MAKE READY, BETHLEHEM, FOR EDEN IS OPENED; PREPARE, EPHRATHA, FOR ADAM AND EVE ARE RENEWED. SALVATION ENTERS THE WORLD AND THE CURSE IS DESTROYED; MAKE READY, HEARTS OF RIGHTEOUS MEN: INSTEAD OF MYRRH, BRING HYMNS AS AN OFFERING OF WISDOM: RECEIVE SALVATION AND IMMORTALITY OF YOUR SOULS AND BODIES. BEHOLD, THE MASTER LYING IN THE MANGER URGES US TO COMPLETE OUR SPIRITUAL SONGS. LET US CRY OUT TO HIM UNCEASINGLY, O LORD, GLORY TO YOU! (Apostika of the Forefeast)
One common feature in the hymns of the forefeast of the Nativity is an invitation to all of us to participate in the Feast- not just celebrate it but to put yourself into the events being commemorated. However, our participation is not just in the current liturgical services but rather has us participating in the events themselves which are our salvation. The above hymn tells us to be like the Magi and bring a gift to Christ – not myrrh but hymns. We are to see the Savior lying in the manger as if we are actually there. We are to receive salvation and immortality from, through and in the events and our celebration of the events. Not only is heaven opened to us, but the liturgical hymns have it that we are right where the events of our salvation occurred – we are in them; we enter into those events and in so doing enter into our salvation. [The difference being suggested is that we can set up a creche at home to remind us of the birth of Jesus. The hymns are suggesting much more – that spiritually we move ourselves into the event and thus participate in the Nativity of our Savior. Our participation in the event is our participating in our salvation – the event becomes ours and we become part of what God accomplished in the divine deed. This is the profound meaning of keeping Christ in Christmas and keeping Christmas in Christ.]
St Gregory Palamas phrases things such that it is us who were cast out of the garden of Eden through sin – not just Adam and Eve thousands of years ago, but we too have been cast out of Paradise by our sins. And, as we participated in the Fall, so too we participate in our salvation. The Bible is not just present ancient history, it is our personal history. The biblical stories are not just about ancient saints and sinners, for their story is our story. When we see in the bible what the biblical characters did or failed to do, we are to understand them as revealing ourselves and our lives to us. We are part of the Fall and we are part of the salvation of the world.
When we were cast out of the garden of divine bliss and rightly excluded from God’s paradise, we sank to these depths and were condemned to spend our lives in the company of irrational animals, with no hope of returning to paradise by our own efforts. Then He who had justly passed judgment on us or, more accurately speaking, had rightly allowed it to befall us, mercifully came down to us for our sake in His all-surpassing love and goodness. He became men like us, though without sin (cf. Hebrews 4:15), in order to instruct and rescue like by like, and inaugurated the saving counsel and commandment of repentance by saying to us, ‘Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (Matthew 4:17). Before the Incarnation of the Word of God, the Kingdom of heaven was as far away from us as the heavens are from the earth. But when the heavenly King visited us and graciously willed to be united with us, the heavenly kingdom drew near to us all. (THE HOMILIES, p 245c)
When we think about the events in the Scriptures or events in the various Feasts of the Church, we are not learning about ancient history, we are learning the human story, which is our personal story. The people in those stories are us and we are them. We participate in what they did, and we experience what they experienced. Heaven is no longer some distant, obscure thing, but rather we enter into it in and through the Feasts, the liturgical celebrations, the iconography and the hymns. The ancients have no advantage over us – it is not as if they experienced the events of salvation and all we can do is learn about history or be reminded of the past. We participate in salvation just as they did. The Feasts aren’t there just to inform us, they are there to form us and reform us. “Remembering” a Feast is to participate in its saving events by making it part of our lives and making our lives part of the saving events. We experience our salvation in, through and by the Feasts.
Fraternized 