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Christmas is one of the brightest and most homely holidays. This holiday is celebrated in parallel with the New Year. But the fact is that in Russia more attention is paid to the New Year. In foreign countries, everything revolves around Christmas. Even the holidays are called Christmas.
Everyone loves this holiday very much. This is the time when everything around is transformed. Multi-colored lights light up all around. All houses are decorated. Everyone is preparing gifts for each other.
But behind all this festive fuss, the true meaning of the holiday is forgotten. Even the name suggests that someone very significant was born into this world. But who is it? Do people remember this? Or has everyone already forgotten?
If they used to say Merry Christmas, now the word Christ is going out of use. In Russia, Christmas appears somewhere in the background. The main holiday is New Year. Many people consider this holiday to be a time of magic. That the new year will come and everything will radically change without human effort.
So why was Christ born and how did it all happen? In the night stable of Bethlehem, when there was not a single free bed in the hotels, little Jesus lay on a makeshift manger. His mother was very happy. The shepherds first came to their barn, then the wise men came up to see the Star of Bethlehem. Who brought gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. This birth brought a lot of joy. There was joy both in heaven and on earth.
God Himself descended to earth in human form. Humanity has been consumed by sins and all kinds of defilement. Nobody could handle it. And God came to the rescue. Jesus was born to save humanity from sin.
The man was completely broken and bleeding. You just need to look around. You can see what this world has become: quarrels, strife, hostility and murder. Quarrels start over the slightest nonsense. Only then what does it all turn into. How many killings and injuries occur for this reason.
Jesus was born and then died for every person to free them from the bondage of sin. Otherwise, man would not be able to cope with his nature on his own. And so a person has a choice: either he is on the side of God and all that is good, or on the black side with all that is bad.
But time passed, and views changed. At first, everyone remembered exactly what this holiday was associated with, and later it began to be equated with the others. It was turned into another family holiday with many gifts. Later, the entire Christmas holidays were approved. But the name of Jesus was removed.
Event of the Nativity of Christ
We know about the Nativity of the Savior and the events related to it from the evangelists Matthew and Luke, and they, probably, from the words of the Most Holy Theotokos. The stories of the apostles are different, but surprisingly complement each other.
Matthew speaks not so much about Christmas as about the events before and after it: how an Angel dispelled the embarrassment of Joseph the Betrothed, who learned about the pregnancy of the Virgin Mary; how the Magi came to worship the born Baby. Luke begins with the appearance of an Angel to the Virgin Mary herself: “You have found grace from God,” the Angel announced to Her, “and behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a Son, and you will call His name Jesus.” He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High... and His kingdom will have no end (Luke 1:30-33). Next, Evangelist Luke describes the circumstances of Christmas: ...a command came from Caesar Augustus to take a census throughout the whole earth... And everyone went to be registered, each to his own city. Joseph also went from Galilee... to the city of David, called Bethlehem... to enroll with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. While they were there, the time came for Her to give birth; and she gave birth to her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn (Luke 2:1-7).
Child Christ in the nativity scene
The essence of the Nativity of Christ
The Nativity of Christ is an event that does not fit into consciousness. The Creator of the Universe, permeating with Himself all created space and at the same time not limited by it, eternal and omniscient, absolutely immaterial, entered our earthly time and space, became one of the characters in human history!
The Son of God, without ceasing to be God for a moment, also became a Man - once and for all! First, the fetus that began in the womb of the Virgin Mary; then - a helpless Baby, born for lack of anything better in a cattle pen; and finally - a wandering preacher, forced to endure all the restrictions and hardships of ordinary earthly life, experiencing hunger and thirst, suffering from cold and heat, illness and lack of sleep, having nowhere to lay his head...
God becomes man. For what? For a person to realize his destiny; so that he could again talk with God “face to face”, as Adam once did; to become the unclouded image and likeness of God.
In “The Sermon on the Incarnation of God the Word,” St. Athanasius of Alexandria explains that God had no other way to save fallen humanity. The people whom He created for eternal life were overcome by death; “The human race was corrupted... and the work God had accomplished perished.” Man died because he violated God's commandment not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But God could no longer cancel this commandment after the fact: then He would have entered into a contradiction with Himself. There was no point in expecting repentance from people: God, of course, would forgive them, but repentance would not return them immortality: after all, how many sins had already been committed...
