Today we celebrate the Light of Christ which has shone into our world. In the Creed we confess our faith in Jesus Christ who, “for our sake and our salvation, came down from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man.”
At the heart of our faith is the belief that Jesus Christ assumed our human nature in order to heal it. As human beings we are created in God’s Image, but through the entrance of sin into the world, the Image of God in us had become distorted and darkened. We had lost the power to save ourselves.
Because of His great love for us, God could not just leave us in such a state. Instead, in the Incarnation, He entered into the very depths of our human reality, taking our nature upon Himself and becoming like us in all things except sin.
The Nativity does not stand alone but is linked to, and will find its fulfillment in the victory of Christ’s death and resurrection. Moreover, we also have to do our part in responding to His love. In the Incarnation, He has opened the way, becoming one of us so that we will be able to share in His divine life. For, as various Fathers say, “Jesus Christ became human so that human beings may become God.”
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Your Nativity,
O Christ our God,
made the light of knowledge dawn
on the world;
for through it whose who adored the stars
were taught by a star
to worship You,
the Sun of righteousness, and to know You,
the dawn from above.
Lord, glory to You.
Apolytikion for the Nativity