I love all the trappings of Christmas, the religious ones and the secular ones. But when you get beyond the warm fuzziness and lovely sentiment of the season, has the birth of this child made any difference? As Christians we live in the holy hope that God’s visibility in a manger child has and will affect how this planet understands what may be its authentic goals. Just what is it that now becomes a possibility we can both grasp and actualize? I believe few words say it better than a hymn text poet by Fred Kaan. So here it is:
For we healing of the nations, God we pray with one accord;
For a just and equal sharing of the things the earth affords;
To a life of love and action help us rise and pledge our word.
Lead us, Most High, into freedom, from despair your world release,
That, redeemed from war and hatred, all may come and go in peace.
Show us how through care and goodness fear will die and hope increase.
All that kills abundant living, let it from the earth be banned;
Pride of status, race and schooling, dogmas that obscure your plan.
In our common quest for justice, may we hallow life’s brief span.
You, creator God, have written your great name on human kind;
For our growing in your likeness, bring the life of Christ to mind,
That by our response and service earth its destiny may find.
The heart of the Christian affirmation is that the coming of Jesus has offered a radical different vision of how the world works—and how we as individuals share in the working out of that difference. So when the angels are gone from the skies and the shepherds go back to their flocks, those who have seen the star and knelt before the manger turn to face the world with a new hope that what we have just experienced can and will make a difference in our personal lives and in the world to which the babe came.
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