What came out, in the words of St. Athanasius, was “something... incongruous and at the same time indecent.”
Therefore, he says, “the disembodied, incorruptible, immaterial Word of God comes into our region” and “takes upon Himself a body, and a body foreign to ours,” so that, in fulfillment of His commandment, He suffers and die as a man, and then as God’s to rise with power and destroy death in people “like stubble with fire.”
In short, the Nativity of Christ was the first step taken by God to save His creation from sin and its inevitable consequence - death.
Family Life of Jesus
There are many misconceptions about Jesus' family life. They arose thanks to sacred servants who got rid of unnecessary information. There is a theory that memories of family were not included in the Old Testament on purpose. So:
- Historians express the opinion that his wife was Mary Magdalene. The New Testament describes her as a promiscuous woman who reformed and followed Christ. But an unmarried girl could not travel with the group unless she was the wife of one of the participants.
- There is also information about the marriage of Christ, where he turns water into wine, and the resurrected Jesus came first to Magdalene. In addition, men who were not married were considered inferior and not pleasing to the Lord, so such a preacher could not be a teacher.
- Scholars argue that marrying Mary Magdalene was also a political move. He could not claim the throne in Jerusalem because he was an outsider. If he takes as his wife a local girl who belongs to the princely family of the tribe of Benjamin, then he becomes one of his own. The future child could become a candidate for the kingdom. Perhaps this fact was the reason for the death of Jesus. But church officials present his death in a different light.
The best article for you, go to: Apocryphon of John the Evangelist
Troparion to the Nativity of Christ:
Thy Nativity, Christ our God, rises up into the world's light of reason, in which the stars who serve as stars learn to bow to Thee, the Sun of truth, and lead thee from the heights of the East. Lord, glory to You!
Translating to Russian language:
Your Nativity, Christ our God, illuminated the world with the light of knowledge, for through it those who served the stars were taught to worship You, the Sun of Truth, and to know You, from the heights of the Rising Luminary. Lord, glory to You!
1. Infant Christ in a den - a cave with a manger (feeding trough for livestock). Next to Christ are depicted an ox and a donkey : the ox, according to the interpretation of many holy fathers, is a symbol of the Jews who live according to the law, and the donkey is a symbol of the pagans who are a law unto themselves (Rom 2:14).. Christ came to save both those and others.
2. In the center of the icon is the Mother of God. She reclines on the bed: this is a sign that the birth of the Lord Jesus was absolutely real, and not illusory (as some claimed); He came into the world as a living man of flesh and blood. The crimson color of the Virgin Mary's bed is a sign of Her royal dignity. The Mother of God came from the line of King David and became the Mother of the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev 19:16). By depicting the Mother of God turning away from the Infant Christ, the icon painter makes it clear that, firstly, the Child does not belong to Her, but to the whole world (Whoever does the will of My Heavenly Father is My brother, and sister, and mother (Matthew 12:50)) . And secondly, that the Mother of God Herself hears the prayers of all people, that She is the first intercessor and intercessor for all those in need and those who mourn.
3. Righteous Joseph , embarrassed by the news of the Virgin Mary’s pregnancy. In front of him is an old man dressed in goat skins: this is an allegorical image of the doubts that beset Joseph. His doubts were dispelled by an Angel who appeared to Joseph in a dream and announced: This is a child of the Holy Spirit... you will call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:20-21).
4. The washing of the Infant Christ is another plot designed to emphasize the reality of the Incarnation. It is borrowed from the apocryphal “Proto-Gospel of Jacob,” which tells how Joseph, seeing that Mary was approaching the hour of giving birth, ran to call the midwife, and she invited Salome to help her. These two women became, according to the apocrypha, direct witnesses of the miracle.
5. Shepherds - became the first witnesses of the Nativity of Christ. They were in the field, when suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared to them and announced great joy that would be to all people: for today a Savior has been born to you in the city of David, who is Christ the Lord (Luke 2: 8-11). The shepherds entered the cave where their flocks usually spent the winter, and saw Christ with their own eyes.
