The birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: after the betrothal of His mother Mary to Joseph, before they were united, it turned out that She was with child of the Holy Spirit. Prior to this, the Evangelist described the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ, or, more precisely, the genealogy of the righteous Joseph from the tribe of Judah, from the tribe of David. In this genealogy, the Evangelist enumerated people born of men, in the natural way and manner in which all mortal men in the world are born. Suddenly he begins to describe the Nativity of the Lord and says: ου ε ου ου ε ου ..., as if he wants to show by this ε (and, however, however) the extraordinary and supernatural nature of His Birth, which is completely separated from the image of the birth of all the enumerated ancestors of Joseph. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph. In the eyes of the people, this betrothal could be considered a kind of preface to married life; but in the eyes of Mary and Joseph it could not be considered as such. Praying to God with tears, the Virgin Mary, according to the promise of her parents, was forever dedicated to God. For Her part, She voluntarily accepted this promise of Her parents, which is also shown by Her many years of service in the Temple of Jerusalem. If it had depended on Her will, she would undoubtedly have remained in the temple until her death, like Hannah, the daughter of Phanuel (Luke 2:36-37), but the law prescribed otherwise, and something else had to be fulfilled. She was betrothed to Joseph, not in order to live in marriage, but precisely in order to avoid marriage. All the details of this betrothal and its meaning are contained in the Tradition of the Church. And if people valued the Tradition associated with the Mother of God, with the righteous Joseph and with all the personalities mentioned in the Gospel, as much as they value the traditions, often the most stupid, associated with worldly kings, generals and sages, the meaning of the betrothal of the Most Holy Virgin to Joseph would be clear to everyone. (St. Ignatius says that the Virgin was betrothed, "so that His Nativity might be hidden from the devil, and so that the devil would therefore think of Him as being born of a lawful woman, and not of a virgin." II homily on the Annunciation).

Before they were united, these words do not mean that they were then united as husband and wife, the Evangelist does not even think about it. In this case, the Evangelist is interested in the Nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ itself, and nothing else, and he writes the words quoted above to show that His Birth took place without the union of husband and wife. Therefore, understand the words of the Evangelist exactly as if he had written: "And without combining them, it turned out that She was with child of the Holy Spirit." Only from the Holy Spirit could He be conceived, Who was to restore the Kingdom of the Spirit of light and love in the midst of the kingdom of the spirit of darkness and malice. How could He fulfill His Divine mission in the world if He had come into the world through earthly channels, closed by sin and stinking mortal rottenness? In this case, the new wine would smell of old skins, and He Who came to save the world would be in need of salvation Himself. - Only by a miracle could the world be saved, by a miracle of God; the entire human race on earth believed in this. And when a miracle of God has occurred, one should not doubt it, but one should bow down before it and find for oneself in this miracle a cure and salvation. What does Joseph do when he learns that the Virgin Mary is with child?

But Joseph, her husband, being righteous and not wishing to make her public, wanted to secretly let her go. He acts in this way in obedience to the law of God. He is obedient to the will of God in the form and to the extent that the will of God has been declared to the people of Israel up to that time. He also acts in humility before God. Do not be too strict, warns the wise Solomon (Ecclesiastes 7:16). That is: do not be too strict with those who have sinned, but remember your weaknesses and your sins, and try to dissolve severity in relation to sinners with mercy. Nurtured by this spirit, Joseph did not even think of putting the Virgin Mary on trial for the suspected sin: and not wishing to make Her public, he wanted to secretly release Her. Such a plan shows us Joseph as an exemplary man, exemplary in severity and mercy, such as the spirit of the Old Testament law could have brought up. Everything is simple and clear with him, as it could be in the heart of a man who fears God.

But as soon as Joseph came up with a convenient way out of an uncomfortable situation, suddenly Heaven intervened in his plans, giving an unexpected command:

