Sermon: Sunday after the Nativity
Today, the Sunday after the Nativity of Christ we celebrate the memory of the Holy and Righteous Joseph the Betrothed, Iakovos the Brother of the Lord and the Holy Prophet-King David. Last Sunday we heard the genealogy of Christ and two Sundays ago we celebrated the memory of the Holy Forefathers. This is the third Sunday in a row on which we celebrated the memory of the relatives of Christ according to the flesh. In this way does the Church celebrate the Nativity according to the flesh of God.
God truly became man with all of its dimensions. Christ had an immediate family. The Theotokos is His mother, Joseph was His father, Iakovos, Jude and Symeon, were his brothers, St John the Theologian was his nephew and St. John the Baptist was His cousin. Don’t misunderstand me, Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit. Christ had a human mother, the All-Holy Theotokos, from whom he received His human nature, but has a Heavenly Father. Christ is One of the persons of the pre-eternal Trinity about which the Evangelist writes: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”
The Righteous Joseph was not the husband of the Theotokos, he was only betrothed to her. Joseph played an important role in the Nativity of Christ in that he was the protector of the virginity of the Theotokos; the Righteous Joseph was at that time over 80 years old and the Theotokos was about 15 and it was obviously a pure relationship like that between a grandfather and granddaughter. In the eyes of the society around them, Joseph and the Theotokos were betrothed. God arranged things this way in order to deceive satan just as he deceived Adam and Eve.
The brethren of the Lord, like St. Iakovos (whose memory we celebrate today) were Joseph’s children from a previous wife. St. Iakovos, as a young boy accompanied his father Joseph and the Theotokos on their flight into Egypt which we heard in today’s Gospel. Later, when Joseph divided his inheritance among his children, he gave an equal portion to the Christ-child. All of his children objected to this except for St Iakovos who instead gave to Christ from his own inheritance. He became the first Bishop of Jerusalem and later martyred for Christ. The Gospel tells us that the Jews said “Is not this the carpenter\'s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him. and neither did his brethren believe in him” One of His brothers, named Jude later believed in Him and became a disciple. He repented that he had objected to giving Christ a portion of his inheritance. He wrote an epistle, which starts “Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of Iakovos.” He considered himself unworthy to call himself the brother of Christ but rather the servant of Christ and brother of Iakovos.