2023 Christmas Message from Bishop Jasmin Milić

Your Nativity, O Christ our God, has shone to the world the Light of knowledge; for by it, those who worshipped the stars were taught by a star to adore You, the Sun of Righteousness, and to know You, the Dayspring from on High. O Lord, glory to You! (Christmas carol of the Eastern liturgy).

Christ’s birth is the light of knowledge. It is “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world….” (John 1, 9). Knowledge of Christ is knowledge of God himself. This is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy from the book of the prophet Isaiah: ““Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” (Isaiah 60, 1-3)

It was in the appearance of the star that led the Magi to Bethlehem. The Gentiles, realized what God’s Old Testament people failed to realize – the birth of the Messiah who is Emmanuel – God with us. Their knowledge became cognition. With knowledge they studied the stars, with cognition they recognized Christ – the Messiah.

For a believer, the greatest knowledge is the one that Zechariah talks about in his song: “to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.” (Luke 1, 77).

The Magi studied the stars, and it was the star, as the Christmas carol says, that taught them to worship the Sun of Justice – Christ. In his song, Zechariah thanks God’s merciful heart “because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven…” (Luke 1, 78). He is the “Sun of Righteousness” that the heathen worshiped but did not recognize. As St. Ephrem the Syrian who lived in the 4th century said: ,, in Bethlehem, the sun showed worship to the true God because the sun worshipers now worshiped Jesus”.

After the darkness comes the dawn from above. His justice is our comfort in our daily life. Injustice and evil do not have the final word.

Even today, we are witnessing the darkness that has loomed over the whole world, but it too shall ultimately have to retreat before Christ, the Sun of justice, which comes over us like the dawn from above and suppresses all darkness.

May our heart also be filled with the knowledge of Christ, may it be the throne of the Sun of Righteousness may the darkness in us be dispelled by Christ who comes to us like the dawn that suppresses all the darkness of our lives.

Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year 2024.

Rt. Rev. Dr. Jasmin Milić, PhD