He Seeks What Was Lost

We are now in the Fast of the Nativity, preparing through fasting to celebrate the birth of Christ, to Him be glory. We wish to contemplate this wondrous Nativity and see why the Lord became incarnate. We will find that the answer to this question is the Scripture’s saying:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son…”

And also that Christ “came to save and to seek that which was lost.”

He Seeks What Was Lost

The story of Christ’s birth and His redemption of humanity is nothing but a story of love.

He so loved that He gave. He loved the world, so He emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, was found in appearance as a Man, and was crucified for us…

But who are those whom the Lord loved and redeemed? If it were said that the Lord loved goodness and the good, or loved the holy angels, it would be easy for us… But that He loves the sinful world—this is wondrous…

It is wondrous to us that God should love this sinful world and die for it. Yet it is not wondrous to Him…

God loved this weak world, the world overcome by sin, oppressed by Satan, which does not think of salvation nor seek it; this world swept away by sin, before which all concepts were overturned, which no longer knows God nor righteousness. This ignorant world said in its heart, “There is no God,” and sank into idolatry and corruption… God saw this lost world, and instead of condemning it, He loved it in order to save it. Truly, how beautiful is the phrase spoken by the Lord Christ:

“The Son of Man did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.”

Thus Christ was born, not to condemn the sinful world, but to bear its condemnation; not to sentence it to death, but to die for it… Thus God so loved the world, and behold, the story of His birth is a story of love…

It is difficult for rationalists to understand how God empties Himself in His Nativity. But the secret lies in the fact that God’s love is filled with humility…

Pride is the hardest thing that wars against love. How many spouses have lost their love because of dignity, and how many friends have lost their love because of pride. But God’s perfect love is filled with perfect humility. Therefore, in His love for humanity, it was easy for Him to empty Himself, to be born in a manger, to accept insult from His servants; He gave His back to the scourges, and His cheeks He did not hide from the shame of spitting…

Perhaps someone may ask: Why did He not save the world from the beginning of its fall?

We say: at that time we would not have felt the depth of His love and the depth of this salvation.

But after the Lord waited for the fullness of time, we fully knew how exceedingly sinful sin is; we saw how man declined and deteriorated, how he wallowed in corruption, dug for himself broken cisterns that hold no water, and departed from God. Thus we saw man’s corruption in the story of the Flood, in the story of Sodom, and in the story of the golden calf…

Amid this loss, the love of God appeared—thus God so loved the world… God came to the world when the earth had grown exceedingly dark, when goodness had vanished from the world, and the world was about to perish “unless the Lord had left us a remnant.” After God promised in the story of Sodom to spare the city if ten righteous were found in it, we see Him in the days of Jeremiah the prophet saying, “Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem… if you can find a man, if there is anyone who executes judgment, who seeks the truth, and I will pardon her” (Jer. 5:1).

Thus spiritual collapse had reached the point that not one righteous man was found!

The world stands before God saying: I, O Lord, am a sinner condemned to death; I am unable to save myself from death, unable to save myself from sin. What then shall I do? “The evil I do not will, that I practice.” At times I do not even desire the good.

Did not the Scripture say of the world that it “loved darkness rather than light, because its deeds were evil”? How can such a one repent?!

The one who repents is he who leaves sin and does not want it; but he who loves sin, how can he repent?! He does not wish to change his life…

This lost world, which does not seek salvation, repentance, forgiveness, or new pure life; this world that loved darkness more than light—the Lord came to it to rescue it…

To rescue it not only from death and not only from sin, but also from itself, from its desires that love darkness…

The Scripture says of the Lord that “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” Thus He said, “They rejected Me, the beloved, like a despised dead man.”

Yet the Lord Christ insisted on saving even those who rejected Him. He insisted on accomplishing salvation at any cost… Truly, it is wondrous that someone should come to save you while you reject him, and yet he insists on saving you. Thus it happened with Samaria: He came to save it, but it closed its gates in His face, until John and James asked that fire come down from heaven to burn the city. But the Lord did not will it… He remained in His love for Samaria until the day came when He saved it…

You say to Him: “Lord, they expelled You and closed their doors in Your face, and they do not want to be saved.” He says to you: Even so! The one who refuses salvation today may seek it tomorrow. I have come to seek and to save that which was lost.

I came to save these perishing ones who are unable to save themselves. A bruised reed I will not break, and a smoking flax I will not quench…

The whole world in the days of Christ was a bruised reed and a smoking flax… The Lord says: Do not think that I will leave the world when it perishes and is corrupted…

I do not despair of anyone, nor do I fail in saving anyone…

Thus God loved the lost world, loved the world that cried, “Crucify Him, crucify Him,” that preferred Barabbas to Him and fabricated false charges against Him…

He loved them while being crucified by them, and said to the Father: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Is not redemption a story of love?

We do not deny that some have perished. Yet even for these, in His love, the Lord gave the utmost that could be given…

The love of God that embraced those unable to save themselves reminds us of the Lord’s healing of the paralytic who had no strength to reach Him, and of the man who had been sick for decades and had no one to put him into the pool…

How many a lost one could not reach the Lord, so the Lord reached him—like the lost sheep and the lost coin.

The story of salvation shows us God’s love in another point: it is God who sought our salvation, not we.

At a time when humanity was not expecting Him at all, nor even knowing Him, at a time when humanity was not seeking God—at that time Christ was born…

The Lord came to the world at a time He Himself appointed, in an encounter with humanity that He Himself chose. He chose the time, the place, and the manner.

He is the One who loved us, emptied Himself for our sake, dwelt among us, and saved us.

He came seeking the sick who need a physician, and sinners who need repentance. He came to sit with tax collectors and to go about seeking that which was lost…

The story of the Nativity is a story of consolation for souls that appear without hope and without faith—souls without ability and without desire.

And the phrase “without ability” seems much easier than the phrase “without desire.” Yet Christ was born to save both these and those—He came to seek that which was lost… Say to Him: Count me, O Lord, among that which was lost…

The contrite He accepted, and the uncontrite He led into contrition.

It was said of Job’s three friends: “So these three men ceased answering Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes” (Job 32:1). But God did not cease; He continued to seek Job’s salvation until he said, “Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer You? I lay my hand over my mouth”… “Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 40:4; 42:6).

God’s love was manifested to us—in the story of the Nativity—in that He restored to us the divine image which we lost through sin. He restored to us the image of the Righteous One alone without sin, who became like us in all things except sin… He presented to us the perfect image. Not only did He present it, but He took our nature and sanctified it in Himself. He took this body and sanctified it by His indwelling.

He took human nature, united it to Himself, and became tempted in all things like us, yet without sin. He gave us the image, the model, and the example, that as He walked, so we also should walk.

Thus God lived with us in a life of communion. In the beginning of creation He shared with us in His image and likeness, creating us according to His likeness. In the Incarnation, He shared with us in our nature.

Thus God so loved the world: He gave it life, gave it the example, and gave it the power with which to strive, when He sent to us the Holy Spirit and said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”

God loved the world with a practical love. It is the love that gives and offers, that humbles itself and takes the form of a servant; the love that goes about doing good to everyone and in every place.

Thus God so loved the world. To Him be the everlasting glory forever. Amen.

Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Seventh Year (Issue Fifty) – 10-12-1976.

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