Written by M.C. Steenberg.
At the centre of the Nativity icon is a mystery. In the blackness of the cave, the eternal Son of the Father is born in the flesh. The unchanging Lord takes human form and life, and is made fully man of His Virgin Mother. When the time had come for all things to be accomplished, the Son came unto His own creation from a cave. The ‘light that shone in the darkness’, which the darkness so long had not accepted, ‘took flesh and dwelt amongst us’ and was now at last received—into the arms of an expectant mother.
And death itself began to be destroyed.
There had been a prophecy, generations before, delivered by the Lord to the serpent who had tempted humanity’s first parents: ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, between you and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel’ (Genesis 3.15); and when Christ is born in the flesh in Bethlehem, the ‘heel’ which Satan may bruise but by which he would eventually be conquered, comes in human form. The One who would conquer the tireless enemy of mankind is wrapped in birthing-clothes. He who will trample the devil and all his power underfoot, sleeps in a cave.
What resounds from that cave is nothing other than the Paschal mystery. The joy that wells up in the human heart at the advent of Christ in the flesh, is none other than the joy of Resurrection. It is the joy of the abolition of death. Christ is born, and the gates of Hades tremble. He is born, and the bonds which could only be defeated by the triumph over death itself, already begin to feel the crushing weight of their overthrow. As the Church hymns on the 23rd of December:
Make ready, O Bethlehem, for Eden is opened.
Prepare, O Ephratha, for Adam and Eve are renewed.
Salvation enters the world and the curse is destroyed.
Make ready, O hearts of righteous men!
Instead of myrrh, bring songs as an offering of wisdom.
Receive salvation and immortality for your bodies and your souls.
Behold, the Master who lays in a manger
Urges us to complete our spiritual songs.
Let us cry to Him without ceasing: O Lord, glory to Thee.
Sticheron at Vespers, 23rd December.
Eden is opened. Christ comes, and the fullness of salvation is made manifest: ‘salvation enters the world, and the curse is destroyed.’
There is an intimate, intrinsic connection between the Feast of the Nativity of Christ in the flesh, and the feast of His glorious Resurrection, the holy Pascha of the Lord. The two are united in the single saving reality of the Son’s incarnation, which from His human birth to His death and resurrection manifests the eternal saving design of the man-befriending God (o Theos philanthropos, Bog chelovekolioubetz). At the Feast of the Nativity, when we hymn Christ’s birth, we are already singing a Paschal song, already commemorating the great and mysterious events at the other terminus of His earthly life—for in Christ, the eternity of God meets the finitude of His creation, and we see in every moment of the Son’s human life the full scope and dimension of that eternity. Already, as we hymn the infant lain in the cave, we are enabled to sing with the hymn, ‘Salvation enters the world and the curse is destroyed’; already we are able to taste the glory of Paschal midnight, which we rejoice in the full mystery of a ‘death that has trampled down death’, bestowing life to those in the tombs. It begins here. It is known and encountered now.
The single mystery of the Son’s incarnation, from birth to death and resurrection from the dead, is demonstrated not only in the Church’s hymns, but also in her icons. The icons of the two feasts—Nativity and Pascha—show remarkable similarities, highlighting the interconnection and single reality of the divine realities they portray. Let us take two representative examples: the traditional festal icon of the Feast of the Nativity, and the icon of the Defeat of Hades, which is the most common Paschal representation of the resurrection:
Click icons for larger version:
Icon of the Nativity, Moscow School, by a
follower of Rublev (?); early 15th century Icon of the Defeat of Hades; Byzantine style,
16th century
The icon of the Nativity of Christ in the flesh paints a familiar scene. At its centre is a cave, beside which reclines the Mother of God, true Theotokos, and within which resides the newly-born Son. Multiple scenes from the narratives of the Gospels are present together: angels and shepherds pay obeisance; Magi from the east arrive with gifts; and at the icon’s bottom, Righteous Joseph’s consolation is portrayed.
