order to make sinners into saints; in order to raise us up from corruption into incorruption, from earth to heaven; from enslavement to sin and the devil – into the glorious freedom of children of God; from death – into immortality, in order to make us sons of God and to seat us together with Him upon the Throne as His royal children.

O, boundless compassion of God! O, inexpressible wisdom of God! O, great wonder, astounding not only the human mind, but the angelic [mind] as well!

Let us glorify God! With the coming of the Son of God in the flesh upon the earth, with His offering Himself up as a sacrifice for the sinful human race, there is given to those who believe the blessing of the Heavenly Father, replacing that curse which had been uttered by God in the beginning; they are adopted and receive the promise of an eternal inheritance of life. To a humanity orphaned by reason of sin, the Heavenly Father returns anew through the mystery of re-birth, that is, through baptism and repentance. People are freed of the tormenting, death-bearing authority of the devil, of the afflictions of sin and of various passions.

Human nature is deified for the sake of the boundless compassion of the Son of God; and its sins are purified; the defiled are sanctified. The ailing are healed. Upon those in dishonour are boundless honour and glory bestowed.

Those in darkness are enlightened by the Divine light of grace and reason.

The human mind is given the rational power of God – we have the mind of Christ (Cor. 2, 16), says the Holy apostle Paul. To the human heart, the heart of Christ is given. The perishable is made immortal. Those naked and wounded by sin and by passions are adorned in Divine glory. Those who hunger and thirst are sated and assuaged by the nourishing and soul-strengthening Word of God and by the most pure Body and Divine Blood of Christ. The inconsolable are consoled. Those ravaged by the devil have been – and continue to be – delivered.

What, then, O, brethren, is required of us in order that we might avail ourselves of all the grace brought unto us from on high by the coming to earth of the Son of God? What is necessary, first of all, is faith in the Son of God, in the Gospel as the salvation-bestowing heavenly teaching; a true repentance of sins and the correction of life and of heart; communion in prayer and in the mysteries [sacraments]; the knowledge and fulfillment of Christ’s commandments. Also necessary are the virtues: Christian humility, alms-giving, continence, purity and chastity, simplicity and goodness of heart.

Let us, then, O brothers and sisters, bring these virtues as a gift to the One Who was born for the sake of our salvation – let us bring them in place of the gold, frankincense and myrrh which the Magi brought Him, as to One Who is King, God, and Man, come to die for us. This, from us, shall be the most-pleasing form of sacrifice to God and to the Infant Jesus Christ.

Amen.

The Theology of Illness-The Healing of Human Nature by the Incarnate Word

Jean-Claude Larchet, a french laymen who teaches philosophy in France has written a book on the theology of illness. Throughout the book his aim is to show the connection between illness and sin and how this connection is related to our present reality. The first chapter examines the nature of sin and he breaks down sin using the Patristic fathers. The remainder of the book looks at the relationship with sin, illness and how modern medicine has completely neglected the human being. The treatment of the human being and to see a human being is being neglected as modern medicine keeps pushing for more ways to extend life forgetting to see the real life in that lies right in front of there eyes. I recommend this book highly especially for those in the medical world. The following is a small section from the book dealing with our healing related to the incarnation of God.

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Only Christ can deliver mankind from the consequences of Adam’s transgression and from sin itself. As a divine Person, He is able to “enhypostasize” the fullness of human nature. Thereby He assumes human nature totally, restores it by the power of His own divine nature, and reunites and conforms it in Himself to divinity. Thereby He becomes the New Adam, but an Adam who is perfectly fulfilled; and thereby He fully accomplishes the divine plan which the first man failed to bring to completion. “Thus as one mans trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners, so by one mans obedience many will be made righteous” (Rom 5:18-19). Human nature, fallen in Adam, is restored in Christ and recovers all of the privileges it knew in its prelapsarian state. In the words of St Cyril of Alexandria, “As in Adam man’s nature fell ill from corruption, [. . .] so in Christ it has recovered health.” By His Incarnation, Christ has overthrown the barrier which separated our nature from God and has opened that nature once more to the deifying energies of uncreated grace. By His redemptive work, He has freed us from the tyranny of the devil and destroyed the power of sin. By His death, He has triumphed over death and corruption. By His resurrection, He has granted us new and eternal life. And it is not only human nature, but also the creation as a whole which Christ heals and restores, by uniting it in Himself with God the Father, thereby abolishing the divisions and ending the disorders that reigned within it because of sin.

“God,” St Maximus writes, “became man in order to save nun from destruction. By reuniting in Himself the ruptures in the universal nature ... He accomplished the great work of God the Father by recapitulating all things—things in heaven and things on earth—in Himself, in whom they also were created___First of all He united us in Himself, rendering us in total conformity to Himself. Thereby he restored in us His image, pure and whole, which none of the symptoms of corruption could touch. With us and for us He embraced the entire creation. . . . He recapitulated all things in Himself, thereby showing that the entire universe is one, as if it were itself and in its own manner a human person, fulfilled completely by the reuniting of its various members. . . . He brought to unity those things that had been separated; He put an end to the internal war between created beings, joining together in peace and unbreachable harmony all things both in heaven and on earth".

+ Jean-Claude Larchet, The Theology of Illness, SVS Press, p.40-41.