A New-born Child, God Before the Ages

What follows is a presentation on Christmas. You may enjoy. If not, I recommend going elsewhere.

Slow down (more than you ever thought you would need to)

‘Today the Virgin gives birth to him who is above all being,
and the earth offers a cave to him whom no one can approach.
Angels with shepherds give glory,
and magi journey with a star,
for to us there has been born
a little Child, God before the ages’

So begins the great poetic sermon on Christmas by St. Romanos the Melodist, a 6th Century poet in Constantinople. These lines are still sung each year both in the weeks leading up to Christmas and on Christmas Day. The mystery to which Romanos has called our attention remains the central concern of Christmas—‘a little child, God before the ages.’ Today, I want to look at the early history of Christmas celebrations and at the current celebration in Eastern Orthodox Churches (such as the Greek, Russian, or Romanian Orthodox Churches). I’ll then try and draw out a little of the theology of Christmas present in these celebrations. I shall attempt to show that the mystery of the incarnation, of God taking on humanity in order to raise up humanity, is the thread which runs through the whole celebration of Christmas in the Orthodox tradition and gives to Christmas its unique significance.

History

In the early Church (that is, the Church of the 1st Century and the years following) there is no evidence of any celebration of the birth of Jesus, the feast now called Christmas. To find the beginning of the Christian celebration of Christmas, then, we must look to a quasi-Christian fringe-group of the 2nd Century called the Basilidians. Some of this group, following their interpretation of relevant passages in the gospels, believed that the moment Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan was the moment he became divine. Consequently, the Basilidians held a celebration to commemorate Jesus’ baptism, a celebration called Epiphany, which means a manifestation—because it was this moment that God revealed himself.

Mainstream Christians, however, would not countenance the Basilidians’ belief. They affirmed rather that Jesus’ humanity and divinity were inseparably connected from his birth, indeed from his conception, onward. By 300, if not earlier, mainstream Christians were celebrating the baptism of Jesus, but they made a point of celebrating his birth at the same time—the Epiphany, the revelation of God, began at the birth of Jesus. This feast was celebrated on January 6th.

As time progressed, the celebration of Epiphany spread throughout the various Christian lands of the Roman empire. As it spread, it did not maintain uniformity. Various areas variously commemorated Jesus’ birth, baptism, the wedding at Cana (where, according to the Gospel of John, he performed his first miracle), and the time he fed five thousand with five loaves and two fishes. That is, Christians used the opportunity to commemorate various ways in which Jesus manifested his divinity. Thus, from the beginning, the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus was, in fact, a celebration of the revelation of God.

Only in the mid-4th Century do we find the first record of a separate feast uniquely dedicated to the birth of Jesus. This is at Rome in 336. By 354 in Rome the date had been fixed as December 25th, rather than January 6th, on which Jesus’ baptism was still celebrated. This date was likely chosen because on that day a pagan Roman celebration was held, dedicated to Sol invictus, the Unconquered Sun. The Romans celebrated the Sun on that day because it fell just after the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. From the winter solstice the days begin to lengthen again, and so the Romans honored the Sun who was never fully conquered by night. The Christians took over this day not simply to direct people’s attention away from pagan customs but because it made sense to celebrate Jesus on such a day. John’s Gospel says of him ‘the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.’ Add to this that Jesus is often called the ‘Sun of Righteousness’ and his birth the ‘Sunrise from on high’, and it is logical to remember his birth on a day already dedicated to the Sun. The image remains the same but it is oriented now toward Jesus, and, in fact, sun and light imagery becomes highly prominent in contemporary Orthodox Christmas celebrations.

The standardization of Christmas took some time. By 379, Christmas was fixed on December 25th in Constantinople and by 385 in Antioch. It was not until sometime after 430 that Christmas was fixed in Egypt, and not until the mid-6th Century in Jerusalem and Palestine. In the West, notably on Roman Catholic and Anglican calendars, the feast of Epiphany came to be celebrated on January 14th rather than the 6th, and commemorates the arrival of the Three Wise Men, the Magi, who followed the star which they interpreted to portend a new king, found where Jesus lay, worshipped and offered gifts to the infant. In Eastern Orthodox Churches, however, the Magi are still commemorated as part of the Christmas celebration. For these Churches January 6th still marks the feast of Jesus’ baptism, which they call Theophany, the manifestation of God.

Current Celebration

In the Eastern Orthodox Churches, Christmas is not isolated among the celebrations of the Church Year. The liturgical year begins, significantly, not with Christmas but with a feast commemorating the birth of Mary the mother of Jesus, which may almost be understood as the first in the chain of events of Jesus’ life. Christmas itself is scheduled to fall nine months exactly after the Feast of Annunciation on March 25th, which recalls the angel telling Mary that she would give birth as a virgin to one who would be called ‘the Son of God.’ In Orthodox theology the moment Mary said ‘yes’ to the angel is celebrated as the moment of Jesus’ conception by the Holy Spirit. Christmas also falls forty days before the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple on February 2nd, which, according to Luke’s gospel, occurred forty days after his birth. In a sense, the liturgical year attempts not merely to recall the events of Jesus’ life, but to order the lives of the faithful around them—drawing the faithful into Jesus’ life. Yet the liturgical year is a repetition of events and a linear progression of events is curved back on itself into a cycle of feasts, so that the Orthodox are constantly living and reliving these events. Christmas stands, not at the beginning, but at the very center of this cycle.

