Mary’s Christmas Offering

In the Orthodox Church Christmas is also known the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Rightly, we focus on our Lord’s birth. Rightly, we celebrate the birth of God in human flesh. The other person of note is Christ’s mother, Mary. In the Church’s theology she is called Theotokos, meaning Bearer of God. She gave birth to God because God took flesh from her.
St. Luke gives us the birth narrative:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled…And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem…And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she bore her firstborn son, and she clothed him and laid him to bed in a feeding trough (Luke 2: 1, 3, 4, 6 – 7).

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