Homily – Sunday after Nativity 2019

Children of God – A Homily given on January 13, 2019

Christ is Born!

As many of you are well aware, we celebrated the Nativity, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ this past Monday morning.  It was and is a joyous day, the first major feast day within the liturgical year and within the sacramental rhythm of the life of the Church.  It is the day that the Son of God became incarnate in flesh. As we say every Sunday in the words of the Nicene Creed, that for us men, and for our salvation He came down from Heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.

God became man, and He became of his own volition that which we are by nature.  He assumed Human nature, yet never sacrificing or diminishing his Divinity, His divine nature.  By His incarnation, he participated fully in our Human nature, our humanity, so that we might be able to participate in His divinity.  By the condescension of His incarnation, we are allowed to become by His Grace, that which He is by nature. This is of course theosis, the deification of Man, wherein he strives become like God.

Christ was the child of a woman, and adopted by Joseph, for he was not his by flesh or by blood, and he received sonship from His Father by this adoption.  For in those days, when one was adopted by the Father, the patriarchal head of the household. the paterfamilias, he was granted not only His sonship by this adoption, but all the rights of inheritance from the Father also.  Those sons thus adopted, became heirs to the estate. So, it is for a reason that scriptures emphasize our place as the children of the father, and that this is accomplished through our adoption by God as Sons and daughters of the living God.

We hear one instance of this concept of adoption in our Epistle reading this morning:

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God”

And we also hear it elsewhere in scriptures, in Romans Chapter 8:

“14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

And yet again in 1 John Chapter 3:

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”

Indeed it is an astonishing act of love, that while we were all yet sinners, we should be adopted as Sons and Daughters, the children of God.  This is a gift bestowed by the Love and grace of God. For, it is indeed glorious to be the child of an earthly king, to be accounted royalty by birth or by right, but how much more glorious and beyond compare is it to become the children of the Heavenly King.  Yet, while we are elevated by our adoption into the heavenly kingdom, Christ condescended to become man by his birth and subsequent adoption into the earthly realm. He was born of the Virgin Mary into His humanity, and we are born into our birthright of the Heavenly Kingdom by our Baptism.

Let us remember our Baptisms, by which we received His most exalted mercy, that we should be called the children of God. As Children, we strive to be like our parents, for they are the ones that lead us in our growth, following in their steps, reaching towards their likeness.  Therefore, let us follow in the steps of Christ, who is fully God, showing by our word and deed that we are indeed the Children of the living God. We should be holy just as He is holy. God is righteous, so too should we also strive to be righteous. God is Good, so too should we also strive to be good.  He is merciful, so let us also be merciful, and compassionate. He is the Pure One and despises sin, so let us also despise sin, turning away from it, but let us never despise the sinner or turn away from them who are wounded in their sin. As God forgives, let us also forgive, for by the same measure by which we forgive, this shall be used against us. As Paul exhorts in his letter to the Ephesians “Be ye therefore followers of God as dear Children.”  We we have shown ourselves worthy as Children of God, we shall receive the inheritance of the Kingdom, and the crowns of everlasting life promised to those who Love Him.

What is the Kingdom of God, that royal and heavenly inheritance to which we are promised as the true Children of God? To begin with, the Church is the Kingdom of God on earth; and the abode of the Holy Spirit, by which the presence and power of the Kingdom is identified. So, it is the Church which Christ built and left to us, this is the Kingdom we are inheriting, the Holy Spirit abiding in us.  The Kingdom of God is Incarnated through the Church, the Holy Spirit dwelling within us as the perfecter of all things, our participation in the divine nature of God incarnating Christ within the Church. As the Apostle Paul has exhorted in his letter to the Romans, “The Kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.  So then let us pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding.” So, it is Jesus Christ that we must pursue in our lives, and in our pursuit of His holiness, following in His steps, we in turn become Holy.

The sole purpose of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, the means by which we inherit the Kingdom of God as the Children of God, and this is achieved by the perfecting of virtue, as Saint Seraphim of Sarov details in his book, On the Acquisition of the Holy Spirit:

“Prayer, fasting, vigils and all the other Christian practices may be, they do not constitute the aim of our Christian life.  Although it is true that they serve as the indispensable means of reaching this end, the true aim of our Christian life consists of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God.  As for fasts, and vigils, and prayer, and almsgiving, and every good deed done for Christ’s sake, are the only means of acquiring the Holy Spirit of God.”

Christ is born, and through Him is born the Church; through Him is born the means of repentance; through him is born the means of sonship, and by virtue  of this is given to us the means of inheritance of the Kingdom of God. By His birth, death, and resurrection, are we given the same opportunity for a rebirth by our baptism, our death to this world, and the same resurrection into eternal life in the presence of God.  While Christ is Born, it is yet by His death that we are given the means to get there, by a continual repentance, participation, and purification of our very soul, so that it might withstand the scourging fires of God’s love.

This purification is but the first step in our Theoria, or the process of our gazing at, and being aware of God.  It is the first step we take towards our own perfection. Yet, that step takes us closer to the source of Divine light, and as we move closer to the divine, we become more intimately aware of our misgivings and imperfections.  The process of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit begins, and continues in repentance. Yet, we never really leave this stage, it is our continual journey on the spiritual way. It is the endless journey that we partake of in this life, and the next.

How does one purify their heart?  Abba Poemon, a Desert Father of the Church, once said, “Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart.”  If we have truly given our heart to God, then only the things of God can truly satisfy our heart. We give our hearts to God with the simplicity of a child’s love and acceptance, fully dependent on a faith knowing that our Father will provide for us, as our need and His will requires.  “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”   A child is young and unassuming, they have not acquired wisdom and hold no great strength of knowledge.  Children are curious and without guile. They are a book whose pages are still empty, yet to be filled with the knowledge of this world.  So should our hearts be, so that the truths of revelation may be written there as we contemplate upon God.

Christ is born, and a child is born to us, the Son of God incarnated as a child of men, so that we may in turn become the children of God.  Christ is born, adopted by Joseph as his Father, so that we may be adopted as Sons and Daughters of the Almighty. Christ is born, the creator of all things contained in a child’s body, weak and helpless, so that we may become like a child before God, weak and helpless in our infirmities.  Christ is born, the giver of life who in the end chose death, so that we who are doomed to destruction, might in the end, choose life.

Amen.