Vigils Reading – SS Basil & Gregory

January 2

CHRIST AMONG US

From a homily by St Basil the Great

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God is on earth, God is among us, not now as lawgiver – there is no fire,

trumpet blast, smoke-wreathed mountain, dense cloud, or storm to terrify

whoever hears him but as one gently and kindly conversing in a human body

with his fellow men and women. God is in the flesh. Now he is not acting

intermittently as he did through the prophets. He is bringing back to himself

the whole human race, which he has taken possession of and united to himself.

By his birth he has made the human race his own kin.

But how can glory come to all through one man? How can the Godhead

be in the flesh? In the same way as fire can be in iron: not by moving from place

to place but by the one imparting to the other its own properties. Fire does not

speed toward iron, but without itself undergoing any change it causes the iron

to share in its own natural attributes. The fire is not diminished and yet it

completely fills whatever shares in its nature. So is it also with God the Word.

He did not relinquish his own nature and yet he dwelt among us. He did not

undergo any change and yet the Word became flesh. Earth received him from

heaven, yet heaven was not deserted by him who holds the universe in being.

Let us strive to comprehend the mystery. The reason God is in the flesh is

to kill the death that lurks there. As diseases are cured by medicines and

assimilated by the body, and as darkness in a house is dispelled by the coming

of light, so death, which held sway over human nature, is done away with by the

coming of God. As ice formed on water covers its surface as long as night and

darkness last but melts under the warmth of the sun, so death reigned until the

coming of Christ; but when the grace of God our Savior appeared and the Sun7

of Justice arose, death was swallowed up in victory, unable to bear the presence

of true life. How great is God’s goodness, how deep his love for us!

Let us join the shepherds in giving glory to God, let us dance with the

angels and sing… The Lord is God and he has appeared to us!