Christmas itself is one of the most joyful, light-filled, most anticipated feasts of the year. The Orthodox prepare for Christmas with a forty-day fast, during which people abstain from meat, dairy, hard liquor, and oil, in preparation for Jesus’ coming. People do not give these things up for particularly penitential reasons, but because by simplifying their lives and coming more to the church services which anticipate Christmas, they focus their expectation—when Christmas comes and the fast gives way to feast, the excitement is that much greater.

Because the period of fasting is primarily anticipatory, during the forty days one can already hear hymns of Christmas in the church services. The hymns call for all things to make ready for the great event coming:

‘Make ready, O Bethlehem, for Eden is opened.
Prepare, O Ephratha, for Adam and Eve are renewed.
Salvation enters the world and the curse is destroyed.
Make ready, O hearts of righteous people…
receive salvation and immortality for your bodies and souls.'

All creation joins in this preparation. Earth and stars, humans, animals, and angels all stand in hushed silence awaiting the child’s birth. Another hymn says,

‘What shall we offer you, O Christ,
Who for our sakes appeared on the earth as a man?
Every creature you have made offers thanks to you:
The angels offer you a song;
The heavens, their star;
The wise men, their gifts;
The shepherds, their wonder;
The earth, its cave;
The wilderness, the manger;
And we offer you a virgin mother.’

Christmas heralds Jesus’ coming not only for humans, but for all the world, because the salvation of humans is, like their sin, implicative of the state of entire world. Paul says in Romans, ‘For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.’ The revelation which Paul says creation expects is, for Orthodox theology, the necessary consequence of the revelation it has received in the incarnation of Jesus.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas the Orthodox remember the ‘Forefathers’, in this case referring to all the righteous people mentioned in the Old Testament, including and especially Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Patriarchs of Israel. On the Sunday immediately preceding Christmas Day is recalled the genealogy of Jesus as it is given in Matthew’s Gospel, running from Abraham to Jesus. As the Church awaits Jesus’ coming, it calls to mind all those who died awaiting him. The hymns remind believers that Jesus’ birth is the central expectation and hope of all generations who have longed for release from sin and death. With them and with all creation the Orthodox now await the joyful proclamation of Christmas Day: ‘Christ is born! Glorify him! Christ has come from Heaven, receive him! Christ is on earth, be lifted up!’

December 25th begins the feast of Christmas, which is actually celebrated for seven days after which the Orthodox celebrate the Circumcision of Jesus on the eighth day, and then prepare to celebrate Theophany.

Why is Christmas so important? Why is it preceded by a fast? Why the anticipation, the excitement, the exuberant hymnody? The answer, I suppose, is that the whole of Christian theology is implicitly present in the birth of Jesus. His birth inaugurates the incarnation of God, arguably the central point of all Orthodox Christian belief, by which it interprets all history to that point and defines everything which comes after. The exultant refrain at the vigil of Christmas runs simply: ‘God is with us!’ This line, repeated over and again, strives to constantly remind us of the vast mystery of God becoming human for the sake of his creation.
It is perhaps for this reason that the central hymn of Christmas, repeated many times during the services, runs thus:

‘Your nativity, O Christ our God, has enlightened the world with the light of wisdom. For by it those who worshipped the stars were taught by a star to adore you, the sun of righteousness, and to know you, the sunrise from on high. O Christ our God, glory to you!’

The Christmas feast dwells on illumination—illumination of the God of worship, of the world in relationship to him. It is brightly lit with candles, and colors of red and gold. It is bright because Jesus’ birth revealed God to the world and so:

‘The mist of the prophets' promise is dispersed.
Joy clears the skies;
Truth is resplendent;
The dark shadows are dispelled…
Our Creator and God wills to fashion us anew.’

The Epistle to the Hebrews says that ‘In the past, God spoke to our forefathers at many times and in various ways through the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us through his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things.’ While God’s previous revelations to the world are important and continuous with the incarnation, they all look to the fullness of his self-revelation in Jesus, who is God incarnate. Christmas is the sunrise of wisdom—not an intellectual apprehension of a propositional statement, but an entirely new way of seeing the world. Yet his birth is more than the revelation of right worship—although it is that. Rather, as the hymns says, it inaugurates the ‘re-fashioning of the world,’ orienting all things toward renewal. Another hymn of Christmas, recalling its anticipation by all things, says, ‘The cave is Heaven, and the virgin is the throne of the Cherubim, in the confines of the manger is laid the infinite—Christ our God.’ The mystery of Jesus’ birth, of God’s incarnation, flows out through all creation, renewing it and revealing it as partaker of his incarnation.

