ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

Bishop Basil of Amphipolis
Sermon for the Feast of the Nativity
Church of the Holy Trinity and the Annunciation, Oxford, 7 January 2007

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Feast of the Nativity according to the Old Calendar falls on a Sunday this year, and as a result our usual sequence of services for this feast is changed.

Normally we would have had a service of Compline last night, followed by Matins, and together they would form the Vigil. Because this year the Feast falls on a Sunday, however, and Compline is essentially a monastic, ascetic type of service used only on weekdays, the Vigil service yesterday evening was made up of Vespers followed by Matins. As a result we had in Vespers a series of Old Testament readings, eight in number, that make up a sizable portion of our worship.

Now the number of Old Testament readings that one normally finds in a Vespers service, if Old Testament readings are appointed, is three. This is true both for both the Twelve Great Feasts and for special celebrations of the Saints. Last night, we had eight. And when in twelve days’ time we come to the Vespers for the feast of the Baptism of Christ – Theophany – we will find that we actually have twelve Old Testament readings. And finally, when we come to Easter, in the Vespers before the Liturgy on Easter Saturday morning, you will find that there are fifteen Old Testament readings. It is as if the number of readings increases as you approach Pascha, corresponding in a way to the importance of the celebration in the Church’s calendar.

In each of these longer series of readings we are presented with what is, in effect, an overview of the history of salvation, with special reference to the event being celebrated. The history of our salvation also is summed up very briefly in today’s Epistle. St Paul, writing to the Galatians (Gal 4:4-7), says: ‘When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son …’ And why did he do this? To enable us to be adopted as sons, and ‘to become heirs of God through Jesus Christ.’ This notion of ‘the fullness of time’ that St Paul uses here is very important, since it enables us to look at these Old Testament readings as an expression of God’s understanding of the fullness of time – which is the understanding of the Church as well.

Last night’s readings actually began with the first verse of the first book of the Bible: Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 1. In it we hear the story of creation, the story of creation of the world by God, by the Word of God. God speaks and the world comes into being. Clearly we are being told that the Incarnation of Christ is to be understood in relation to the creation of the universe.

In the passage from Numbers which is read next, we listened to the prophecy of Balaam (Num 24:2-3, 5-9, 17-18). Balaam, a pagan seer, speaks of a coming king, and he speaks of that king as coming ‘out of Egypt’. It must have been very difficult – in fact, impossible - for the people who first heard these words to understand what Balaam meant. A King of Israel, coming ‘out of Egypt’? These words came true only centuries later, after the birth of Christ and the flight into Egypt. It is in fact a privilege to live in ‘the fullness of time’. You can understand things in a way that they could not be understood before.

In the prophecy of Micah that follows, reference is made to Bethlehem (Micah 4:6-7; 5:2-4): ‘For out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be Ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.’ In other words, not only will the coming Ruler be from Bethlehem, but his birth there has actually been part of God’s plan from the beginning – ‘from of old, from everlasting’.

Then, in the fourth reading, Isaiah speaks of the coming Ruler as coming forth as ‘a rod out of the stem of Jesse’ (Is 11:1-10). He will therefore be a descendent of King David, the archetypal King of Israel. But His kingdom that is to come will not be a kingdom of this world. It will be an eschatological reality, something that will contain and sum up in itself the end of all things as willed by God. And as a example of what he means the prophet says that in that kingdom even the animals, whom we see in this world fighting each other for survival, will live together in harmony: the wolf with the lamb, the leopard with kid, ‘and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together’. ‘The lion’, he says, ‘shall eat straw like the ox.’
Then Jeremiah the prophet tells us that in those days ‘God will show himself upon earth and converse with men’ (Baruch 3:35-4:4). What an extraordinary thing for a man who lived in seven centuries before Christ to say. Inspired by the Spirit, he is able to look forward to the coming of Christ.

Then in the Book of Daniel (Dan 2:31-36,44-45) we are told of a kingdom that will bring all other kingdoms to an end: ‘The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people … and it shall stand for ever.’

Finally, in the last two readings, Isaiah speaks first of the child that will be born (Is 9:6-7), a child who will be called ‘the Prince of Peace’, and: ‘Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgement and with justice from henceforth even for ever. And then the same prophet goes on to say: ‘Hear ye now, O house of David … the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel’ – in other words, ‘God with us’ (Is 7:10-16; 8:1-4).

All these passages from the Old Testament point forward to ‘the fullness of time’, to the moment when Paul can say that God became man in His Son to enable us to receive ‘the adoption of sons’, and that ‘because ye are sons, God has sent for the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father.’ In other words, for Paul the whole of history finds its meaning in our present ability to call upon God as Father – which implies the Incarnation of Christ and the giving of the Holy Spirit. In this we find the meaning of the historical process and the finality of this world.

When we come to the Gospel that we heard this morning, however, – the story of the magi, the wise men from the east – we are abruptly brought down to earth. We are brought into historical time, into the reality of the Roman world of the first century – the reality of King Herod, a brutal and a vicious man. We are brought into the reality of human baseness, of intrigue, of duplicity – we are even shown this duplicity in Herod.  The picture we are given of Christ’s birth is a picture of God entering a world that has gone seriously astray, a world that has lost its way.

We live in that same world. It does not take much imagination to draw comparisons between what is happening around us in the world today and what was happening in the Roman world 2000 years ago. But our constant challenge as children of God and heirs of God in Christ is to be God’s children, to follow our calling in Christ – not to be simply the children of our parents, not simply the children of our time, but God’s children. And this means to be children also of the Prince of Peace, of Christ, who came into the midst of this darkened world in order to save us. Amen.