The Mother of God is a mystery. This means that no matter how much we try to reason and learn who she is, we will never be able to fully understand or comprehend her part in the salvation of man. Why is this? Because we cannot fully comprehend God who made her. With everything humanity has, we cannot even find out what is on this earth or what is in the ocean, the universe and so on and we are going to comprehend God that made them? That is foolishness to think such a thing. But even the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. It was not the foolishness of God that did its part in building itself a temple to dwell in, but the wisdom of God. Listen to the church testify this. For every feast of the Mother of God we read three old-testament readings during vespers. The first describes her as a ladder, the second as a gate, the third as a temple. It starts like this, “Wisdom hath built herself a temple.” In other words, the wisdom of God built, for Himself, a dwelling place here on earth and what the wisdom of God has built, we will never be able to fully comprehend and that’s ok.
What did the wisdom of God create and form? A dwelling place for Himself. Listen to the first words of a homily in the Lives of the Saints, “The Lord, Who dwells in the heavens, wishing to appear on earth and abide with men, first prepared a dwelling place for His glory: His most pure Mother.” God rested in the temple that Solomon built, but only in part and could not contain the uncontainable God. Do you remember Moses on mt Sinai. God rested on it and the whole mountain was set on fire and became red hot. Do you remember Elijah and the mountain he was on. God rested on it and there was fire, wind, earthquake and so on. If God fully rested in the temple of Solomon, it would be on fire from His divine energy and consume everything. But thanks be to Gods mercy, it was not His plan to consume everything, but restore it. Therefore the wisdom of God, like a master builder, created a temple not made with hands, where He alone can dwell. Lives of the Saints, “All things created by the Wisdom of God are good and perfect, and since it was the Wisdom of God that fashioned the living temple of the Word, a perfect temple was fashioned for a perfect God, a most radiant palace for the most radiant King.” This is who was born on this day that Orthodox Christians celebrate.
Why is this necessary for us or for our salvation? The Mother of God is like a bridal chamber. A bridal chamber is a room that is prepared and after the wedding service, the bridegroom and bride enter and the marriage is consummated and the two become as one. What two things have become consummated and become as one? The apostle Paul tries to describe this mystery in his epistle to the Ephesians, “For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” Gods’ divine nature and our human nature. What used to be separate have now joined in union. And the bridal chamber where this took place was in the womb of Mary, the Mother of God. The Divine Word of God our Bridegroom Jesus Christ came down from heaven, took on our fallen human nature, and consummated our union with God. We see and confess this every time we make the sign of the Cross on ourselves. We make the external sign with our hands and the Mother of God is there also. Where? When we see Jesus’s human nature. She is there also. A bridal chamber most pure and undefiled was prepared; for the spotless Lamb, an unsullied dwelling place. She is described in Songs of Solomon, Ch 4, “Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.”
Through this we see that, the first step, of God’s plan of salvation, has been set in motion with the nativity of His mother. The plan, that from the moment Adam and Eve transgressed Gods commandment and ate the fruit that He did not allow them, had begun. The plan that God told Satan, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” This is the plan that, Christ would come through the seed of Eve and restore humanity from its illness, that infected and altered it. This seed is Jesus Christ who would borrow His flesh from Mary His Mother. This is why we come together and celebrate her Nativity, the day that she was born. She had a begging just like you and me. Created by Gods will. Born from people made of clay Joachim and Anna, but she was full of God’s grace. We say, “Rejoice Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” That is the proper way to greet and ask for her intercessions. We humans have this grace, but only in part and that is sufficient for us to follow a life after God, but Mary had this grace in its fullness, through the wisdom of God, the master builder. And through this grace she lived a life holier than anyone who was born.
For this reason the church honors this feast day and celebrates the Nativity of Mary, the Mother of God. She is no ordinary women as some would have you believe. When we think or contemplate her nativity, we see a church or temple being born. A temple that would contain Christ, through whom the forgiveness of sin and the restoration of man would come forth. For this reason, the church confesses in its prayers, “The beginning of our salvation is come to pass today.” Never forget that your salvation had a beginning. There was a time that salvation was not possible and we had to fight an enemy we could not win. That is until the beginning of our salvation happened with the Nativity of the Mother of God and it was fulfilled on the Cross when Christ, who borrowed His flesh from Mary, said, “It is finished.” And through the Resurrection man was restored from the ancient deceit. May we never lose site of the role that the Mother of God has played in the salvation of man. She is a gift from God.