The incompre-hensible and inexplicable Na-

tivity of Christ took place according to the chronol-ogy of the Eastern Church in the year 5508 from the creation of the world, when Herod the Great was reign-ing in Judea. He was from Ascalon on his mother’s side and from Idumea on his father’s, and altogether a stranger to the race of Jacob, receiving his king-dom from the Emperors of Rome. He ruled over the Jewish people for 33 years. The former royal tribe of Juda had been deprived of its rights and stripped of all rule and authority. It was in these circumstances for the Jews that the ex-pected Messiah was born, and the prophecy spoken 1807 years earlier by the Patriarch Jacob was unerr-ingly fulfilled: There will not lack a ruler from Juda, nor a leader from his loins until he for whom it is in-tended comes, and he is the expectation of nations (Gen. 49:10). Our Saviour

was born in Bethlehem, a city of Judea, to which Joseph had gone up from Nazareth in Galilee, tak-ing with him Mary, his espoused, who was with child, that they too might be enrolled, according to the decree that had been is-sued in those days from the then ruling emperor Au-gustus Caesar, among his subjects. When the time for the birth came, and because, and because, ow-ing to the great numbers of people who had arrived, there was not sufficient room in the public inn, the Virgin’s condition made it necessary for her to enter a cave near Bethlehem and into a stable used for ani-mals, where she gave birth and wrapped the babe in swaddling clothes when it was born, and laid him in a manger (Lk. 2:1.7). From this there arose the tradi-tion that when he was born Christ was laid between two animals, an ox and an ass. As the words of the Prophets appear also to justify: In the midst of two

animals you will be known (Hab. 3:2) and The ox knows its owner and the ass its lord’s manger (Is. 1:3); even though these animals are understood tropologi-cally by the interpreters for those who believed from among the Jews and the nations, or according to another more natural un-derstanding. But while the earth received the Saviour so poorly at his birth, from above heaven celebrated with magnificence his coming to save the world. Some shepherds in the re-gion of Bethlehem, who were keeping a night watch over their sheep, were sud-denly surrounded by an extraordinary light and saw before them an Angel bringing them the good tidings of the joyful birth of the Lord. And immedi-ately, after the one Angel, they saw and heard the whole host of the heavenly Powers praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will among men (Lk. 2:8-14).

His Eminence Metropolitan Iakovos of ChicagoRev. Fr. Michael Monos and family

Katie Artemas

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Angelo, Elly, and Gus Aslanidis

Gus and Georgia Aslanidis

Jimmy and Dina Aslanidis

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and Peter Popescu

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and Benjamin Travlos

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Univ. of Missouri Orthodox Christian Fellowship

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Rebecca Wippold

K. P., Sara, Susan & Lily Zacharias

Eapen Zacharias

Saint Luke the Evangelist Greek Orthodox Church 1510 Audubon drive

columbia, Missouri 65201www.saintlukecolumbia.org

Mode 1.Let heaven and earth today pro-phetically be glad. Let us, Angels

and mortals, spiritually keep festival, for God has appeared in

flesh, born from a woman, to those who sit in darkness and shadow. A

cave and a manger have received him. Shepherds proclaim him.

Magi from the East bring gifts in Bethlehem, while with unworthy lips let us bring him praise, as we

sing, like the Angels, ‘Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth’; for the expectation of the nations has come. He has come, he has

saved us from the slavery of the foe.

Ἦχος α’Ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ, σήμερον προφητικῶς ἐφραινέσθωσαν.

Ἄγγελοι καὶ ἄνθρωποι, πνευματικῶς πανηγυρίσωμεν, ὅτι Θεὸς ἐν

σαρκὶ ἐπέφανε, τοῖς ἐν σκότει καὶ σκιᾷ καθημένοις, γεννηθεὶς ἐκ γυναικός. Σπήλαιον καὶ φάτνη ὑπεδέξαντο αὐτόν. Ποιμένες τὸ θαῦμα ἀνακηρύττουσι. Μάγοι

ἐξ Ἀνατολῶν, ἐν Βηθλεὲμ δῶρα προσάγουσιν· ἡμεῖς δὲ τὸν αἶνον

ἀναξίοις χείλεσιν, ἀγγελικῶς αὐτῷ προσάξωμεν. Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις

Θεῷ, καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη· ἦλθε γὰρ ἡ προσδοκία τῶν ἐθνῶν· ἦλθεν,

ἔσωσεν ἡμᾶς, ἐκ τῆς δουλείας τοῦ ἐχθροῦ.