There’s one aspect of our struggle to live out our faith in Christ that I hear more than any other: People tell me how hard it is to be a Christian these days because they often feel like they’re going it alone.
Many now describe our society as officially “post-Christian” and those who’ve had to “go it alone” as Christians in our places of work, school, families, friends, acquaintances, often feel that this must be true. It used to be that folks went to church at least on Christmas and Easter; now it’s even popular to not even go to church at all or to dismiss Christianity because it’s not “scientific” enough, or to water down the “faith once delivered” to fit one’s own passions.
But what secularism and the rational mind give people is an ‘excuse’ (at least, to themselves) to not believe, an excuse to not do the hard work involved in “ordering themselves aright.” This is not the only generation where it’s easier and more popular to not be a Christian or not be identified as an Orthodox Christian: we think of the persecution in the pagan era and that in the Communist era of the last century. Many before us have bravely testified and lived the faith in the face of great adversity to it—even in so-called “Christian” eras.
St. John Chrysostom openly challenged the opulent living of the Empress Eudoxia and was sent on a ‘death march’; he was willing to go it alone to be faithful to the truth of Christ. Likewise, St. Athanasius remarks, that he woke up one day and found that the world had turned to the heresy of Arianism. Likewise, those who kept the Orthodox Faith in the time of the iconoclasts faced great persecution. They loved God more than they feared man.
The Christmas story is full of light, joy, and renewal. The shepherds receive the message of angels “with great joy.” The magi, bearing their gifts, follow the light of the star to Him who is the Light of Light and the King of Kings and did not fear Herod more than they loved God and desired to seek Him.
But the Christmas story is also a story of being separate, alone but not lonely—Just as Christ says, “The way is narrow that leads to life and few are those who find it.” Joseph and Mary find no room in the inn. Christ reminds His disciples that “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Matt. 8:19-22). Soon after Christ is born, as we read in today’s Gospel, Joseph receives word from an angel that he must flee with the child to Egypt. All the infant boys under two are slain. Then, after several years upon their return to Israel, they flee again, this time, to Nazareth. You could say that Christ’s early years were spent “on the run.”
Christ God Himself tells us, that if any man would come after Him, he must take up his cross and follow Him. He reminds us that whoever confesses Him before men, He will also confess before His Heavenly Father (Matt. 10:32).
You and I may sometimes feel alone at times in this confession and living out of the of the true faith in a world that seems to find it so easy to reject Christ and the way of life, to reject the reason we celebrate Christmas—that Christ God has come to give us all “second birth” (John 3).. The reality is though that we are never alone in Christ. We never need doubt that God is with us—come what may. After all, this is the Good News brought by the Archangel, “You shall bear a Son and His name shall be Emmanuel (God with us). “God with us” is manifested in and through our life in the Church. When you and I avail ourselves of the Church, we’re assured that in our striving and struggle to follow Christ faithfully, we too will be victors over this world for, as Christ reassures us, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against her” (Matt. 16:18).
This is why, it’s so important that we make time to worship together; that we make Sunday mornings sacred time, time set aside, to worship the Holy Trinity together, as the Body of Christ, as this church family, that we come more often to Great Vespers. If we are going to be victors over the world and learn to love the world by witnessing to it of the new life in Christ, the “second birth,” then we need more church and not church on the periphery of our lives.
To do so, we need to be willing to submit ourselves to Christ and His Church instead of demanding our own way. We do so, not just for ourselves, but coming outside ourselves, taking up our cross and being willing to go it ‘alone,’ we become like Daniel who would not submit to the pagan idol and bow down to it, we find support and encouragement from one another in our church family, in this local Body of Christ’s Church.
You see, in this way, we are not at all alone, we have each other. Every time you walk through our church’s doors, I want you to remember, that you are not alone in your struggle to live out your faith in a culture of disbelief, of skepticism, of confusion—even if it seems that all around you have forsaken or compromised their faith in Christ, which is certainly not the case.
Christ God was born in a lonely cave for our salvation. Joseph and Mary had no one else. But God provided a family to share in their joy: the shepherds in the field who received the news from the angels with rejoicing and the magi who came in their own due time to worship the new-born babe, Jesus, Emanuel—God with us.
In like manner, you and I are never alone with God. Our relationship and communion with Him is always manifested in our life in the Church, where we learn to love, to grow, to work out our salvation, where we gain the strength and courage to be a witness to the truth, come what may. God provides for each of us. This new year will bring us new brothers and sisters. We will welcome them into this growing family to journey with us in Christ and witness with us to the timeless Truth of God that was revealed to us and to all the world 2,000 years ago in a lonely cave and in a lowly manger on the outskirts of Bethlehem.
This is what Christmas is all about: not you or me, but we, the Church which Christ God has left us, which communes us with Him, Emmanuel, so that we may never be alone, but always may find the strength to bear witness to the light in a world that walks in darkness. Christ is born!
Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Sunday After Nativity, 29 December 2013
Epistle: Gal. 1:11-19 Sunday After
Gospel: Matt. 2:13-23 Sunday After
