Today – in case anyone has failed to notice – is the day the western churches (and those Orthodox Christians on the new calendar) celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the last week of so, it seems that a number of movie versions of the story, “A Christmas Carol,” have been shown on television. I don’t know how much Charles Dickens knew of Orthodox theology, but I am struck by the words he put in the mouth of Marley’s ghost, the specter who appears to Ebenezer Scrooge at the onset of the story. Scrooge asks Marley why he appears bound in chains, with moneyboxes linked to the chains. Marley’s ghost replies, “I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.” Marley bound himself to earthly things, never giving thought to heavenly matters; and so doomed himself to suffer in all eternity for the loss of what does not endure beyond death.
We are still in the midst of our journey to Bethlehem, and our celebration of the feast of the Nativity. We celebrate the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One of God. He came to set us free from our own bondage, to break the gates of Hell and to trample down death by death. Our Lord Jesus Christ has the power to break the chains with which we bind ourselves, if we will allow Him to do so. But this means, among other things, that we must be transformed, we must break the habits by which we forge our own chains, link by link, and bind ourselves in these chains by our own free will. Our Lord has the power to set us free – but we must do our part.
Consider the Parable of the Great Supper, the first reading today from the Gospel according to St. Luke. A great feast has been prepared, and the host sends his servant to bid those for whom the feast has been prepared to come, as it is ready. However, the invited guests decline to come, pleading other commitments. The Fathers tell us that the man who would not attend because he had just bought a piece of ground represents those of us who are governed by the wisdom of the world, and cannot accept the mysteries of faith, only the laws of nature. Thus, the birth of Christ from the Virgin is unacceptable, for it is not a natural birth to this type of person. The man who has purchased five oxen represents those who have bound the soul to the five senses of the body, making the soul into flesh, and limiting it to this world, with no desire to partake of the mystical Great Supper. (This should give us pause, as the foretaste of the Great Supper will be offered today – but how many are prepared to partake of it?) The man who does not attend because he has just taken a wife stands for those who are lovers of pleasure and who live to please the flesh, which is the mate of the soul. But living to please the flesh means that we are not living to please God.
Do you see the parallel? When we persist in our habits of indulging the passions, we weigh ourselves down, as it were, with the chains we make for ourselves – we keep ourselves from rising up to the heavens to meet our Lord and our God. How, then, do we receive the power needed to break the chains that bind us, and weigh us down in body, mind, and spirit? We do so by making the journey of preparation; by living the life of the Orthodox faith and Church; by prayer, and fasting, by giving alms and offerings, and struggling to replace our passions with the virtues that are their opposites: love, instead of hatred; humility, instead of pride; patience, understanding, and forgiveness, in place of remembering the sins and wrongs of others; abstinence and chastity in place of gluttony and lust; generosity in place of greed; laboring, in place of sloth; and so on. We find the power to make the journey in the grace of God, given to us by His mercy and love for us; and strengthened indeed by the mysteries of the faith, of which the greatest is that of holy Communion, in the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Brothers and sisters, our Lord has come to set us free, to give us life that will not end. Let us choose to be free; and to live in a way that is pleasing to God, breaking the chains of our passions and sins that bind us to the world, that bind us to death. Let us prepare ourselves for the Great Supper that God desires all His people to attend; for, by preparing ourselves, and answering His call, we shall glorify His name, and shall save our souls.
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