And in doing so, He revealed to us two mysteries, such as no one could have imagined. No one would dare to think that a God who is incomprehensible, holy, a God who is the Very Mystery of existence, could become a man like us. This God, who caused awe in people, now evokes in us tender gratitude: He is the son of man, without ceasing to be the Son of God.

     And the second thing that is revealed to us in the incarnation of the Word of God is that man is so great, so deep, that he is able to unite with God and not be destroyed by the Divine fire – to unite with God without the Divinity being diminished in any way.

     We find the image of this union in the Old Testament in the image of the burning bush, the bush that burned with Divine fire – but did not burn up, because the Divine fire turns everything it touches into flame, but does not incinerate. Divine fire destroys only evil, sin, that which in reality does not exist: and everything that can only have existence, it elevates to such greatness that the Apostle Peter describes to us when he says that we are called to become partakers of the Divine nature.

     And one more thing is revealed to us in the Gospel, another good, incomprehensibly good, incomprehensibly great news: that God loved us so much that He became one of us in order to bear together with us the entire human created fate and all the terrible consequences of human sin, which occurred through falling away from Him, our Creator. This is the God Whom we can not only love, not only tremble before Him, but the God Whom we can revere and, in human terms, "respect," because He took upon Himself all responsibility for His primary act of creation of man and for the terrible, truly terrible, but also wondrous gift of freedom.

     Without freedom, love would be impossible, because love is the perfection of freedom, without love we would be only objects, but we would not be able to respond to God's love with the love that we can give Him or that we can withhold.

     How wondrous it is to think that such is God; that He takes everything upon Himself, that came from His decision to create us, that He takes upon Himself all the consequences of our sin and conquers everything in Himself, and gives us the freedom to become children of God, to partake of His Divine nature, to become His children. As Irenaeus of Lyons says, "In the Only-begotten Son of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to become the only-begotten son of the Heavenly Father."

      This is what the gospel is, this is what is new, never heard, never dreamed of, and which is not a worldview, not a dream, but a wondrous, salvific, transforming reality. When we read the Gospel, let us remember the words of Christ the Savior: "I make all things new," and indeed, the whole world has become new, because there is nothing created that cannot recognize itself in Him as transfigured and deified. Amen.