Positioned next to the icon of the Defeat of Hades, a distinct similarity of construction is apparent. There is blackness at the centre of each icon, out of which emerges Christ. Angels venerate both events—the coming in the flesh, and the coming out of the grave. In each scene, the world is called to the centrality of Christ’s life: as shepherds and Magi attend to Christ’s birth, so do elders and disciples attend His Resurrection. And indeed, Christ as the centre of the cosmos is expanded in the icon of the Resurrection, where it is not just ‘from the east’ that humanity is drawn, but from the whole of history, back to its very beginnings. Christ draws Adam and Eve to Himself in the resurrection, lifting out of Hades ‘those mortals whom death held in its power’ (cf. Resurrectional kondak in the 7th tone).
A number of significant theological features are inscribed in the traditional image of the Nativity. The blackness of the cave in which Christ lays, images the words of St John: ‘A light shone in the darkness, but the darkness received it not’ ({bible}John 1.5{/bible})—a terrible reality of history, now met with its salvation in the Light that ‘has taken flesh and dwelt amongst us’ (cf. {bible}John 1.14{/bible}). This is not a ‘manger scene’ as regularly encountered in the West: the black cave is the confession of this world’s true state of darkness, torn from communion with God through the sin of man. Christ emerges within this very darkness, revealing Himself into the heart of human suffering and struggle.
Significant, too, is the fact of the centrality of the Theotokos to the icon as a whole. If anything, it is the figure of the Mother of God that is the centrepiece to the image; but why would this be so, in an icon representing the Lord’s human birth? Precisely because it is His truly human birth, and it is in the humanity of His mother that this is established and assured. Her person, then, indicates the fully human significance of the Son’s birth. It is His birth of her, of a truly, fully human woman, that assures the world that this is not merely some apparition, some vague appearance or even Theophany, but a new and exceptional condescension of the Lord to His creation. And so the Mother of God is central to the icon, not to defer glory or attention from her Son—the whole icon is of Christ, of the glory of His incarnation—but to proclaim that her Son’s incarnation is an act for, of and in humanity. Christ comes ‘unto His own’ ({bible}John 1.11{/bible}), and in this coming, renews not only what is His, but what is ours. This is the mystery exclaimed in the Canon of the Sunday of the Forefathers of Christ (Sunday before the Nativity):
He who was begotten of the Father before the ages beyond understanding, in the last times became flesh from the Virgin, as He knows how; for He wished to renew humanity, corrupted by the plot of the evil serpent.{footnote}Matins of the Forefathers of Christ (Sunday before the Nativity), Canon of the Forefeast, Ode 3; after the translation by Archimandrite Ephrem.{/footnote}
It is of the Virgin that the Son takes flesh, ‘as He knows how’, precisely because ‘He wished to renew humanity’. The renewal of man is the renewal of man’s nature: anything else would be merely external, merely show (however divine). But the sin of man was a sin that affected the very nature of human existence. While the nature God had fashioned remained holy, remained and remains the immediate handiwork of the Lord, it had been scarred by sin. Transgression corrupted that which, by God’s grace, had once been borne up in incorruption, which now had lost that grace and life. Salvation could come only in the renewal of the creature who had forged for itself a new ‘life’ that was in fact death: who was becoming less human day by day through the distortion and disfiguration of sin. This is as St Athanasius once wrote:
What was God to do in the face of this dehumanising of mankind—this universal hiding of the knowledge of Himself by the wiles of the evil spirits? Was He to keep silence before so great a wrong and let men go on being thus deceived and kept in ignorance of Himself? […] What, then, was God to do? What else could He possibly do, being God, but renew His Image in mankind, so that through it men might once more come to know Him? And how could this be done save by the coming of the very Image Himself, our Saviour Jesus Christ?{footnote}St Athanasius of Alexandria, On the incarnation of the Word, 13.{/footnote}
So the Virgin sits central to the icon of the Nativity, for Christ comes in His fullness into the fullness of His human race; He takes human flesh from one of the race He comes to save—a race that longs for His coming. The Theotokos is, even in the midst of her purity, of the reality of her life as ‘only pure and undefiled’, one of that race which has, together with all creation, been ‘groaning and travailing together’ (cf. {bible}Romans 8.22{/bible}) since the exile born in Eden. She, like every created person, longs for the salvation of the race.
