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Behold a Great Light: A Daily Devotional for the Nativity Fast through Theophany
NOVEMBER 15
NATIVITY FEAST BEGINS
"Keeping Vigil"
Fr. Stephen Freeman
- Luke 2:29–32
A story is told of an old monk in the desert who would turn to face the east at sundown each day and continue praying until he saw the sun reappear. Somehow this story has always struck me as more profound than simply saying, “He prayed all night long.” For, beyond the fact that he was praying, he was also waiting. He was keeping a true vigil in that he was actually watching for something. In the first instance—praying all night—he might develop a happy joy that he was almost finished. That would somehow be wrong. Instead, this unknown monk could welcome with joy the sun’s appearance, completely apart from the fact that his nightly prayers were ending. The object of his waiting had appeared, bringing his heart some measure of fulfillment.
Forty days before Christmas, the Orthodox Church begins a period of waiting. We change the way we eat—eating less, avoiding certain categories of foods. It can feel like a season of absence, like a labor to be done whether we like it or not. When our hearts sink into such a line of thought, our fast becomes a chore and holds little joy. We find ourselves alone in the desert, forgetting that we’re waiting for the sun.
We live in a hurry. Stores promise us “no waiting!” Time spent standing in line or stuck in traffic is seen as wasted. Patience is not something we cultivate as a virtue, and various teachers attack our unhappy wasted time by urging us to learn to live “in the moment.” There is, no doubt, something to be said for such a practice. Too often, though, our mindful moments are spent trying to become content with emptiness.
The Nativity fast, like the Lenten fast, is not rightly seen as wasted time—time when we’re not yet doing the thing for which we’re preparing. It is more like extended time, an experience that encompasses weeks of our lives in its unfolding. The Nativity fast is already the Nativity in this sense.
The period of the fast is a period of formation, a time when through our actions and intentions we intensify our desire for Christ and His life within us. We could say of the Mother of God that the Nativity extended through nine months of gestational preparation. In a similar manner, the Christ Child is being “formed within us” as we bear Him in the fast. Saint Paul drew on this image when he called the Galatians “my little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:19). Our fasting in this season, coupled with our prayers and almsgiving, is part of a formation of Christ within us. The character of Christ is slowly shaped within us to some degree through the working of the Holy Spirit.
Our efforts of waiting, preparing, fasting, praying, and giving alms are not unlike our actions throughout the year. Although the Nativity and Lenten fasts are more rigorous than the Wednesday–Friday fast in most weeks, they are still only fasts. They are rewarded with the joys of a feast when their labors are accomplished. Those joys themselves are but echoes of a greater feast.
The whole of our life can be seen as a fasting period, a time of preparation. Our lives are moving toward the truly Great Feast, the heavenly banquet at the end of the age, or its foretaste in the “homecoming” each of us finds at the end of this life. The small things we learn in the various seasons reflect this long arc of a lifetime. Saint Paul said it well:
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor. 4:17–18)
- Vigil of Great Compline, Eve of the Nativity, December 24
NOVEMBER 16
FEAST OF THE HOLY APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST MATTHEW
“Follow Me”
Fr. Stephen Freeman
- Psalm 32/33:18–22
Today the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Matthew. An ancient tradition assigns his name to the first Gospel, though the text itself never makes mention of its author. Together with the other three evangelists, St. Matthew has acquired a symbol that is often seen in Church iconography and architecture: Matthew is a man or an angel, while Mark is a lion, Luke is an ox, and John is an eagle. These four creatures appear first in the vision of the Prophet Ezekiel (Ezek. 1) and a second time in the Revelation of St. John (chapter 4). Tradition has associated these appearances with the four Gospels.
Saint Matthew is symbolized by the figure of a man because his Gospel focuses on the humanity of Christ, beginning with His genealogy—His human lineage. Some also note that St. Matthew’s Gospel often casts Christ as a “New Moses” giving a “new law” in His teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Of course, his Gospel proclaims the divinity of Christ as well, in harmony with all the Gospels.
Saint Matthew was well situated to see the humanity of Christ. He had been a tax collector when Jesus called him to be an apostle (Matt. 9:9). As such, he would have been despised by his fellow citizens as a sellout to their hated Roman overlords.
There was no particular virtue in being a tax collector. There is no story that encourages us to be sympathetic to such a path in life. We are, however, keenly aware in our time of the separations and pain caused by political differences. Very few Jews, particularly those who were pious, would have felt anything other than hatred for someone who had chosen to side with Rome. It is therefore all the more remarkable that Christ reaches across that divide to call Matthew to Himself.
We have no background for St. Matthew’s conversion. We are told simply that he was sitting, doing his work, when Jesus confronted him and said, “Follow Me.” Later, Matthew had a feast in his home to which he invited other tax collectors and “sinners,” together with Jesus. When the religious leaders of Israel complained about this, Christ said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Matt. 9:12–13).
We can see in this exchange the humanity of Christ, who argues with the religious leaders about the nature and meaning of the Law. In Matthew’s Gospel Christ will say, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law. . . . I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (5:17). Repeatedly, Christ makes clear that the nature of the Law is found in mercy and generosity.
Saint John’s Gospel, where Christ’s divinity is most clearly displayed, speaks of transcendent love rather than the Law. Matthew, however, hears in Christ the revelation that the Law of God, rightly understood, is love in the fullness of its truth. No doubt, his movement from tax collector to apostle was a movement toward just such an understanding.
Saint Matthew is not just a tax collector; he is also a symbol of the many sinful things that occupy our time and separate us from God and neighbor. Christ’s simple words echo through him to all of us: “Follow Me.” It is an invitation to come to Christ, but also to the banquet as though we are in Matthew’s home. There we can feast with our fellow sinners, now made righteous through the Blood of Christ, who bids us each to come to His table. What joy!
- Troparion of St. Matthew, November 16
