Vigils Reading

On the Nativity of Christ4 by St Gregory of Nazianzus

Christ is born, give glory; Christ is from the heavens, go to meet him; Christ is on earth, be lifted up. “Sing to the Lord, all the earth,” and, to say both together, “Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice,” for the heavenly one is now earthly. Christ is in the flesh, exult with trembling and joy; trembling because of sin, joy because of hope…Who would not worship the one “from the beginning”? Who would not glorify “the Last”?

Again the darkness is dissolved, again the light is established…Let the people sitting in the darkness of ignorance see a great light of knowledge. “The old things have passed; behold, all things have become new.” The letter withdraws, the spirit advances; the shadows have been surpassed, the truth has entered after them…The laws of nature are dissolved. The world above must be filled. Christ commands, let us not resist. “All nations, clap your hands,” “for to us a child is born, and to us a son is given, the power is on his shoulder,” for he is lifted up along with the cross, and he is called by the name “angel of great counsel,” that of the Father. Let John proclaim, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” I myself will proclaim the power of this day. The fleshless one takes flesh, the Word is made coarse, the invisible one is seen, the impalpable one is touched, the timeless one makes a beginning, the Son of God becomes Son of Man, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and for the ages.”

This is our festival, this is the feast we celebrate… in which God comes to live with human beings, that we may journey toward God, or return – for to speak thus is more exact – that laying aside the old human being we may be clothed with the new, and that as in Adam we have died so we may live in Christ, born with Christ and crucified with him, buried with him and rising with him. For it is necessary for me to undergo the good turnaround, and as painful things came from more pleasant things, so out of painful things more pleasant things must return. “For where sin abounded, grace superabounded,” and if the taste [offorbidden fruit] condemned, how much more does the Passion of Christ justify? Therefore we celebrate the feast not like a pagan festival but in a godly manner, not in a worldly way but in a manner above the world. We celebrate not our own concerns but the one who is ours, or rather what concerns our Master, things pertaining not to sickness but to healing, not to the first molding, but to the remolding.

Now welcome for me his conception and leap for joy, if not indeed like John in the womb, then like David when the ark came to rest. Be awed at the census record through which you have been recorded in heaven, and revere the birth through which you have been released from the bonds of birth, and honor little Bethlehem, which has brought you back to paradise