Every person born on earth is born in order to live and truly to realize his life.
But that death in this world is stronger than life, everyone knows and it seems an indisputable truth.
Man is born on earth in order to live, but death draws near to all of life, and man’s birth on earth seems pointless.
But here the only Person is born on earth not in order to live here, but in order to die.
Today Christ is born for this. This sole meaning of His Birth is to take upon Himself human death.
And here a surprising phenomenon takes place: life conquers death. It wins immediately, by its birth, by its incarnation. The Son of God, coming into this world, takes death upon itself, along with all the fullness of our humanity – feelings, thoughts, and experiences…
He takes upon Himself all the consequences of our life and our death. He immediately meets here on earth with that which He will later implement. The cave in which He is born is already an image of the cave in which the Savior will be laid after His Crucifixion.
The shroud in which the Mother of God wraps the Christ-child refers to the shroud in which the Righteous Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus will wrap the body of the crucified Savior after the anointing. The myrrh which the Magi bring to Him is drawn from the fragrant myrrh with which they will anoint the body of Christ, mourning Him after His Crucifixion.
All these images of His death were already established at the moment of His Nativity. The evil tyrant Herod: death, reigning during the Nativity of Christ, in the worst, most horrible death of the innocent children.
Christ came into this world to protect it by his death, to take our death upon Himself. For there is nothing more stupid, ruthless, and unjust than death. And man alone cannot do anything with this.
But here is Christ, taking upon Himself that which is worst and most senseless, suddenly filling human life with meaning. Because where there is God, there cannot be death.
There, where Christ is born, death disappears. Because He is true life, come into this world, full of death, misery, and meaninglessness.
He comes into this world, giving a wonderful little ray of life. And He does not need much room on earth. Christ takes on earth a very tiny space, a small cave, a nursery accepts Him. And this small place becomes the center of the entire world; from here comes victory over death.
And Christ overcomes this death. Christ overcomes it by His own death. Because He is not afraid to die for man. Because where there is love, there is no fear; there all fear is banished. Christ comes and with this love conquers death. If life is weaker than death, then love is stronger than death.
And then begins the Kingdom of God, then love fills all around, and everyone becomes a participant of this love. Because every person is given the opportunity to be born in Christ.
I already said that Christ does not need more space in this world. Yes, and in your soul Christ does not need much room. It is enough to prepare a small place in man’s heart for Christ to appear therein. So that there would be a place where His love will enter, where we will put His life. He casts out of us all death: for this it is necessary only to try, to labor on our heart.
We just need very much to want that Christ be born in each one of us.
This is not difficult: to want the Nativity of Christ in our hearts. Only later, when Christ is born in us, we need to be faithful to Him. This is very important.
Christ comes into every human heart, Christ is ready to be born in each one of us, regardless of the fact that we are not at all ready for this. We are by no means that beautiful place in which we can think about the Birth of God.
The Lord does not seek beautiful places for Himself to be born. The Lord is born in a cave, where there is livestock. The Lord lays in the manger, from which the cattle feed. He does not need purity in order to be born. He just needs space. Any place that we prepare for Him.
And our readiness is the first step towards Christ, the first and very important step. If one decides on this action, his life changes. Human life becomes different. And death recedes. Death is no longer terrible. There is no death in God; in God is only true and eternal life.
But for this life to preserve and grow, we need a lot of work. Real, big, serious work of the heart and soul. Life is not given to us easily; victory over death is not given to us easily. We have gotten used to living in dying; for us it is too familiar a situation, when death is near, and there is no life.
The Lord teaches us to live in Him, He teaches us to live in Christ, He teaches us every day to defeat death by our faith and our love. He teaches us to overcome death by our life in Christ. This is the main task of a Christian: to live Christ’s life and to defeat all death.
For this reason, Christ is born today. For this reason, He today comes to each one of us. And for this reason today everyone of us came to church: so that Christ would be born in each one of us, so that Christ would triumph, conquering our death and granting us love and life eternal. Amen.
Translated from the Russian.
