Saturday, December 11, 2010

Rejoice!

Knowing the truth of the Nativity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ should lead us to the greatest possible rejoicing.  Nothing more important than the Incarnation of God could possibly happen for our benefit.  This is an act that no human on their own accord could ever conceive of happening. How could anyone ever imagine a birth without the normal sexual intercourse? How could any woman imagine carrying God in their womb? How could the seed of a human being, be from the Holy Spirit?  How could God reduce Himself to be one of us!  This is all beyond our normal reasoning and this is precisely why we should have such Joy.  What was impossible for men happened through God out of His incredible mercy and love for us.  How can we not have total love of our God?


Saint Leo the Great also calls us to rejoicing in the Lord.
Let the righteous, then rejoice in the Lord, and let the hearts of believers turn to God's praise, and the sons of men confess His wondrous acts. That after His great gift to mankind in making us after His image, He contributed far more largely to our restoration when the Lord Himself took on Him "the form of a slave." For the first man received the substance of flesh from the earth, and was quickened with a rational spirit by the in- breathing of his Creator, so that living after the image and likeness of his Maker, he might preserve the form of God's goodness and righteousness as in a bright mirror. But because he trusted the envious deceiver, not only did that one man, in him all that came after him also hear the verdict: "earth thou art, and unto earth, shalt thou go," "as in the earthy," therefore, "such are they also that are earthy," and no one is immortal, because no one is heavenly.... But you, dearly beloved, whom I address in no less earnest terms than those of the blessed Apostle Peter, "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession," built upon the impregnable rock, Christ, and joined to the Lord our Saviour by His true assumption of our flesh, remain firm in that Faith, which you have professed before many witnesses, and in which you were born through water and the Holy Ghost, and received the anointing of salvation, and the seal of eternal life.
Rejoice!

Reference: Leo the Great Sermon 24

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