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Sunday January 4, 2026
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff The Sunday before Christmas is dedicated to the Old Testament Holy fathers, some of whom are mentioned by name in the genealogy of Jesus the Christ which we heard today. It is the opening passage in the gospel of Matthew. In the Hebrews passage preceding the gospel today (chap 11), we see a vast panorama of these Old Testament heroes. When Paul remembers each of them it is preceded by a something of a refrain from him: By faith they did their heroic feats, and they were protected by God by faith. What faith is St Paul talking about? It was their faith in the coming Saviour of the world, the Messiah. We live two thousand years after His coming and we have a vast tradition, scripture and culture of the New Testament, as well as the saints who knew the Risen Lord through their life in Christ. We should marvel at their great faith of these Old Testament heroes who looked towards the bright day of the Lord. Their faith should inspire us who are weak in our faith, even though we have all these witnesses and saints and teachings. Now all of us together are coming to Bethlehem with the Lord, His holy Mother and His ostensible father. As a side note, Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph because that was the Jewish practice, while Luke gives the genealogy of the Mother of God. Each great feast, especially Christmas and Easter, are prepared by prayer and fasting, and is an event that has two dimensions. Firstly, it is a historic rememberance. This is easy to understand. Secondly, it is our entry into participating in the event’s eternal dimension. Our door into this reality is our faith. The church is the life in Christ. Christ is in our midst. Christmas is not just a celebration of Christ’s birthday is His absence. Oh no! It is not just an event of ancient history. We may sometime think it would have been wonderful to have lived in the time of Christ when the Lord was here on earth, to have seen and heard Him, or even to have touched Him. Remember though, among the Old Testament fathers like Moses and the great prophets, very few experienced any clarity of vision of the coming Saviour. Yet they persevered in their faith. They could never have said the words of St Paul: no longer do I live but Christ lives within me. (Gal. 2:20) We can understand what this means. Everything in the church teaches us that Christ is with us. Matthew begins with the genealogy of Christ and ends with Christ’s words to His disciples – and through them to us all: I am with you until the end of the ages, Amen.
Wednesday January 7, 2026 Nativity of Christ
AI study of the Shroud of Turin by Fr Nicholas Karipoff Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ; God in the flesh. The angel tells Joseph in a dream to call the Holy Virgin’s son, “Jesus”, which in the context means “God the Saviour”. He is also called “Emmanuel”: God is with us. Not long before the Lord’s passion, the Apostle Peter declares: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. (Mat.16:16) Jesus Christ speaks as God. When officers are sent to arrest Him, they come back empty-handed saying, No man ever spoke like this Man. (Jn.7:46) Jesus Christ speaks as God even when he is silent. Here are two examples. The first is when He looks silently from the cross and His loving gaze shocks and transforms a hardened criminal, hanging on the cross next to Him. The Good Thief recognises God the Saviour in the dying man. Secondly, Christ God has left a silent witness for us of little faith, two thousand years after His resurrection. The Silent Witness is the title of a documentary from 1978 on the Shroud of Turin. Now there is a new documentary titled AI found something impossible in the Shroud of Turin. Scientists are terrified to explain. You can watch this video below. Jesus Christ speaks as God from the pages of the gospel. You must read the Gospel; Christ God is speaking to you! Those who have ears to hear, let them hear, He says. Christ is born, glorify Him. Merry Christmas! About the Shroud of Turin There was much excitement in the aftermath of the scientific studies of the Shroud in the 1970s. Many Christians at that time saw the 1978 documentary, ‘The Silent Witness’. The Shroud is one of the countless holy relics plundered by the Crusaders from Constantinople in 1204 and the following decades. Brought to Europe by a secretive monastic order of Crusader knights, it was eventually transferred to Turin, Italy. Modern interest in the Shroud began with the first photos of the relic taken in the late 19th century by a photographer in Turin. When he developed his plates, he realised that the Shroud itself is a negative photograph on a large linen cloth. His negative plates revealed for the first time in history a clear positive image of the face and body of the Man Who had suffered scourging with Roman whips, a crown of thorns on His head, wounds from the nails in His hands and feet, and piercing of His side with a Roman lance. In 1988 ten years after ‘The Silent Witness’ documentary three independent studies ‘proved’ that the relic was a 14th century ‘fake’, based on radioactive carbon tests. The dating however could not explain how a medieval European artist could have procured a piece of linen produced in Palestine near Jerusalem (shown by pollen in the material) woven according to the style of weave popular there before 70AD, and how he could have known about photography, negatives, as well as many other things only discovered centuries later. Nevertheless, atheistic scientists and their followers were gloating: another nail in the coffin of religion. Eventually it was revealed that all three groups of scientists