It is common for the preparatory hymns of the Feast of the Nativity in the days before Christmas, to issue an invitation to us to participate personally in the Feast. For example, one of the hymns from Vespers for today says:
THE NEVER-SETTING SUN PRESSES FORWARD TO RISE, ENLIGHTENING ALL THINGS UNDER HEAVEN. LET US HASTEN WITH CLEAN HANDS AND PURE DEEDS TO MEET HIM; LET US PREPARE TO BE BORNE ON HIGH WITH HIM IN SPIRIT. LET US BESEECH HIM IN HIS COMPASSION, THAT AS HE COMES IN HIS GOOD PLEASURE TO HIS OWN STRANGE BIRTH, HE MAY LEAD US WHO HAVE BECOME STRANGERS TO THE PATH OF LIFE IN EDEN, INTO BETHLEHEM WHERE HE COMES TO BE BORN.
Many Patristic authors saw the birth of the Savior as a light dawning upon humankind. This imagery is common in Orthodox hymns as well. When Christ entered Mary’s womb, this is portrayed as the sun disappearing for a short while. Then the Theotokos gives birth which is the dawn of God’s Son upon humanity. Christ is born on earth, which enables us to be born again in the spiritual life. We humans are lifted up in the Spirit with Christ to heaven. Humanity was exiled from Paradise because of our sin, but now though we are estranged from the heavenly life, Christ comes to welcome us back, not as strangers but as God’s children. Afterall God created Paradise to be the residence for us humans.
THE WORD OF GOD, UPBORNE ON THE SHOULDERS OF THE CHERUBIM GOES TO DWELL IN A WOMB WITHOUT BLEMISH. THE PASSIONLESS ONE IS BOUND FAST TO THE FLESH; HE COMES ON EARTH AS A MAN, BORN OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH. A CAVE BECOMES THE PALACE OF THE KING OF ALL; A MANGER TAKES THE PLACE OF THE THRONE OF FIRE, WHERE THE VIRGIN MARY LAYS HIM AS A BABE, FOR HE COMES TO RESTORE THE FIRST-CREATED MAN, AS HE IS WELL PLEASED SO TO DO.
Christ restores humanity to its proper relationship with God.
The incarnation of Christ transformed anthropology. When the Divine Logos of God assumed human nature and entered his own creation as a vulnerable human infant, he embraced all aspects of our frailty as human beings, except for sin. By this supreme act of condescension, God has united his very nature to the human condition. He has made common cause with us in our distress. It is from this ineffably gracious act that any human dignity or rights flow. It is because he suffered that we can appeal to a right of all those who bear his image also to receive relief of their suffering. However, whereas the focus in the secular western mind is on human autonomy and individual rights, in Christian anthropology the focus shifts from self to the other. The other, the second person—the ‘you’ or more intimate ‘thou’, not the autonomous, omnipotent ‘I’ – ultimately becomes for Christians the One who said, ‘As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me’ (Matthew 25:40). (Daniel Hinshaw, SUFFERING AND THE NATURE OF HEALING, p 154)
Christ is not only restoring the relationship of each of us to God, but also restoring humanity itself and the relationship each of us is to have with each other. We are to love one another because Christ unites us to divinity and really to our humanity. It is God’s love for us and in us which brings to an end all human alienation, separation and division.
Fraternized 