6. Host of Angels - on the night of Christmas, a large army of heaven appeared to the eyes of the astonished shepherds, glorifying God and crying: glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men! (Luke 2:13–14) One of the Angels leans towards the shepherds, calling them to join in the song of praise. This is an illustration of the line “Angels and shepherds praise” from the Christmas kontakion - a church hymn that reveals the meaning of the holiday.
7. Ray of a star - the birth of the Savior was accompanied by the appearance of a bright star in the eastern part of the sky. On the icon, the ray of the star points to the manger with the Infant Christ. The star showed the wise men the way to Bethlehem and then stopped over the place where the Child was (Matthew 2:9). Origen considered the Star of Bethlehem to be a real celestial object, John Chrysostom - an intelligent angelic force. And the famous German mathematician and astronomer of the 17th century Johannes Kepler calculated that in 748 from the founding of Rome, just around the time of the Nativity of Christ, a “parade of planets” could be observed from the earth - the convergence of Jupiter, Mars and Saturn at one point in the sky... “But Of course, that star that showed the way to the Magi from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and then came to the top where the Child was (Matthew 2:9), was no longer either a real star or a planet, but a completely special miraculous phenomenon,” notes Archbishop Averky (Taushev).
8. Magi - about the worship of the Infant Christ by the Magi - wise men who came from the east, probably from Persia, says one evangelist Matthew. The Magi are traditionally present in the Nativity icon, but in reality they did not arrive in Bethlehem until a year or two after the birth of Jesus Christ. This is clear from the words of the Gospel that the Jewish king Herod, wishing to eliminate Christ as his future rival, ordered the soldiers to destroy in Bethlehem all infants from two years old and below, according to the time he learned from the wise men (Matthew 2:16). The Magi are a symbol of pagan knowledge who bowed their heads before the true God. They brought gifts to the Child: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gold - as a King, incense - as a Priest, and myrrh - a fragrant substance for anointing the dead - as a Man Who is about to die, the Holy Fathers explain.
9. Adoration of Angels - the icon of Andrei Rublev depicts a plot that has become widespread around the 14th century: the worship of Angels to the born Savior. According to the Gospel, only shepherds and wise men came to the Infant Christ. But icon painters sometimes depicted Angels with hands covered with cloth instead. This is an allusion to the recollection of Christmas events at the very beginning of the Divine Liturgy, at the proskomedia, when the priest remembers the living and dead members of the Church, takes out a piece from the prosphora for each and places them around the main - Lamb - prosphora (it is to become the Body of Christ), and then covers this prosphora with a special fabric cloth - a cover.
You can download a pdf poster with information about the icon of the feast of the Nativity of Christ by clicking on the image below:
In which city was Jesus Christ crucified?
Until he was 30, he lived with his parents. Then he decided to become a preacher, so he went to the Jordan River, where he was baptized by John the Baptist, and then wandered for 40 days in the desert.
He won the great love of many people with his teaching. The authorities of Jerusalem were afraid that their power would be shaken, so the local nobility decided to kill the preacher.
Christ rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, the people solemnly greeted him, hoping that the time would come for the tyrants to pay back. They expected victory from him, but he invited them to abandon worldly worries and travel with sermons, destroyed their dreams and hopes, so they considered him a liar. In addition, the Pharisees incited the people against Jesus. The situation was heating up and bringing him closer to the tragedy that happened on the night from Thursday to Friday of the week before Easter.
The first to interrogate the captive was Anna, who wanted to hear about witchcraft that conquers people. Having learned nothing, he sent to Caiaphas, who accused Jesus of blasphemy and brought in the prefect Pontius. Pilate tried to persuade supporters of the death penalty not to kill an innocent person. But the spiritual fathers demanded crucifixion. Then Pontius handed over the decision of the preacher's fate to human judgment. Most of the opponents in the square demanded execution.
The best article for you, go to: Miracles of Jesus Christ
Before his crucifixion on the hill of Golgotha, Jesus was lashed and his body was torn. He carried the heavy cross all the way to the hill. At the hour of the martyr’s last breath, the earth trembled with such death, as if nature had rebelled against human cruelty. Pontius Pilate allowed Jesus to be buried in the tomb. And three days later the Savior rose again.
May the Lord protect you!
