Prayer
Lord Jesus, You have come so many times to us and found no resting place, forgive us for our overcrowded lives, our vain haste and our preoccupation with self. Come again, O Lord, and though our hearts are a jumble of voices, and our minds overlaid with many fears, find a place however humble, where You can begin to work Your wonder as you create peace and joy within us. If in some hidden corner, in some out-or-the-way spot, we can clear away the clutter, and shut out the noise and darkness, come be born again in us, and we shall kneel in perfect peace with the wisest and humblest of men.
Help us to enter into this Christmas Fast with humility, yet with joy. And finally Lord, give us Christmas from within, that we may share it from without, on all sides, all around us, wherever there is need. God help us, every one, to share the blessing of Jesus, in whose name we keep Christmas holy. Amen.
Meditation: Why Did He Come?
Why did God choose to come to us in Person? What were the reasons that impelled Him to visit us? They must have been awfully important reasons to make God empty Himself and take the form of a servant. Couldn’t He have sent someone else? Couldn’t He have ordered an angel or an archangel to come? Why did the Lord of the Universe Himself have to come?
We see an indication of why God would ultimately come to earth in the Old Testament where we hear God saying in Exodus 3:7-8, “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and heard their cry …for I know their sorrows and sufferings and trials. And I have come down to deliver them.”
He would come because He cared, He would come to deliver His people from the slavery of sin and death. He would come because He loved us.
The Apostle John expressed superbly the great reason for His coming in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Meditation: Why Did He Come?
St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote:
“Do you ask why God was born among men?”
“Here is the reason for God’s presence among men. Our nature was sick and needed a doctor. Man had fallen and needed someone to raise him up. He who had ceased to participate in the good needed someone to bring him back to it. He who was shut in darkness needed the presence of life. The prisoner was looking for someone to ransom him, the captive for someone to take his part. He who was under the yoke of slavery was looking for someone to set him free. Were these trifling and unworthy reasons to impel God to come down to visit human nature…?”
~ Presbytera Emily Harakas & Fr. Anthony Coniaris, DAILY MEDITATIONS and Prayers for the CHRISTMAS ADVENT Fast and Epiphany: Living the Days of Advent and Epiphany according to the Orthodox Church Calendar
