Keywords: the three wise men (sorcerers), Bethlehem, star, Christ, Nativity, gifts, mercifulness
Abstract:
All the Church Great Feasts performed in the course of the Church year are renewals that make actual again the main events of the life and work of The Savior Jesus Christ, so that the liturgical Church year, with all its daily services, feasts and cultic orders, represent an uninterrupted continuation of the life of Christ in the Church for peoples’ redemption. Thus, the Savior is eternally present in the Church. He incessantly continues to recast His redemptive work through the Holy Spirit, for Him to become the life of all, that all the ones living to became worthy to commune from the saving gifts and truths that He prepared for us. So, Christian holidays does not represent simple commemorations of some biblical events, happened some time in the past, but the perpetuation of these redemptive works and their effective living by each of us. That is why we spiritually prepare in order to piously meet the great year’s Feasts, by fasting and prayer. We devoutly prepare ourselves to unite with Christ, the One Who comes to dwell in the manger of our souls once we commune with Mystery of Eucharist or He comes to enliven our souls, who fell from the deadly sins. Historically, Christ was bodily born once, in Bethlehem, Judea, though spiritually He is performing a repeated birth in our hearts and souls – through Church, prayer, Divine Liturgy and Holy Mysteries, and we in our turn prepare to receive Him in our being, by chanting as and with the angels, worshiping Him like the shepherds and bringing precious gifts like the wisemen. Wisemen’s generosity bid us also, priests and faithful, to incessantly offering Christ as a gift the sacrifice of our good deeds. The term Bethlehem has for us, the Orthodox Romanian Christians, a sacred resonance, as the word of the Gospel was preached in our lands even from the Apostles’ times, so that our Christianity is of Apostolic nature. Bethlehem means “the house of Bread”, i.e. of the living bread, who descended from Heaven (John 6, 51). In our beautiful Christmas carols, maybe the most elevating and sensible among the existing ones, the Bethlehem remind us always of the never-ending love of God, poured out in this time-dominated world. Bethlehem reminds us of the deep humility of Christ, Who became infant for our redemption, and the star that guided the wisemen prefigures the teaching of the Holy Gospel, which guides our life on the saving path, in the same manner in which the heavenly star lead the wisemen to fulfil their mission.
Pages: 149-154