But when he had thought this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, and said, "Joseph, son of David! do not be afraid to receive Mary your wife, for that which is born in her is of the Holy Spirit. The Angel of God, who had previously announced to the Most-Pure Virgin the coming of the God-Man into the world, is now coming to prepare the way for Him and to make His paths straight. Joseph's doubt is one of the obstacles in His path, and a very strong and dangerous obstacle at that. This obstacle should be removed. In order to show how easy it is for the powers of heaven to do what is very difficult for people, the angel appears to Joseph not in reality, but in a dream. By calling Joseph the son of David, the angel wants to both honor and enlighten him. As a descendant of King David, you should rejoice in this divine mystery more than other people, but you should also understand it better than others. But how then does the angel call the Virgin his wife: do not be afraid to accept Mary your wife? Just as the Lord said to His Mother from the cross: Woman! Behold, thy son, and then to his disciple, Behold, thy mother (John 19:26-27)! Truly, heaven is thrifty in words and does not say anything superfluous. If this were not to be said, would the angel have said it? Although this designation of Mary as Joseph's wife is a stumbling block for some unbelievers, it is a protection of purity from evil forces. For the word of God is heard not only by people, but by all the worlds, both good and evil. Whoever wishes to penetrate into all the mysteries of God would have to have God's sight for all creation, visible and invisible.

That which is born in Her is of the Holy Spirit. This is the work of God, and not of man. Do not look at nature and do not be afraid of the law. Here acts the Greater of nature and the Stronger of the law, without which neither nature would have life, nor the law of power.

From what the angel reported to Joseph, it is clear that the Virgin Mary did not tell the latter anything about the previous appearance of the great archangel to Her; it is also clear that now, when Joseph intended to let Her go, She did not justify Her in the least. The message of the archangel, like all the heavenly mysteries, which were gradually revealed to Her, She preserved..., composing in Her heart (Luke 2:19; 2:51). In Her faith in God and obedience to God, She was not afraid of any humiliation before people. "If my torments are pleasing to God, why should I not endure them?" – said later some of the martyrs of Christ. Living in unceasing prayer and contemplation of God, the Most-Pure One could also say: "If My humiliation is pleasing to God, why should I not endure it? If only I were right before the Lord, who knows hearts, and let people do with Me what they will." She also knew that the whole world could not do anything to Her that God would not allow. What good-natured humility before the living Lord and what a premeditated devotion to His will! And besides, what heroism of spirit the gentle Virgin has! The Lord is the dominion of those who fear Him, and His covenant will shew them (Psalm 24:14). If sinners now, as in all times, seek for themselves even false witnesses, the Virgin Mary, having as a witness not a man, but the Most High God, does not justify herself, does not resent herself, but is silent - silent and waiting, that God Himself may justify her in due time. And God soon hastened to justify His Chosen One. The same angel who had revealed to Her the great mystery of Her Conception now hastened to speak in the place of the silent Virgin. So, having explained to Joseph what has already happened, the angel of God now goes on and explains to him what is about to happen:

And he shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. "He did not say, 'He shall bear thee a son,' but so simply said, 'He shall give birth; for He will give birth (to Him) not to him, but to the whole world" (Chrysostom). The angel instructs Joseph to behave with the newborn as a real father, which is why he says: "And you will call His name." Jesus means "Saviour." That is why the second sentence begins with ibo; that is, And thou shalt call His name Saviour, for He will save His people from their sins.

The Archangel is the true messenger of God. He speaks what he learns from God; he sees the truth in God. For him, nature with its laws does not seem to exist. He knows only about the omnipotence of the living God, as Adam once knew. Having said: He will save His people from their sins, the archangel foretold the main work of Christ. It behooves Christ to come in order to save people not from some minor evil, but from the main evil, from sin, which is the source of all evil in the world. It behooves him to save the tree of mankind not from a single cloud of caterpillars, which in a certain year accidentally attacked it, wishing to gnaw it; but from the worm at the root, from which the whole tree withers. He comes not to save man from man, or nation from nation, but to save all men and all nations from Satan, the sower and ruler of sin. He does not come like the brothers Maccabees, or Barabbas, or Bar Kokhba, to raise a rebellion against the Romans, who, like a cloud of caterpillars, attacked the people of Israel, wanting to destroy them; but as an immortal and universal Physician, before Whom the Israelites, the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, and all the peoples on earth are sick and seriously ill, withering from one and the same microbe, from sin. Christ later perfectly fulfilled what the archangel had predicted. Your sins are forgiven," was His victorious word throughout His earthly ministry among people. Those words contained both a diagnosis of the disease and a remedy. Sin is a diagnosis of disease; Forgiveness of sins is the cure. And Joseph was honored to be the first mortal man in the New Creation to know the true purpose of the Messiah's coming and the true nature of His ministry.