Of her the Saviour is born. The Son gives Himself freely to the world for its salvation, and the world offers Him itself in the form of the Theotokos, seeking redemption.
What shall we offer Thee, O Christ, who for our sakes hast appeared on earth as man? Every creature made by Thee offers Thee thanks. The angels offer Thee a hymn; the heavens, a star; the Magi, gifts; the shepherds, their wonder; the earth, its cave; the wilderness, the manger: and we, we offer Thee a Virgin Mother. O pre-eternal God, have mercy on us!{footnote}Sticheron on Lord, I have cried…, Vespers of the Nativity; by Anatolios.{/footnote}
So at the feasting of creation in the human Nativity of its Lord, a Mother ‘holds in her embrace a Son, who is Lord of all’ (cf. Theotokion at the First Hour); but the salvation worked by the Lord, even in this act of his birth in the flesh, is of sweetness mixed with sorrow. The Magi bear gifts of myrrh as well as gold: emblems of sorrow and death as well as regal joy. The salvation of the race comes in the defeat of sin—in no other way. And so the Mother of God bears a face in the icon, not of romantic joy or unrestrained happiness, but of pensive reflection. Her mother’s heart knows the sacrifice to come—the sacrifice already being realised. This One shall save His world from sin and death, but there is only one defeat of death: death itself.
And it is here that the icon of the Nativity begins to bear marked theological, as well as visual, similarities to the icon of the Resurrection. In the awareness of the nature of Christ’s true self-sacrifice ‘for the life of the world and for its salvation’ (Anaphora of St John) exemplified by the Virgin’s expression and posture, the whole scene is suddenly intensely Paschal, in the full scope of the Paschal mystery of death-defeating-death and life conquering sin. The cave is indistinguishable from a tomb; the blackness of an unreceptive world indistinguishable from the blackness of death in the grave. Perhaps most potently, the ‘manger’ of the Bethlehem cave is indistinguishable from a sarcophagus. Is the Son born, or is he laid to rest? The icon makes the fact of these events’ interconnection a point of theological centrality. Christ is born, Christ is dead: only thus is Christ risen. Only thus does man have a newness of life.
This becomes especially clear when the icon of the Nativity is compared with another icon of the Resurrection, namely that of the myrrh-bearing women at the tomb of Christ on the third day:
Click icons for larger version:
Icon of the Nativity of Christ; contemporary rendering, provenance unknown Icon of the Myrrh-bearing Women and the tomb of Christ; Greek style, provenance unknown
Here the Nativity and Resurrection are mirrored almost exactly, drawn together with profound theological significance. Christ is born into a manger identical in form to a tomb; and the theological witness is that, in the icon of the resurrection, the tomb is suddenly indistinguishable from a manger. If it seemed for a moment strange that the place of the Lord’s birth should be mingled in the icon with a reminder of His death, now that imagery’s meaning is fully revealed: Just as our sin unites birth to death and makes every human nativity an assurance of a human departure from this life (for all are bound by sin, all die)—making every person’s ‘manger’ or cradle a kind of foretelling of his tomb—so Christ’s incarnation, His truly human birth and death, transforms the tomb into an image of life. The sarcophagus, the grave, are made mangers that cradle an entry into new life – a life of eternity in the Kingdom.
Here we are given cause to see the unique and mystical relationship of these two great Feasts, and of the wonderful salvation offered in the incarnate Lord. We, in our sin, have turned birth into a source of death. Through our wickedness, each birth foretells a dying. Into this reality Christ fully enters, and by so entering, undoes the bonds of sin. Through His birth, death and resurrection, He effects a greater mystery than that of our sin: through the offering of His life, the place of death—the tomb—is made a manger of life, for nothing can hold in bondage the eternal Life of the true God.
