Friday, January 10, 2025 (December 28, 2024)
Nativity of our God and Savior Jesus Christ ─ CHRISTMAS
James 3:11-4:6; Mk. 11:23-26
Apply these examples to ourselves, and you will recognize in them out entire history. The dreadful cloud was hanging over out heads ─ and the Lord came down to dispel it and gave us peace. We were suffering from ulcers of sins and passions ─ and the Physician has visited and healed us. We were in shackles of slavery ─ and the Deliverer has set us free. If you take it to your heart, if you reflect on it with your mind, you will certainly cry out: “Christ is born! Glory to Thee, O God!”
I would not rely on my words to convey this joy: it cannot be conveyed merely by words. The Nativity of the Lord and His earthly sojourn are of a personal concern for each and everyone of us. By staying in personal communion with the Lord, we receive from Him freedom, healing, peace, and rejoice immensely in these precious possessions. Those who have all this, who experience this in their hearts, do not need any words reminding them to rejoice: they are rejoicing anyway. And those who have no such treasures, no such experiences, again need no words of joy: they simply cannot share it. If their feet and hands are bound, they will not rejoice, no matter how many times you tell them “Rejoice at your freedom!”; if they are sick, how can they rejoice at the healing?? Horrified by impending wrath of God, how can they feel peace? The only good advice for them will be as follows: “Come to the Child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, and ask Him for help in all your problems ─ for He is Christ the Savior of the world”.