What the Archangel said to Joseph was enough for him, in obedience to the new and direct commandment of God, to renounce his thoughts, as well as his plan to let Mary go. Heaven commands - Joseph obeys. But the usual method of heaven is not to give people commands without appealing to human understanding and self-determination. From the very beginning, it was important for God that man should act as a free being. For in freedom, in the free self-determination of man, lies all the joy of man. Without freedom, man would be simply a skillful mechanical device of God, which God would maintain and set in motion solely by His own will and power. God has enough such devices in nature, but He vouchsafed man an exceptional position, giving him freedom, so that he could decide whether he is for God or against God, for life or for death. The position is very honorable, but at the same time very dangerous. For this reason God not only commands Adam: "Of every tree of the garden thou shalt eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it," but immediately adds: "For in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:16-17). With this last sentence God gives man an argument for his reason and a motive for his will, that he should not eat of the forbidden tree: for in the day that you eat of it you will die. The archangel now acts in a similar way with Joseph. Having given him the command to receive Mary and not to let Her go, and having explained that the Fruit of Her virgin womb is from the Holy Spirit, the archangel also reminds Joseph of the clear prophecy of the great prophet: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which means: God is with us" (Isaiah 7:14).

What was said before, "And thou shalt call His name Jesus," does not contradict what is now said, namely, "And they shall call His name Immanuel," which means, God is with us. In the first case, Joseph is commanded to call Him the name Jesus, that is, the Savior; and in the second case, it is stated that the Child will be called, men and people, Immanuel, that is, God is with us. Both names, each in its own way, express the main meaning of Christ's coming into the world and His ministry in the world. Namely, He will come to forgive sins, to have mercy and save people from sin, therefore the Savior will be called Jesus. But who can forgive sins except God alone (Mark 2:7)? No one in the world; no one in heaven or on earth has either the power or the power to forgive sins and save from sins - only God. For sin is the main worm of the world's disease. And no one knows the bottomless horror of sin as much as the sinless God. And no one can destroy the worm of sin at the root, except God. And since Jesus forgave sins and thereby made people healthy, He is God among people. If we wanted to give names in a cause-and-effect relationship, then the name "Immanuel" would have to be placed before the name "Jesus." For in order that the newborn may do the work of the Saviour, He must be Immanuel, that is, He must come as God among us. But even in this order, the meaning remains the same. It doesn't matter how you say it, one way or another; the meaning does not change, whether we say, "Immanuel, therefore is the Saviour," or, "Saviour, for Immanuel." (But who shall call His name Immanuel? Behold, it is said impersonally. "No man called him Immanuel. In name - nobody, but in essence - everything. Those who believed agreed that God is with us, although He lives among us as a man." Monk Euthymius Zigaben. Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew). In any case, one thing is clearest in the world: that there is no salvation for this world unless God comes into it; and that there is no cure or salvation for us humans unless God is with us. If God is not with us, and not as an idea or a beautiful dream, but with us as we are: with the soul, as we are; in the flesh, as we are; in sorrow and suffering, as we do; and, finally, in that which distinguishes us most of all from God, in death, as we do. Therefore, any faith that teaches that God did not come in the flesh and cannot come in the flesh is false, because it represents God as both powerless and unmerciful; represents Him as a stepmother, not a mother. He makes Him powerless, for he always cowardly protects Him from the greatest battlefield - the battlefield with Satan, sin and death. It is necessary to fetter Satan, it is necessary to tear out the sprout of sin from the root of the human soul, it is necessary to destroy the sting of death – ah, it is necessary to accomplish the greatest and most difficult deed, as if it were necessary to hold the whole world on one's shoulders. Our God endured this struggle, and moreover victoriously. People of other faiths are afraid even in their thoughts to allow their gods such a battle in which their opponents could win. What kind of mother would she be if she did not bow down to the ground out of love for her child, to comfort him, to cradle him, to coo to him? And even more so if the child is in flames or among animals! Oh Lord, I'm sorry we ask such questions! What merciful Creator of the world would Thou be if Thou hadst not descended to us by Thy mercy, if Thou hadst not looked down upon our misfortune from a hazy and sorrowless distance, and had not stretched out a single cold finger into our flames, and had not set Thy foot in the pit in which the beasts torment us? Verily, Thou hast come down to us, and even lower than any earthly love requires. You were born in the flesh, that you might live with the carnal and save the carnal. Thou hast partaken of the chalice of the sufferings of all Thy creatures. Thou didst not share this cup of bitter communion with anyone, but one drank it to the dregs. Therefore Thou art our Saviour, for Thou wast God among us; You were God among us, and therefore you could be our Savior. Glory to Thee, Jesus Immanuel!

