Since we celebrate this weekend the glorious feast of God’s Incarnation as made know to us through the Birth of Jesus, the Christ, I would diverge from my commentary on the Divine Liturgy to reflect upon some of the special prayers that we offer during the Divine Liturgy on this feast. I would first reflect on the Tropar for the feast (i.e., the special prayer which captures the essence of the feast). The Christmas Tropar reads:

Your birth, O Christ our God, has shed upon the world the light of knowledge; for through it, those who worshipped the stars have learned from a star to worship You, the Sun of Justice, and to recognize You as the Orient From on High. Glory be to You, O Lord.

The first statement is important to understand: Your birth … has shed upon the world the light of knowledge. What is the knowledge that this event has given to our world?

First, Christ’s birth has revealed to us that God brought humans into existence by freely fusing Himself to human nature, vivifying it with His own Divine Life. By being born as a human, God revealed that we are created in His image, expressed in the Person of Jesus.

Second, God also shared with us the knowledge of how to live this earthly life so that we might grow in His likeness. The purpose of this earthly life is to grow in His likeness.

The second prayer unique for this feast of the Nativity is the Hirmos.

We pray this:

I contemplate a divine and marvelous mystery: heaven has become a cave; the throne of Cherubim, a virgin; and the manger an honorable place in which lays Christ God, the Incomprehensible. Let us praise and extol Him.

The image painted by these words is one wherein heaven and earth are joined, they are not separate. By God becoming incarnate and voluntarily making Himself an intimate part of His own creation, He shared with us the knowledge that He is not far-off and distant from us but, rather, that He is WITH US and WITHIN US. This was the great revelation that God made to humankind through His own incarnation.

So on this Christmas we join with the angels, shepherds and wise men in proclaiming that God IS With Us and, because He is with us, we have seen “the true light” and have “found the true faith.” Let us rejoice!