The wonderful mystery of, and some of the inexpressible treasures given to man by, the birth of God in the flesh, as expounded by St Gregory the Wonderworker of Neo-Caesarea in his 3rd-century Christmas sermon:
People entered into the Cave, thinking not at all about this beforehand, and it became for them an holy temple. God entered into Egypt, in the place of the ancient sadness there to bring joy, and in the place of dark gloom to shed forth the light of salvation. The waters of the Nile had become defiled and harmful after infants perished in it with untimely death. There appeared in Egypt That One, Who upon a time turned the water into blood and Who thereafter transformed these waters into well-springs of the water of rebirth, by the grace of the Holy Spirit cleansing away sins and transgressions. Chastisement once befell the Egyptians, since in their errors they defied God. But Jesus now is come into Egypt and hath sown in it reverence for God, so that in casting off from the Egyptian soul its errors, they are made amicable unto God. The river waters concurred worthily to encompass His head, like a crown.
In order not to stretch out in length our discourse and briefly to conclude what is said, we shall ask: in what manner was the passionless Word made flesh and become visible, while dwelling immutably in His Divine Nature? But what shall I say and what declare? I see the carpenter and the manger, the Infant and the Virgin Birth-Giver, forsaken by all, weighed down by hardship and want. Behold, to what a degree of humiliation the great God hath descended. For our sakes "impoverished, Who was rich" (2 Cor 8:9): He was put into but sorry swaddling cloths—not on a soft bed. O poverty, source of all exaltation! O destitution, revealing all treasures! He doth appear to the poor—and the poor He maketh rich; He doth lay in an animal manger—and by His word He sets in motion all the world. He is wrapped in tattered swaddling cloths—and shatters the bonds of sinners having called the entire world into being by His Word alone.
The whole sermon may be read here:
https://www.oca.org/fs/sermons/discourse-on-the-nativity-of-christ
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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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