As for Joseph, with fear and trembling, he saw more and more clearly: next to him was weaving a canvas, longer than sunlight and wider than air; a canvas for which the Almighty Himself is the basis, and the angels and all creatures are ducks. It fell to his lot to serve as an instrument of God in the very center of the canvas of the New Creation. Until man feels that God is doing His work through him, he is weak and feeble, uncertain and despises himself. But when a person feels that God has taken him into His hands, like a blacksmith has taken iron into His hands, he will feel himself both strong and humble, clear in his actions and boasting of his God.

And Joseph arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and took his wife, and knew her not. And at last she gave birth to her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. And Joseph arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and received his wife. And not knowing her, till thou shalt bring forth thy firstborn son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. When we read the Holy Gospel, we must transfer the mind of the Gospel into ourselves, and not our own mind into the Gospel. Wondering himself, the Evangelist tells of the miracle of the Nativity of the Saviour. For him, the main thing is to show that this Birth happened miraculously. This is the fourth proof of this, cited by the Evangelist Matthew in today's Gospel Conception. At first he said that the Virgin Mary was only betrothed to Joseph: for she was betrothed to His mother Mary Joseph... Secondly, he says: "Thou shalt be found with child by the Holy Spirit." Thirdly, Matthew reports that an angel in a dream announces Her womb as miraculous and supernatural. And now, fourthly, the Evangelist repeats the same thought with the help of the words: And not knowing it, until (yet) bring forth Thy firstborn Son. Thus, it is clear as day that Matthew does not even think of saying that after this Christmas Joseph was united with Mary. That which was not there until She gave birth to Her firstborn Son, was not afterwards when She gave birth to Her Son. If we say of a certain person that during the service in church he does not pay attention to the words of the priest, we certainly do not mean to say that this person pays attention to the words of the priest at the end of the service. Or, if we say of the shepherd that he sings while the sheep are grazing, we do not mean that the shepherd does not sing when the sheep stop grazing. ("As it is said of the time of the Flood, the raven did not return to the ark until the earth was dry; Of course, he did not return afterwards. (Or) as Christ says, "And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age; won't He be with us later? Blzh. Theophylact.) The word firstborn refers exclusively to the Lord Jesus Christ (Psalm 88:28; compare: 2 Samuel 7:12-16; Hebrews 1:5-6; Romans 8:29), Who is the firstborn among all kings and the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29), that is, between saved and adopted people. If the word firstborn were written with a capital letter, as a proper noun, there would be no ambiguity. Or if there had been a comma before the word firstborn, there would also be no ambiguity and no embarrassment. Meanwhile, it is precisely the word firstborn that should be read, as if it were a proper name and preceded by a comma: She gave birth to Her Son, the Firstborn. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Firstborn as the Creator of the new Kingdom, as the New Adam.

About the Monk Ammon (Lives of the Saints, October 4) it is said that he was legally married for eighteen years, having no bodily ties with his wife. The Holy Great-Martyress Anastasia (December 22) also lived for several years in marriage with Pomplius, a Roman senator, having no bodily ties with him. We cite here only two examples out of a thousand others. By Her all-pure virginity, before Christmas, at Nativity and after Christmas, the Virgin Mary throughout the history of the Church moved thousands and thousands of virgins and young men to a virginal life. Looking at Her virginity, many lawful wives broke off their marriage and devoted themselves to virginal purity. Looking at Her, many inveterate prostitutes rejected their depraved life, washing their defiled souls with tears and prayer. So how can one even think that the Most-Pure Virgin, the pillar and inspiration of Christian purity and virginity throughout the centuries, could be inferior in virginity to Saints Anastasia, Thekla, Barbara, Catherine, Paraskeva and countless others? Or how can one even think that She, who bore in Her body the impassible Lord, could ever have even a shadow of bodily passion? She, who bore God and gave birth to God, "was a Virgin not only in body, but also in spirit," says St. Ambrose. Chrysostom, comparing the Holy Spirit to a bee, says: "As a bee does not fly into a stinking vessel, so the Holy Spirit will not enter into an unclean soul."