When He descended from heaven to earth, when He began to dwell among people, then not only pious people, such as St. Joseph, the righteous Salome, not only important persons, for example, the three kings of the East, but even the shepherds of the common people, conversed, spoke and told about the hidden: "They told of the things which had been announced to them concerning this Child" (Luke 2:11). 17).

Only the ox and the donkey are silent, although they have long tongues. But who knows? If the donkey had the mind of a man, would he not have thought, standing at the manger, in this way: "What if my ancestor had been here, that donkey who carried the prophet Balaam and spoke like a man? Of course, he would not have been silent here. What would he say?

Most likely, this is what he heard with his own ears, when that prophet, sitting on it, said: "A star will shine from Jacob, and a man will arise from Israel" (Num. 24:17)." If the donkey had a human mind, it would also think: "If there had been that donkey here that Ezekiel saw between the six cherubic wings with the face of a calf, it would not only have spoken, but would even have sung the mystery of God's incarnation: 'The four animals have sung' (Ezek. 1).

And so, God's hidden mysteries have been revealed, and the Church now sings: "I see a strange mystery and a most glorious one." What can be compared with this sacrament? The whole sky with the sun, moon and stars, with all the power of God, was contained in one small cave in Bethlehem! "The sky is a nativity scene." A whole choir of Cherubim, whose number is infinite, thousands of thousands, thousands of thousands of those on whom God rests, all of them have yielded their office to one Virgin, the Most Pure and Most Blessed Virgin Mary! "The throne of the Cherubim is the Virgin."

All God's treasures and riches are innumerable, unpriced, not contained in any place, all of them are placed in a narrow manger, all are contained and covered with a handful of hay! "The manger is a container." Oh, truly, the great, wondrous, and most glorious mystery has been revealed to the world on the present feast of the Nativity of Christ, not so that people should be silent about it, but that they should speak about it, for only the mystery of the earthly king should be concealed, but the mysteries of the King of Heaven or the work of God must be preached and glorified.

The mysteries of God in their wondrous properties are not at all the same as the mysteries of men. The human mystery has only to be said once or twice, by one or two, and everyone will know it completely. The mysteries of God, the more you think and talk about them, the more you preach about them, the more hidden, more difficult, and more incomprehensible they become. "How incomprehensible are His destinies, and His ways cannot be searched!" (Romans 11:33).

It is necessary, however, to preach about them. Even if the stone were before you, cry out, do not be silent, preach and glorify the wondrous and most glorious mysteries of God. Leaving aside the other wondrous and most glorious mysteries of God, which appeared at the Nativity of Christ, for the sake of shortening time, we will turn our attention to only one thing and explain only the following mystery: why the cave became heaven, how it could become heaven, what this secrecy means, and what are the mysteries in that heaven.

This secrecy is no small mystery, which we do not comprehend, namely: how did the earthly cave become heaven? Has the earth here turned into heaven, or has the sky changed into earth? But both of these understandings do not fit here. As for matter, that is, the heavenly bodies are earthly bodies, but there is one glory to the heavenly, and another to the earthly. Celestial matter is one thing, but earthly matter is quite another.

Just as heavenly matter cannot be earth, so earthly matter cannot be heaven. However, bearing in mind the sacrament that is now being performed, we will not sin if we admit both. Looking not at the walls of the cave, not at the matter of the earth, but at the mystery that takes place in the cave, we can boldly say: the earth has become heaven, and the sky has become earth.

Two guests have now found shelter in the cave, neither from earth nor from heaven. "The first man of the earth, earthly" (1 Cor. 15:47) is a wondrous guest, He came from Nazareth, brought in the womb of a virgin. The second person is "the Lord from heaven" (1 Corinthians 15:47) – that guest is different. He is wondrous in that He did not come from any nearer place, but from heaven.

In the first, nature, taken from mortality, is the earth. In the other, the nature that came down from above, from heaven, let us call it heaven: "the Lord from heaven." God became Man, and man became God. Heaven becomes earth, and earth becomes heaven. But heaven does not become earth in such a way that it ceases to be heaven, and the earth does not change into heaven so that it ceases to be earth, that is, just as God, having become man, did not cease to be God, so man, having become God, did not cease to be man, but both of them were united to each other in such a way, as in the mystery of which the Apostle says: "The two shall be one flesh" (Eph. 5:5). 31).

Here the two were even united in one person, as Damascene writes beautifully: "Not divided into two persons, but incomprehensible in two natures" (Dogmatic, tone 6). Where else, in what place, except for the Bethlehem cave, did such a mysterious union of heaven and earth, of God and man, take place?! So, the cave became heaven, and the sky became a cave.

The cave became heaven when it received the Heavenly God and all His Powers. Now God is in a cave with all the heavens, and through that cave is heaven, and heaven is a cave. There was a time when heaven resembled a cave, a cave, and even a den of thieves, namely, when that evil thief was hiding in it, whom the Gospel calls a "murderer" (John 8:44)

; hid himself, for he said in his mind: "I will ascend into heaven" (Isaiah 14:13). He secretly, covertly concealed this in his thoughts, in order to steal and kill with abuse, villainously and robbery. He also carried away considerable power: "His tail carried away from heaven a third part of the stars," that is, the angels (Rev. 12:4). Until this was seen, until that thief with his power was cast out of heaven and destroyed, until then the sky resembled a den of robbers.