Christmas’s primary revelation is, for Orthodox, that of God and man, divine and human natures, together in one person. The implications of this statement, its various interpretational possibilities, defined the great debates of the Church for seven hundred years. The person of Christ is absolutely central to Christian theology. Why? Because whatever one says about who and what he is defines what we mean by salvation. The hymns I quoted earlier demonstrate this when they connect the coming of God in the flesh to the renewal of the world, the lifting of the curse, and the salvation of humankind.

To explain this a bit, each feast of the Church refers back to Christmas, because Christmas inaugurates the work of Jesus. But each feast also looks forward to Easter because it is only in the celebration of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, that his work of renewing the world, of effecting salvation, is understood. It is the crown of the Church year, celebrated with almost indescribable festivity and joy.

Easter in the Orthodox tradition is about the defeat of death. Death is, in some ways, the central preoccupation of Orthodox theology because the universal condition of mortality defines the world to which Jesus comes, while his triumph over death extends, in Orthodox theology, to all Christians. If death describes the fallen state of the world, then life describes its saved state. Thus, salvation, the renewal not merely of human nature but of all nature, is entirely concerned with Jesus’ death and resurrection. St. John Chrysostom describes death’s defeat by Jesus as follows: ‘[Hell] took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered heaven. It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.’ It is precisely because Jesus is human that he is able to take on the entirety of human life in all its vicissitudes, even to the point of death. It is, however, only as God that he is able to sanctify that life and to overcome death. As Easter is predicated on the proclamations of Christmas, so Christmas is only significant in light of Easter—in a paradoxical way, the celebration of Jesus’ birth is also of his death and, if of his death, then also of his victory over death and resurrection.

Orthodox hymnography loves to describe the story of humanity’s fall and redemption in terms of Adam and Eve, the original humans of the Genesis story, who were made immortal, in the image of God, sinless, holy, like God. Adam and Eve are used as symbols of all humans. Adam and Eve, the hymns lament, fell into sin and, thereby, into death, being driven from the garden of Eden where they were meant to dwell. Christmas hymns also say: ‘The gates of Eden are opened; Adam dances in exultation: Our Creator and God wills to fashion us anew.’ Christmas’ revelation speaks directly to the situation of Adam and Eve, by which it speaks to the situation of all humanity. At Easter, Christ fulfills Adam and Eve’s Christmas hopes, coming to them by his death and raising them up by his resurrection. Jesus’ triumph over death extends directly to humanity, freeing all from the tyranny of mortality. The prevalent image of Eden’s re-opening in Christmas and Easter hymns draws together the beginning and the end of the Christian narrative, and symbolizes the fulfillment of salvation. Christmas, then, reveals not only the proper object of worship, but provides the promise of attaining to a truly human life, the original perfection for which humans were created, which promise is fulfilled on Easter.

The feasts of Christmas and Easter each celebrate in their unique ways the two termini of Orthodox Christian theology—Christmas in its promise and Easter in its fulfillment. These points are bound together in the person of Jesus—what he does is inseparable from what and who he is. Christmas is a feast of joy and gladness because on Christmas all the Orthodox remember that God is with us, that God has become a child for humans’ sake, and that God has chosen to renew his world. Christmas is a feast of light because it illuminates all with this mystery. It is a feast of all creation together in praise of God: ‘Rejoice, O earth with the angels and shepherds. Give glory to his name. Alleluia!’
On the Icon

I want to show you an important and unique aspect of Orthodox worship: the icon, or image. In Orthodox services, icons play a prominent role, focusing attention on the feast being celebrated. Icons may depict Jesus or Mary or various saints and holy people. The icon of Nativity depicts Jesus’ birth in the center, surrounded by scenes of the angels singing, the shepherds worshiping, the magi journeying, Joseph being tempted by the devil, the baptism of John the Baptist, and sometimes several other events. By depicting all these events together, the icon meditates on the synchronic element of Christmas which draws various events into a single moment. Everything happens at once, and everything is, as it were, happening now. There is no ‘then’ in icons. Everything is totally present. This is the effect also of the repetition of ‘today’ in the hymns: in celebrating Christmas we are to some degree present in it. Time with the rest of creation is caught up into the mystery of Jesus’ birth.
Another interesting aspect of the icon is its depiction of Jesus. He is shown ‘wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger’, as the gospels put it. But his clothes in the icon look exactly like funeral wrapping, grave clothes, in other icons. Likewise, the cave is not depicted as a stable, but as a tomb; the manger not as a feeding trough but as a sarcophagus. The icon explicitly draws the connection between Jesus’ birth and his death. However, by recalling Jesus’ death, it cannot help but recall Jesus’ triumph over death, the destruction of death as shown in the icon of the Resurrection, which depicts Jesus raising Adam and Eve, symbolic of all humanity, while standing on the destroyed gates of Hell, with Death often shown as an old man, bound and shamed beneath Jesus’ feet. The moment of Christmas embraces both spatially separated events surrounding his birth and the entirety of Jesus’ life, his work, and the Christian salvation narrative. This, I suggest, is the moment for which Orthodox Christians are now preparing, and which, come Christmas, they will celebrate joyfully, proclaiming the good news of this little child who is God before the ages.