Crown of God's gifts, of Whose birth in the flesh so conspicuously, but also more, the decorated shop windows and street lights announce, it is none other than the unheard of and often misunderstood gift-commandment of love.
He would say, sure, no one that a similar command is not unknown in other religions, not even in ancient Greek. And he wouldn't be wrong...
There is, Nevertheless, and a key telltale difference: Ancient Greek thought was dominated by "love your friends and hate your enemies".
In the Jewish religion, "tooth for tooth" prevailed and prevails.
Socratic thought went up another moral level, with the sentence "return no evil", but until then....
Originality and uniqueness, Nevertheless, of love, who died in the world the born refugee child of Bethlehem, is not found in the simple, painless, effortless and easy love for "yours", your friend, your like-minded…
It is found in the unheard of concept of love towards the enemy, the opponent, the different one!…….
"I tell you to love your enemies, bless those who curse you, benefit those who hate you, do good to those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father, which is in the heavens. He makes his sun rise for both the bad and the good and sends rain for the just and the unjust"!
Unprecedented and unprecedented in its radicalism sermon, criterion and litmus test of faith and Christianity of each one of us, true martyrdom and testimony….
It is torture to overcome oneself, the desires, his passions and interests, the "natural" and instinctive tendency to defend, self-preservation and retribution, to go beyond human measures and to love, reasons and works, his enemy, the one who made him bitter, wronged him, it hurt him, took advantage of him…
It takes great strength and greatness of soul, constant exercise and constant struggle so that one can become a child of the heavenly Father, true and conscious Christian.
For this, no matter how bold it may seem "you are calling me Lord, Sir, enters the Kingdom of Heaven, but who does the will of my Father, of En Uranois"!
Love for one's enemies is the martyrdom and testimony of the true Christian, the unique gift of God to man, a creative and sacrificial love.
A love, who can't wait for Christmas, typically and "for the good of the days",to express, but which constitutes a permanent way and lived ethos of life, without discrimination,without conditions, limits and conditions!
With this unheard of to our enemies, love strangers and those who are different, we Christians are called to give our witness to the modern divided, disoriented and alienated world, who is not so hungry or only hungry for material goods, but thirsty for love...
Difficult, but not impossible!
Achievement of few, certainly!
But the course of mankind has never been determined by quantity, the crowd, the power.
Always the few open the new paths of life....
If, Nevertheless, each of us overcomes and frees ourselves from the shackles of hatred, of empathy, of vindictiveness and retribution, of prejudice and selfishness, if he "witnesses" for Christ, then it is certain that a new era will dawn for our country, for the whole world!
In the ancient decadent and utterly corrupt world, the Birth of Jesus Christ in the stable of Bethlehem gave new life, it brought him out of brutality and opened new perspectives for him, splitting the story in two, in "before Christ" and "after Christ"!
In the present tense, insecure and morally burdened world, the Birth of Jesus Christ in the "stable" of our heart is sure to revive it and mark history again, again dividing it into two, in the period without Christ and in the period with Christ!
† Dorotheos II of Syros and Mykonos
("DEMOKRATIA" newspaper, Saturday, 19.12.2015)