Christmas Night
Christmas reflections.
A quiet winter evening
The snow’s soft creak,
The west is faintly sketched,
By shadows of slender limes.
An unusual secret
Fills each gentle stroke,
A bird’s cry, fleeting,
In the fir grove broke.
In every life, I feel
A bond that ties us true.
I wait for a star, a miracle,
On Christmas night so blue.
Not without reason, the clouds
Wear their patterned guise,
Soon the moon will rise in wonder,
But for now, the skies...
A quiet winter evening,
The snow’s soft creak,
The west is faintly sketched,
By shadows of slender limes.
Hieromonk Simon (Bezkrovny)
(AI-generated translation)
If we could climb a high mountain on Christmas night, treading across the crisp, snow-white carpet through the straight rows of pines, from its peak we would see how angels, in shimmering robes, descend to earth along moonlit paths under bright stars, to find at least one heart where the Christ Child might find His shelter on this night.
Christmas night is the most mysterious and magical night. God, who drew the Milky Way, weighed every star, created the atomic structure of matter, is lying helpless as a Child in a manger, while animals are gazing at Him with wide eyes, filled with wonder. He who gives sustenance to all things, who maintains in harmony the complex and intricate system of the universe, is in need of His Mother’s milk and can do nothing without Her help.
The evangelists say nothing of what happened in the Saviour’s life between His birth and His public preaching. And I would love to know what childhood and youth were like for the Lord on earth.
What was the first word spoken by the Divine Logos as a little child? How did He learn to walk, the One who charted the trajectory of every planet? How did He learn the carpenter's craft, the One who determined the constants of the Universe? Did the sound of His bright, childlike laughter ever echo? Did He ask His parents the usual questions of youth, the One who gave the world its fundamental physical laws? Did He enjoy playing with His peers, or did He keep to Himself?
As a child, I loved playing hide-and-seek. One would lean against a tree and count to thirty, while the rest of the group would scatter and hide, hoping to run back to that tree and knock on it a few times.
I seem to have played this game with Christ for a very long time. I tried to hide from Him everywhere, in every nook and cranny, hoping to sin while He wasn't looking. And it took me many years to realise that He always found me, and I ended up losing.
The fortunes of other players in our company shaped differently. Some hid from Christ all their lives until they found their final refuge in the grave. Some are still hiding. And some are now trying to find Christ themselves. If only they could…
The Magi brought their gifts to the Saviour – gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold as to the King of Earth, frankincense as to the Lord of Heaven, myrrh as to the One who must face death to bring life to the world.
Since then, we have been giving gifts at Christmas. They say that we should give God the very best, the most precious thing we have, and then He will give us Himself. If I had known that earlier, I wouldn’t have had any trouble deciding what to give. At six years old, I would have given Christ a set of plastic soldiers from the "Ice Battle" game. At fifteen – jeans; at seventeen, a "Vesna-202" cassette recorder. I might even have given Him a "Riga-4" moped; but now, after half a century, what can I give Him when I realise I have nothing truly my own, nor could I ever?
He waits for our greatest gift – a big, kind human heart. Yet I am ashamed to give Him mine. It's like when we used to have our nails checked at school, and I forgot to trim them in time, especially after helping my parents in the garden late into the night. I woke up tired, went to school, and there it was – the nail check. I didn’t t want to take my hands out of my pockets. Just like that, my heart is small, filled with who knows what, and it smells bad. Could such a heart be given to Christ? But it’s all I have. It’s shameful, of course…
The shepherds came out of curiosity without any gifts; but they were invited by angels, and they were not afraid to leave their flock unattended at night.
The wordless animals found themselves in the best position, for Christ Himself came to them, born in a stable. They warmed the Christ Child with their breath and the heat of their bodies. The Blessed Virgin Mary, St Joseph the Betrothed, and a few animals – these were the first to meet God in the world, the God who became Man. A little later, a few shepherds, followed by a small foreign delegation, came. Thus, in simplicity and poverty, the greatest event in the history of humanity took place – God revealed Himself in the Flesh.
Then He lived, taught, died, rose again, and ascended into Heaven. And we continue to stand, gazing upwards in wonder, wondering when He will return. The blue veil of the sky separates us from the Holy of Holies, the temple built in Heaven by the Angels. It is there, behind this veil, that Christ entered as the High Priest, offering Himself as the Sacrifice for each of us, once and for all.
But through His very close friends, the Saviour revealed a secret to us.
It turns out that our human heart is organised exactly like the Heavenly Tabernacle.
It turns out, our human heart is structured exactly like the Heavenly Tabernacle.
It too has a holy of holies – the human spirit, which is also behind the veil, through which nothing unclean can pass. And there, behind this partition, lives the same God who ascended into Heaven. If we see this Heaven within ourselves and try to enter its clouded depths, we might discover this mysterious curtain, beyond which there is neither time nor space but only the Light of Grace and Christ Himself, Who has hidden the greatest treasure in the world – Himself.
Yet, we continue to stand, leaning against the tree of life, counting, with our eyes closed, the years of our fleeting life. Meanwhile, the tree sheds its leaves, withers, and any moment, the gust of the wind of time is about to topple it to the ground. Today, from this tree, sparkling snowflakes fall. As they drift past, they sing a barely audible Christmas carol. It tells us that Christ can be found by the footprints He left for us in the snow.
We only need not to fear, to open our eyes and follow Him, step by step.
Your threshold opens to the east,
Beyond it, countless roads at least.
But you must choose just one to go,
The path the Magi once did know.
Above that road, a wondrous star
Whose light will never fade, afar.
And underneath, the sick and lost,
The Merciful Savior waits for us.
Hieromonk Simon (Bezkrovny)
(AI-generated translation)
