The Joy of the Lord’s Coming
Sunday after the Nativity
Galatians 1:11-19; Matthew 2:13-24
The Christmas holidays, as well as the festive season after them, are days of great joy on the occasion of Christ’s birth, His coming to earth. Our nation has faithfully accepted the greatness of the nativity of the Son of God:
“There is new joy. Like no other...”
There has never been such an all-embracing joy.
Every person, and especially every family, has joyful days: on the occasion of birthdays or children's successes at school, in celebrating some significant achievements. Cities, organizations, and church communities mark their anniversaries and joyful days. Different states have their own celebratory dates and anniversaries. Many nations celebrate the anniversaries of their prominent people, just as we, Ukrainians, celebrate a holiday in honour of Taras Shevchenko.
But all these anniversaries and joyful holidays are limited in their scope and significance to a certain environment, to individual nations. Only the birth of Christ, and therefore the feast or celebration of the Nativity of Christ, remains for the whole world, for all peoples who confess Him as Lord, "a new joy that has never been before". This is eternally new, eternally joyful "news that the virgin has given birth to a Son," as sung in our carol.
That is why those simple Gospel stories, without cunningly clever turns of phrase, without human philosophy, touch our hearts and feelings. That is why, year after year, we proclaim them, singing both liturgical and folk songs — carols, through which we glorify that wondrous birth, celebrating the circumstances and events connected with the birth and coming of the Son of God and Man to earth.
Even the best secular songs go out of fashion over time, but the songs about the birth of Christ, which we have been singing year after year for millennia, remain always dear to us; year after year, we want to sing them, as they lift our souls.
Why is this so?
- Obviously because in those words there is the everlasting Truth of God, whose significance never diminishes, which proclaims an event that happened for the good of all people, for all nations, all races, all social classes — the poor and the rich, the famous and the unknown, the old and the young, and even the yet unborn, for all times, for all ages…
That is why it is sung in our ancient carols:
“And those carols spread throughout the land, to all the lands, Like quiet rivers, for ever and ever.”
After the joyful story of the birth of Christ the Saviour, there immediately follows the Gospel account of sad, tragic events: the need for the Infant Jesus to flee from the land of his birth to a foreign country, the cruel actions of King Herod, who destroyed little children, infants.
It is clear from this that the birth of the Saviour stirred up the forces of evil, hatred, lust for power, and cruelty. The devil, who is eternally opposed to the Creator God, shaped the minds and actions of people who were not faithful to God.
Such unstable and treacherous people existed at the time of Jesus Christ’s birth in the flesh, and such people exist today, as they have in all times. That is why Herods exist in our times, who imprison, torture, and kill people who want to confess the One God, the One Lord Jesus Christ, who want to acknowledge and fulfil only God’s will.
Just as Rachel wept for her children when Herod slaughtered the infants, so now many mothers weep for their children, for their relatives under the rule of the godless and god-deniers.
But in our times, we also remember the words of Christ:
“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Mattew 10:28).
Even in our times, people perish not only physically, tortured and killed by outright godless oppressors, but also spiritually, as their souls are caught in the nets of deceit by various newly arisen teachers of faith, false prophets of different new religious sects, and anti-Christian deceptive theories and philosophies.
Sometimes, such deceivers even use Christ as a cover, exploiting the Holy Bible just to catch the inexperienced in their nets. People, like fish, sometimes go for the bait. The Lord warned us that
“And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.” (Matthew 24:10-11).
And we know that some of our people have already been led astray - some people have departed from the true and saving faith and fallen into the nets of either Judaizing sects (such as the so-called Jehovah's Witnesses) or pagan groups, where they speculate on deceptions of either national sensibilities or the wisdom of human philosophy.
There are many temptations in the world: some are designed to appeal to bodily passions, others to spiritual and intellectual perversions, but all of them are designed to draw us away from the way of Christ -- the way of truth and salvation. Therefore, let us not only say daily “lead us not into temptation”, but in our lives let us not succumb to the temptations of the devil, who works through people.
In our efforts to stand firm in God’s truth, we may endure much, yet the Lord also told us:
“But he who endures to the end shall be saved." (Matthew 24:13).
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
