The liturgical texts for the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (the 2nd Sunday before Christmas) do give us insight into what the Church celebrates in the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
While the pre-Christmas season in Orthodoxy seems undeveloped as compared to Advent in the Western Church, there was some development of a pre-Christmas season mostly focusing on the ancestors of the Incarnate God. This focus on the ancestors of Christ evolved into special hymns for the two Sundays before the Feast of the Nativity. So on the 2nd Sunday before Christmas we find hymns referring to the holy men and women of the Old Testament, the Forefathers of Christ. A hymn from Vespers for the Forefathers says:
Master, You delivered the Holy Youths from the fire, and Daniel from the mouths of lions; You blessed Abraham, Isaac Your servant, and Jacob his son: You consented to become like us by being born of their seed, to be crucified and buried, in order to save our forefathers who fell of old. Thus You crushed the bonds of death, and raise with Yourself all the dead of ages past, who worship you, Christ, King of the ages! (Vespers)
The text centers on the incarnation of the Word: God becomes flesh in Jesus Christ for He takes on Himself human nature from the Virgin and is born of the seed of these Forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God becomes man in order to save Adam from sin. Salvation consists in Christ crushing the bonds of death and being raised from the dead. But the resurrection is not Christ’s alone for He raises all the dead of ages past with Himself, and now all of these forefathers worship Christ.
According to the hymns of the Forefathers even Adam, the first sinner now resides with Christ in the Kingdom.
Let us honor Adam, the first-formed man and fore-father of us all, who was honored by the hand of the Creator. He rests in the heavenly mansions with all the chosen.
Despite the ‘original’ sin of Adam, he is not consigned eternally to hell, but is forgiven by God in Christ. Sin does not triumph over humanity, neither does death, for Christ defeats both sin and death and raises the dead with Himself. Christ empties hell of the dead and fills it with Himself. Thus wherever we humans may go, even in death, we are with Christ and in His presence. Thus we sing in Psalm 139:7-10:
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
In the hymns of Matins for the Forefathers we find these words:
Let us offer praise to the Fathers, who shone forth both before and during the Law. With righteous minds they served the Lord and Master who shone forth from the Virgin. Now they delight in the unending light!
The way the Church reads the Old Testament texts is that these Holy Forefathers were also serving Christ in their life times; Christ who was born years and even centuries after the Forefathers had died was the One they were serving while they lived on earth. Christ in fulfilling the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament is the very one whom they all were seeking from God.
Christ said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” (John 8:56)
Moses “considered abuse suffered for the Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he looked to the reward.” (Hebrews 11:26)
The hymns continually remind us that the appearances of God in the Old Testament were really encounters with the pre-incarnate Christ. So one hymn says of Abraham:
You beheld the Trinity in a manner fitting for the sight of mankind when you received a guest as a most-faithful friend. Therefore you gained the reward of the awesome hospitality becoming the father of countless gentiles through your faith, O Abraham!
Encounters with God in the Old Testament were ‘limited’ by God so that the humans could actually comprehend what they were experiencing. Thus Abraham welcomes the three angels whom he calls Lord, and the hymn says this was an encounter with the Holy Trinity “in a manner fitting for the sight of mankind.” God in limiting His theophanies enabled the various saints to makes sense of what they were encountering. The pre-incarnate theophanies were all given in preparation for the full revelation of the incarnation.
He who is full empties Himself for our sake through the flesh; the unoriginated One accepts a beginning! The rich one becomes poor; the Word of God lies in a manger of dumb beasts! As an infant, he accomplishes the recreation of all from eternity!
God who is eternal and without beginning enters into the human condition, taking on a beginning and experiencing the world of creation in a new, yet fully divine way. The poetic imagery is rich: The Word of God who when spoken (Genesis 1:3) caused all that is to come into existence, now lies in a manger with beasts who cannot speak! God has entered into His own creation in the incarnation at Christmas. And, as the hymn says, God now as an infant recreates the world.
Fraternized 