INFORMATION BULLETIN

“The earth is the Lord*? and the full­ness thereof (Ps 24:1 f. This verse fro— the Psalms reminds us of one very im­portant truth: God created all things. and this means He oh7u all things. He loans us these things for the duration of our lives on earth. The world is first of all a gift of God to us, and for our part, made in God’s image, the world is to be used as a gift. By receiving the world as a gift, and offering it back to God as a gift, the world becomes a means for spiritual growth and com­munion. In fact, the world and all that is in it has no meaning except as a means of sharing between the two poles of its existence: God who created it, and man, for whom it was created.

In this created world, man stands in the “middle” - part immaterial soul and part material body - a “mingled wor­shipper,” who is “half-way between greatness and lowliness” in the words of Gregory the Theologian. We are bound to the things of the earth for our very existence, but also by our very existence we are called to transcend the things of the earth. Man is at once part of and above the earth. Our rela­tionship is that of stewards, offering the creation to God, and our steward­ship will determine our eternal destiny. All of this takes place during our short time on earth, for the orientation and habits of the soul cannot change with­out the body.

In order to teach man that the things of this world were not exclusively for his own use, but to be used for God’s purposes, the Old Testament com­manded a tithe of 10% per year to be given in order to sustain the temple worship and the poor. The offering of this gift was an act of ascribing glory and thanksgiving to God, acknowledg­ing that He was source of all of one’s goods.

The Gift of Christmas, however, changed all this. In Christmas, God Himself set a new standard of giving: God gives Himself to mankind by be­coming a man. In this gift. He holds nothing back. He makes an offering which is total and complete. He lays aside His limitlessness and unchangeability and becomes pan of His limited and changeable creation. He does this “without change, confusion, or division”, sice, ic division.” that is, without ceasing to be fully and truly God. By doing so, he also changed mankind’s place in creation: if man was in the “middle” of creation, uniting spiritual and material in himself, now the Son of God be­comes Himself the center of all exist­ence, uniting not just spiritual and ma­terial in Himself as man, but also Heaven and earth, the created and the Uncreated. as God-man.

The Incarnation is a mystery. How the infinite, unchanging, eternal God -who stands outside of space and time and sees past, present and future in the one, eternal Now - becomes limited and part of time, cannot be grasped or understood by any analogy. The one “I am” of the Son of God is simultaneously the one “I am” of Jesus Christ. It is. in the words of St. John Damascene, “the only new thing under the sun.”

Hew can we thank God for such “an unspeakable gift” (2 Cor 9:15)? Only in one way: by offering ourselves and our own lives back to God. By holding nothing back. By making an offering which is as total and complete as pos­sible, which will affect all of our ac­tivities, our goods, our relationships, our reasonings, thoughts, goals and dreams. This is love. And this is all God seeks, our love freely given.

We can say then that the Son of God’s incarnation comes with a purpose: He offers Himself for us, such that we would offer ourselves to Him. He came to make us like Himself. “We shall be all things that He is by nature, by grace,” wrote St. Maximus. We be­come like God, yet without ceasing to be fully and truly human. To be “like God” means also to be a giver, for above all, God is a Giver. We, too, are called to be givers, not takers.

Such a lofty calling! How many can accept God’s gift, and return the gift? How many can follow the newborn Child to the Cross? Christ’s giving does not cease until He offers Himself on the Cross. Even at his birth He is seen as the sacrificed Lamb of God - born in a cave-manger, similar to his cave-tomb, and venerated by shepherds rear­ing sheep for the temple sacrifice, for these were the only sheep that the He­brews allowed near their towns; all others had to be pastured in the wilder­ness. God’s giving is a sacrificial giv­ing. Our giving back to God must also be sacrificial. God does not want only lO^c. He wants 100%. We cannot be­come like Christ - who fully offered Himself to God - unless we too fully offer ourselves to Him.

God’s sacrificial gift to mankind is the basis of the Church’s emphasis on charitable giving during the Christmas season. Yet much of the Christmas mes­sage has been turned upside down in our contemporary world. Noticeably absent is any reflection on the real Mystery of the feast. Often Christmas is little more than a celebration of cel­ebrating, a sad reflection of the spiri­tual bankruptcy and materialism of con­temporan” life. We Orthodox, too, can be tempted to teach our children that Christmas is about receiving (gifts, etc.) rather than giving or sharing. We too can get so “busy” that any sense of the transcendent Mystery is lost.

How to celebrate Christmas thereby becomes a challenge! Family together­ness and merriment have their place, but it is not noise and bustle but a quiet joy that signifies Christmas, and for this reason the Church calls us to fast to prepare for it. Contrary to contem­porary practice, Christmas is a feast that should be celebrated joyously and yet quietly. In such a manner the Son of God enters the world: born in the silence of midnight, while the busy world which did not care was asleep. Only a few shepherds keeping vigil and the speechless animals could hear the joyous angelic singing. In this quiet­ness the heavens are opened. The “Joy­ous Light” of Christ’s presence is mani­fested. In this silence, God’s gift is revealed and only in this silence can we approach Him to offer our gifts.

Preparing for Christmas presents then a two-fold challenge: on the one hand, it is a time for quiet reflection on God’s complete gift of Himself to us; and on the other, it is an opportunity to apply God’s standards to our own giving, re­turning His gifts with our gifts, and His Gift with the gift of our whole life. In the end, God wants only one thing: our heart. All else follows. As St. Gregory the Theologian puts it: “Let us become like Christ since Christ became like us. Let us become gods for His sake, since He for ours became Man…. Let us give all, offer all … but one can give noth­ing like oneself, understanding the Mys­tery, and becoming for His sake all that He became for ours.”

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

Originally published in Solia-The Herald, Nov/Dec 2006.

HIEROMONK CALINIC (Berger)