In the Western world, and especially in the USA, one is aware at every step of the approach of the great feast of Christ’s Nativity. Christmas carols are heard on the streets of all American cities and towns. Presents, Christmas trees, and all manner of decorations are visible in shop windows. But in all of this pre-holiday liveliness, there is little of a spiritual nature. It is as if the very meaning of the Feast, its exalted subject matter, has been forgotten, as if it is something to be mentioned only in church.
Protestants call the pre-Nativity period “advent,” which is to say, the arrival, or the approach. The number of candles on evergreen wreaths marks the time remaining before the actual great holiday.
In Catholic churches, Nativity hymns are sung, and the chapters from the Gospel according to Sts. Matthew and Luke, which tell of the Birth in Bethlehem, are read.
The Order of Divine Services of our Orthodox Church calls for a Nativity Fast. Like Great Lent, which leads us to Passion Week, the week before Pascha, this Lenten period lasts for 40 days.
The Fast is not merely abstinence from certain types of food, but is ultimately a challenge to be spiritually vigilant, and to gather one’s spiritual forces. This is reflected in the character of the pre-Nativity Divine Services of the Orthodox Church. The Fast seems to grow as the Nativity of Christ comes ever closer. In the Divine Services we encounter prayers ordinarily heard only during Great Lent. This is so because our Eastern Christian tradition has, to a greater extent than in the Western tradition, kept and preserved the spiritual, mystical significance of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, one which cannot be reduced to the comforting image of the manger, the Infant lying within, the Most-holy Virgin, and the shepherds. We cannot help but feast our eyes on this picture, especially inasmuch as the world’s greatest artists chose the Nativity in Bethlehem as the subject for renowned paintings. However, this event is not an idyllic scene, but rather a miracle before which we are called to stand with fear and trembling. In a simple cave, in a setting of utmost humility, the miracle of the Incarnation took place. For our salvation, for our reconciliation with God, the Son of God becomes the Son of Man, like us in everything but sin, from which He comes to rid us. In order to approach and be inspired by this miracle, we must approach through the spiritual struggle of faith. Our intellect is incapable of accommodating it. The sparse words of the Gospel story do not attempt to explain to us what cannot be logically explained. They bear witness to what took place two thousand years ago, and call us to make this witness an inheritance, a treasure for our soul.
The acquisition of this wisdom and enlightenment can come only in an atmosphere of calm, contemplation, and prayer. Thus, the Church invites us to the spiritual struggle of the Fast, as if tell us: Leave behind the noise, the partying, and the striving after pleasure of Herod and his accomplices, of those who hated Christ from the moment they first heard of His Nativity. If you want your souls to be touched by the blessing of Bethlehem and to have the angelic voices sound for you, you are called to something different.
The Fast is always a movement, like a journey toward a goal, which we wish to accomplish; the goal itself lights our way. The Wise Men from the East were led to the cave in Bethlehem by a star, and the shepherds learned of the miracle from the singing of the angels. The great wisdom of those enlightened by religious intellectual inspiration and the simple shepherds, whose sole gift was purity of heart, united in common worship before the manger. Let us as well join with them.
The current Nativity Fast is the final one of the departing century. Let us spend it in a worthy manner.
Archpriest Victor Potapov
December, 1999