The Creator has come, raising up mankind from the earth, making His royal image new again! (Matins of the Feast, December 20, third hymn of the Praises)
AT THE HEART OF THE FEAST of the Nativity is the proclamation that Christ has come to restore Adam to Paradise:
Christ comes voluntarily to serve; the Creator now receives the image of impoverished Adam, enriching him with divinity, and granting him a strange restoration and regeneration, for He is compassionate. (Triode of Compline of the Forefeast, December 20, first ode)
Come, Let us rejoice in the Lord, as we tell of the present mystery. The middle wall of partition has been destroyed; the flaming sword turns back, the cherubim withdraw from the tree of life; (1) and I partake of the delight of Paradise, from which I was cast out through disobedience. For the express Image of the Father, the Imprint of His eternity, takes the form of a servant, and without change He comes forth from a Mother who did not know wedlock. For what He was, He has remained: true God and what He was not, He has taken upon Himself becoming man through love for mankind. To Him let us cry: O God, who was born of a Virgin, have mercy, on us. (Vespers of the Nativity, first hymn of the Stichera)
When He saw that the one in His image and likeness had fallen through transgression, Jesus bowed the heavens and came down and made His dwelling in a virgin womb without change, thereby refashioning corrupted Adam, who cried out: Glory to Your epiphany, my Redeemer and my God! (Fourth hymn of the Lity of the Nativity)
Man fell from the divine and better life. Though made in the Image of God, through transgression he became subject to decay. Him the wise Creator now refashions, for He has been glorified. (First ode of the Canon of the Nativity)
Jesus is called the New Adam. Jesus was everything Adam failed to be. Adam disobeyed God, but Jesus was “obedient to the point of death” (Phil. 2:8). Through Adam death came into the world; through Jesus eternal life (see 1 Cor.15:21-22). The first Adam was made by God from the earth; the New Adam was “begotten of the Father before all ages” and “came down from heaven” (Nicene Creed). The Incarnate Christ is the one and only God-man. He is what it means to be God, and He is what it means to be human. We were children of Adam, but because of Christ we are now children of God.
A simple choice has been laid before us: to die to Adam—that is to sin, passion, and self—and live to Christ; or to go on living as though the Incarnation never happened. Will I accept the Image and Likeness of God that is given to me anew in the person of Jesus? Or will I continue to live for myself? Will I choose the tree of knowledge of good and evil over the tree of life? Or will I choose to become “dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11)?
~Vassilios Papavassiliou, Meditations for Advent: Preparing for Christ’s Birth
1 Genesis 3:24.
