T his Monday, we renew once again the joy of our hearts and our minds that flows from the birth of our Savior. The celebration of Christmas is the celebration of freedom and renewal.

 

Until that cold night in Bethlehem, the world could not remember true freedom. Since the beginning of time the human race and the physical world itself lived under what is called in the prayers of an Advent Mass, “the ancient enslavement.” This enslavement is the effect found in each of us that flows from the sin of Adam and Eve. Through our first parents, we all broke with God’s friendship. As a result, the harmony of our nature with God’s grace was disrupted.

 

The slavery we endured was that, because of sin, we had no hope for what we were made to be. Our human nature was frustrated as heaven was closed to us. 

 

Eternal life there would be, but it would not be spent resting in God, which has always been what we have been called to do. Our slavery was to be under Satan’s power, as we sing in the famous Christmas carol, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

 

In our political, post-modern and democratic age, we worry about freedom mostly as our political rights. To be free is understood as not being subject to the orders of government or of someone other than ourselves. And when we add the materialistic and economic context that so dominates our lives, freedom is often taken to mean having material well-being and liberation from want or need. In short, wealth gives us the freedom to do what we want.

 

The freedom that was brought to us at that first Christmas is something very different. That little baby was Himself born into poverty. His family squeezed into an open space among animals because their material resources and their social standing got them nothing more. They neither had nor sought the freedom that comes from wealth. 

 

But the presence of the Son of God, taking on our flesh and our very nature, except for sin, changed the world forever. Watched over by His mother, sinless at every moment of her life, the birth of Jesus suddenly gave to the world a source of grace and harmony with God that it had not known since the fall. 

 

With the soon to come death and resurrection of Jesus as well as the gift of the Holy Spirit, freedom comes to us through the forgiveness of the evil deeds that each of us knows we have committed in our lifetime. Now we are free to have a good conscience, to seek what is truly right and to have the presence of God within us.

 

With that freedom came the renewal. As God had originally intended, by following the Christ child and allowing Him into our thoughts and hearts, we are different. We become more and more like Him throughout our lifetime. St. Paul tells us that with that transformation comes an eternal life of joy and happiness, that eye has not seen nor ear has heard.

 

Christmas reminds us that the gifts of freedom and renewal which come from Christ are not automatic. 

 

The shepherds came and adored. Herod feared, hated and sought to kill the newborn King of the Jews. Each of us still must choose and seek throughout our lives to hold fast to those gifts that flow from Jesus’ birth. 

 

2,000 years ago the angels sang and the Wise Men adored. But the gift did not end then and there. The Christ child was born for us as well as for our eternal freedom.

 

A very blessed Christmas to all!