took a patch from the Shroud sown on after a fire in the 14th century. Now we come to recent studies using huge computer power – AI. Please watch this 21-minute film. You may want to read and/or see other material like the 1978 documentary. https://youtu.be/ADJ6i6mgdwo?si=maj3AeND3dVAobeI Sunday January 18, 2026. Eve of Theophany By Fr Nicholas Karipoff John the Forerunner, as we hear, came preaching repentance and baptising in the wilderness. Why did all the land of Judea, and all those from Jerusalem come to him to confess their sins and be baptised in the River Jordan? When we look at the beginning of Mark’s gospel, it says AS it is written on the prophets. Behold I send my messenger before Your face to prepare your way before you. The conjunction “as” is the Greek word “os”, but in the best ancient manuscripts of the gospel another word “kathos” which means “according to”. The difference is that the prophets said this WOULD happen. It seems like a tiny nuance, but it explains why people came en masse to the Jordan. John’s appearance was not unexpected, quite the contrary. Only an extraordinary intensity of expectations could have produced this effect of huge crowds coming to the Jordan so quickly. Nearly thirty years before this there was an event that we have just celebrated, the Nativity of Christ. Echoes of the rumours spread by the shepherds at that time had spread. People had not forgotten. Those of us who are older can easily remember what happened thirty years ago! The same can be said of the visit of the Magi to Jerusalem, because it caused such excitement, as well as negative feelings from Herod which led to the Slaying of the Innocents. These events would have been in the memory of the people, who could have calculated that the Messiah was approaching the age of thirty, an age when He could begin His ministry. According to the Law you had to be thirty before you could become a teacher, a rabbi. John the Baptist announced with his booming voice that the Messiah was at the door. The intensity of a prophet who even looked like the fiery Elijah broke through even the hardened hearts of people. At that time Israel was in crisis. There was a lot of tension between the ruling elite and the common people. The elite had acquiesced to Roman occupation because Rome protected them and gave them considerable internal autonomy. But the common people preserved the religious expectation that the Messiah would come and deliver them from all oppression. They looked forward to the Messiah. Cynical politicians say Don’t waste a good crisis! Lenin said, the worse it is, the better it is! God, too, does not waste a crisis! What does the word crisis mean? It is the Greek word for judgement. Judgement wakes people up. When we wake up, we are ready not just for water but for the Holy spirit, according to the words of John the Baptist. The question is: are we awake? Are we ready for Christ? Monday January 19, 2026. Theophany By Fr Nicholas Karipoff When Jesus came from Galilee to the River Jordan, John the Baptist tried to argue with Him about His baptism. He perceived Jesus as the master and himself as a servant, so how could he baptise the Master? The Lord stops John’s resistance by saying that it was fitting to fulfill all righteousness. The word used in Matthew’s original is dikaiosini which, in the New Testament, has a dozen different meanings! Yet John immediately understood what the Lord meant. He stopped arguing and baptised the Lord. The event at Jordan River had the significance of Theophany, the manifestation of God. It was also the declaration by two witnesses, the Father with His booming voice, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, that Jesus is the Beloved Son from eternity and from His incarnation. Jesus begins His ministry of redemption as the Christ. While John saw Him as the master, the Lord wanted to begin the economy of salvations as a slave. Pride was the thing that had separated Adam from God, and now the extreme humility of the Saviour was the foundation of Adam’s return to the bosom of the Father. We can understand from this what the Baptist meant when he said, I did not know Him. John the Baptist had not known Him before, on a superficial level, but his comment reveals there was more to it. John expected, like the rest of the Israelites, that the Messiah would appear as a master. Suddenly the words of Isiah the prophet, which John quoted, acquired a completely new and deeper meaning: Behold the Lamb of God. Isaiah speaks in chapter 53 of the meek and humble Christ who takes our sins in suffering and in His sacrificial death. The Feast of Theophany every year is also an important opportunity for us to rethink and contemplate our own baptism. Christ’s humility and our acceptance of that image is a declaration of war on the sinful and proud ego. In the drowning of sin, there is a foundation made for a constant reconciliation with the Lord. In our connection to Christ, the True Vine, we receive the potential to become a royal priesthood, members of the holy nation of God, as we hear in the writings of the apostles and the holy fathers. The Holy spirit is received for us in the mystery of Chrismation. The Father then declares us to be His beloved child. The whole scene of Christ’s baptism is repeated in our life and baptism. All this is truly magnificent! But let us not fall into the trap of thinking that this is easy. It is not easy! It is not just about accepting an idea. We have to actually live it. Baptism in the Jordan, for Jesus Christ, is the beginning of His journey of love. What is love? Love is the cross. The Lord says: And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. (Mat.10:38) Comments are closed.
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