ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

Bishop Basil of Amphipolis
Sermon for the Nativity of Christ
7 January 2008, Parish of the Annunciation, Oxford

Matthew 2: 1-12

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

Those of you who were here last night heard quite an extraordinary collection of hymns celebrating the birth of Christ; and the day before, Sunday, was of course the Forefeast of the Nativity.

I would like to say a few words about one of the hymns from the Forefeast – the Exapostilarion which is sung at the end of Matins:
He who dwells in the light, no man can approach, for he upholds all things. In his ineffable compassion he is born of a virgin. He is wrapped in swaddling clothes as an infant child, and laid in a cave in a manger, a manger of dumb beasts. Let us hasten to Bethlehem to worship him with the Magi, bringing as our gifts our own virtuous deeds.

The first part of that hymn stresses what is stressed again and again during the service: the quite extraordinary paradoxical event that we are celebrating today. ‘He who dwells in the light’ – not the light of this world, but the eternal light of God – ‘who upholds all things’, who, as St Paul says, is the basic foundation of this created world – that same person is born as a child, is wrapped in swaddling clothes, is laid in a manger among dumb beasts. It is difficult to imagine something stranger than this, and that word, strange, also comes up again and again in the hymns. And we are invited by this hymn to associate ourselves with the Magi, about whom we heard in the Gospel this morning, and to go with them to Bethlehem, and to bring with us, our gifts, which, in the language of the hymn, are ‘our virtuous deeds’.

I do not want to speak about the virtuous deeds, but about the nature of the gift: the  importance of the gift as gift. I do not think that we realise how this affects all our lives. Society itself is bound together by an exchange of gifts. The papers referred recently to a list of gifts given to Prince Charles when he travels abroad. When the Prince arrives he is greeted with a gift, and that gift is an indication of a previous gift – the gift in fact of his presence, of the fact that he has come. But this is found everywhere. If you meet someone on the street and say ‘Hallo’ to them, which is a gift of recognition of their presence, they will say ‘Hallo’ back, which is a gift in return. And if they do not give you that gift, you realise something is wrong, something has broken down.

So we are living in a world in which the gift is the cement of our relationships: in society, but also of course, among ourselves. We can think of course of the gifts given in marriage, and around birthdays, and of course at the time of Christmas. But the crucial thing here is that the gift is initiated and responded to;  and in this case, in the Feast that we are celebrating today, that gift is, of course, the gift of Christ. We are invited to respond to that gift, to acknowledge our relationship with the Giver, by giving a gift in return. And since the fundamental gift that we have received from God is in fact our own existence, the only appropriate gift that we can give in return is in fact our own existence back to our Creator.

So let us bear in mind how important the exchange of gifts is, in the most ordinary intercourse in society, and how vital it is for us to understand what it means to receive the gift of God – the gift of God in creation, the gift of God in Christ, the gift of God in communion, and indeed the gift of God in each other.

Amen