As such, the icons remind us that the Nativity in the Flesh is a feast bound up in the whole saving reality of Christ: a feast of Pascha, and of sin’s defeat. This is the consistent refrain, too, of the Church’s hymns for Nativity. At the Sunday before the Feast, the matins canon draws to a culminating Ninth Ode:
Strange, wonderful and dread mysteries! The Lord of glory came to earth, and as a beggar in a cave He put on flesh, seeking to call back Adam, and to deliver Eve from her pains.{footnote}Matins of the Forefathers of Christ (Sunday before the Nativity), Canon of the Forefeast, Ode 9.{/footnote}
The raising up of Adam and Eve from Hades, the central image of the icon of the Resurrection, is foretold already in the Sunday before Christ’s human birth. This is the full fruit of His advent, of His coming. Unless it culminates in this—in the salvation of the race, back to its beginnings—it is for naught. This is the reason why the hymns so often tie together the cave in Bethlehem with the flowering paradise of Eden, the home of the first-fashioned man. Christ, born of the Virgin, becomes the new entry to this lost Kingdom from which His creature has been in exile. And more than simply a return to Eden, the incarnate Son opens to man the possibility of even a higher communion with his Lord: access to the Tree of Life, not yet known in Eden, which is Christ Himself:
Prepare, O Bethlehem,
For Eden has been opened to all.
Adorn yourself, O Ephratha,
For the Tree of Life blossoms forth from the Virgin in the cave.
Her womb is a spiritual paradise planted with the fruit divine;
If we eat of it, we shall live forever and not die like Adam.
Christ is coming to restore the image He made in the beginning.{footnote}Troparion of the Forefeast of the Nativity, in the Fourth Tone.{/footnote}
Christ brings to man a newness of life: the very life known in Eden, yet in fuller measure. He is the pinnacle of creation, that towards which mankind has always been moving, despite the great tragedy of its sin. And this fullness of the Tree of Life is now opened to the human race. Man is drawn into the ‘fruit divine’ of ‘spiritual paradise’: that which, when consumed, transfigures the fallen creature and opens the door to a new likeness to the Image of God.
The human response, then, to these two Feasts which are united as one, both in the hymns and in the icons of the Church, must be one of ascesis. Of struggle. Eden is reopened: we step anew into Paradise. What shall we do there? Shall we repeat the sin of our ancestors? Or shall we struggle against the false promises of the passions and feast on the true fruit of eternal life offered in the incarnate Son? This is the ascetical dimension of the Feast to which the hymns give witness:
Let us reject the corruption of passions,
Awaiting the visitation of Christ.
Let us come to our senses and receive knowledge:
The gift of the undefiled Lord
Who comes to be clothed in our flesh
Refashioning us in godliness.{footnote}Compline hymn for the 20th of December.{/footnote}
The Nativity of Christ calls creation into action. ‘Let us come to our senses’—the same charge offered on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son at the advent of Great Lent—and see the dimensions of the new life set before us. Let us discover, through prayer and struggle, how Christ’s birth, united to His death, draws us into our own baptismal death and resurrection into His life.
Unless we are called into action by this Feast, we shall remain always outside it. But when it calls us into a life of suffering joy that leads to the cross, and through it to the glorious resurrection, then we, too, will stand at the cave and sing with the angels:
The Creator, the Wisdom of God, draws near,
The mist of the prophet’s promise is dispersed.
Joy clears the skies!
Truth is resplendent!
The dark shadows are dispelled;
The gates of Eden are opened!
Adam dances in exultation:
Our Creator and God wills to fashion us anew.{footnote}Hymn at Matins, 21st of December.{/footnote}
6th January, 2009{footnote}Based on words given to the discussion group of St John’s Academy, San Francisco, 4th December 2008.{/footnote}
