Today is the Leavetaking of the Nativity. We leave behind the birth of Christ in the manger. Now, when we leave something behind, that means we let go of that experience, that relationship, that awareness of the past. So perhaps today we can leave behind our awareness of Jesus Christ as a baby and begin to grow older with Christ Himself. That is what Christ asks of each of us—that we would each see that the person of Jesus Christ who lived in first-century Palestine is the eternal Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity.

We don’t know a great deal about what happened to Jesus Christ in the years until he became a teenager, but the Gospels tell us that there were certain significant events. On the eighth day of His life, Jesus was named and dedicated in The Temple in Jerusalem. Soon after that dedication, St Joseph and Holy Mary ran away to Egypt with Jesus Christ to escape King Herod, because the king would soon kill the infants in Bethlehem. Now, they needed to run away; and St Joseph was told by an angel to do so. However, we are not always called to flee. My experience is that sometimes in our lives we run away unwisely from problems, run away from relationships, but hopefully only until the time has come to face those problems and relationships that are troubling us, when we are ready to do so.

When King Herod died, St Joseph was again visited by an angel and told to return to Palestine, and then in a dream to go to Galilee. Perhaps you are thinking, as I did, “Yes, but no angels are visiting me. Who is going to tell me how to live my life?” Let me recommend a delightful film, available as a DVD. The film is called “The Bishop’s Wife,” (obviously not an Orthodox bishop!), and stars Cary Grant as an angel who responds to the bishop’s plea for help to sort out the problems in his diocese and in his life. The angel does his job very well; and no one wants him to leave, but leave he must, because all the problems have been sorted out. The bishop says to him, “We will miss you so much. Please don’t go.” The angel replies, “As soon as I leave, you will no longer remember I have been here.” That is good theology: we do not know when angels come to us; and we do not know how they influence our lives. We all have guardian angels who protect us; and many angels who are unknown to us and help us out in many situations, without our knowledge of their presence.

As the second chapter of the Gospel of St Luke tells us, further important events took place in the life of Jesus Christ as he was living in Galilee. He “grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.” That happens to each of us at some point in our lives. We become “strong in [the Holy} Spirit, filled with wisdom and the grace [that is, the love] of God [for us as a person] is upon [us].” Perhaps for some of us that point might be as teenagers.  Christ Himself continued to live with St Joseph and The Theotokos, but he also left them briefly and taught in The Temple in Jerusalem. He said to The Theotokos and to St Joseph, what we each at some point in our lives might say to our parents: “Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” In other words, the Lord has work for each of us to do; and we will learn what that unique work is to be, but my experience is that we only learn just before the work is to be done.

As we become aware that the infant Jesus Christ has indeed grown up in our own lives, we can still rejoice in the experience of Christ’s birth and of our own celebration of Christmas last week. As St John Chrysostom prayed: “On this day of Christmas, the Word of God, being truly God, appeared in the form of a man, and turned all adoration to Himself and away from competing claims for our attention.” During this coming year, there will be many “competing claims for our attention.” Some of those “claims for our attention”—our families, our jobs, our responsibilities, our desire to serve others, especially the poor—are right to claim our attention and can still be linked to Christ. But other “claims for our attention” might not be right to meet. So, how can we tell the difference? How can we decide how to live our lives in the year that begins tomorrow?

Two saints offer helpful suggestions; and their advice can be summed up with the words: “Relax and pray.” In the 5th century, Pope St Leo the Great prayed: “O God, you give the day for work and the night for sleep. Refresh our bodies and our minds through the quiet hours of the night, so that we may turn the eyes of our souls towards you, and dream of your eternal glory” [end of quote]. That is good advice to many of us who at times deprive ourselves of sleep for what we consider important tasks that need to be completed. Perhaps sometimes we do need to complete various important tasks, but we also need to relax and rest. Then we can follow the advice of St Symeon, the new Theologian, in the 10th century who advised: “Sit down alone and in silence. Lower your head, shut your eyes, breathe out gently and imagine yourself looking into your own heart [that is, reflecting on what is essential about your life]…. Say, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, [Son of God], have mercy on me, [a sinner].’ Say it moving your lips gently, or simply say it in your mind. Try to put all other thoughts aside. Be calm, be patient, and repeat the process very frequently [end of prayer].” Metropolitan Kallistos welcomes the repetition of the Jesus Prayer at any time in our lives, but he cautions against breathing exercises while reciting the prayer.

As we rest and as we pray, we can remember a lovely short prayer that comes out of the Hebrides islands in the north of Scotland: “O Jesus [Christ]/ Be the canoe that holds me in the sea of life./ Be the steer[ing] that keeps be straight./ Be the outrigger that supports me in times of great temptation./ Let [the Holy] Spirit be my sail that carries me through each day./ Keep my body strong,/ so that I can paddle steadfastly on, in the long voyage of life.”

I doubt that the 19th century Scottish novelist, Robert Louis Stevenson, knew that Hebridean prayer, but he would have appreciated it. His own life was a great struggle with tuberculosis. It was only during his final years that he found peace with God and with himself on the Pacific island of Samoa. He asked of the Lord: “Grant to us, O Lord, … inward happiness and the security [that] comes from living close to Thee. Daily renew in us the sense of joy, and let the eternal Spirit of the Father dwell in our souls and bodies, filling every corner of our hearts with light and grace; so that, bearing about with us the infection of good courage, we may be diffusers of life [that is, spreading Your Life to others in all directions, and empower us to] meet all ills and [pains] with gallant and high-hearted happiness, giving Thee thanks always for all things.”

I close with a prayer from the ninth-century Book of Cerne, an illuminated manuscript found today in the Cambridge University Library: “May God the Father bless us; may Christ take care of us; [may] the Holy Spirit enlighten us all the days of our life. The Lord be our defender and keeper of body and soul, both now and for ever, to the ages of ages. Amen.”