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. So many around them: family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, fellow students are all living largely secular lives. Even as many still consider themselves more or less ‘Christians,’ it’s often on their terms and superficial, and, therefore, of minimal impact on how they live their lives. This leaves those who truly strive to live out the life in Christ, in a seeming lonely place.
It used to be that people went to church at least on Christmas and Easter; now it’s popular just to dismiss Christianity altogether, or, to water down the “faith once delivered” to fit one’s own passions and comfort, and forego any resemblance to a Gospel that can convict and change one to become more like Christ and able continued growth in communion with God the Holy Trinity.
What secularism gives people is an ‘excuse’ (at least, to themselves) to not believe, not to be accountable, 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, let alone to be an Orthodox Christian: we think of the persecution in the pagan era and that in the Communist era. Many before us have bravely testified and lived the faith in the face of great adversity to it. Just yesterday, we celebrated the Feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr, who had the courage to die rather than deny the life in one true God He professed in Christ.
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. Those who kept the Orthodox Faith in the time of the iconoclasts faced great persecution. They loved God more than they feared man. And now, we see whole Christian communities that have lived in the Middle East since the time of the Apostles, being brutally martyred because they profess the only true life there is—that in Christ God.
The Nativity 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 star to Him who is the Light of Light and the King of Kings to worship Him.
But the Christmas story is also a story of being separate, alone but not lonely; it is a story of conviction and courage: Joseph and Mary find no room in the inn and so they are welcomed by the animals in the cave that became Christ’s manger and that foreshadows His burial in the tomb at which time He was harrowing hades.
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. Jealous Herod has all the infant boys under two are slain in his prideful fear and ignorance concerning the nature of Christ’s Kingdom. Then, after several years, upon their return to Israel, Joseph and family flee again 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 in the 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 Christ’s holy Nativity—that Christ God has come to give us all “second birth” (John 3), that is, a new identity, purpose in Him. What God teaches us in His instruction on taking up our cross, in the countless examples we have in the martyrs, is that this world is not, cannot be, our true home, if we are to inherit eternal life. Just as there was no room for Christ in the inn at His birth, so too, this world as a whole rejects Christ and those who are enslaved to their identity and the comforts of this world, cannot make room for Him in their hearts.
Those who do not cleave to this world, but rather, strive to ground their identity in their second birth, that of adoption as sons and daughters, are never alone. The Good News brought by the Archangel reminds us of this truth: “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, brothers and sisters, that it’s so important that we make time to worship together; that we make Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings, and the feast days of the Church established by Christ, sacred time, set aside time, to worship the Holy Trinity together, as the Body of Christ, as this church family. To be victors over the world and find our identity in our new life in Christ, our “second birth,” we need more of Holy Church and not church on the periphery, or on our own terms.
And so, we submit ourselves to Christ and His Church instead of demanding to have things our own way; we accept accountability and godly obedience. We do so, not just for ourselves, but coming outside ourselves, taking up our cross, we’re willing to ‘go it alone,’ to become like Daniel who refused to bow down to the pagan life-less idol; instead, we find support and encouragement from one another in our church family, our local Body of Christ.
You see, in this way, we’re never 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 or family or work or school environment of disbelief, skepticism, confusion.
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 great joy” and the magi who came in their own due time to worship the new-born babe, Jesus, Emanuel—God with us.
This is where Christmas, the Feast of the Nativity leads us: not you or me, but we, Christ and the Church which He’s entrusted to us, which communes us with Him, Emmanuel, so that we may never be alone, but always may find the strength and courage to bear witness to the light in a world that walks in darkness. Christ is born!
