Frank Pavone: The Challenge of Christmas
Guest Post by Pro-life Leader Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life
Christmas is not only a gift; it’s a challenge. Jesus comes to save us from our sins, but how can he do that if we are still clinging to them?
The birth of this child is actually the birth of a whole new humanity. He comes to give us a new life, and that means we have to change our old way of life and reject godless ways.
And Christmas is universal.
“Behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people…A Savior has been born for you” (Luke 1:10-11).
Christ the Savior becomes human precisely for all who share human nature. He excludes nobody. The good news of Christmas is for all people of all times and places. “Joy to the world.”
In fact, so universal is this joy, that even nature shares in it: “Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them” (Isaiah 11:6).
All of this leads to an inescapable conclusion: Christmas is also for the unborn. The Savior has come also for the children yet living in their mothers’ wombs. The Gospel message is addressed also to our youngest brothers and sisters.
In fact, we can say it is addressed especially to them, because they are the most helpless.
That good news was announced first precisely to the lowly, not to the great and powerful. The ministry of the One who was born for us continued to follow that pattern: He consistently sought out those who were on the outskirts of society.
To welcome the Savior means to welcome the obligations which His mission places on us. He is, in the words of the Prophets, one who will establish “justice” on the earth. In Biblical terms, this indicates He will intervene for the helpless, bringing deliverance to those held in bondage.
That’s all of us, of course, subject to the bondage of sin and death, unable to save ourselves.
In the beautiful Christmas hymn, “O Holy Night,” we sing these words. “Truly He taught us to love one another; His law is love, and His Gospel is Peace. Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother, and in His Name all oppression shall cease.”
No group of human beings is more oppressed, more deprived of basic rights, than the children in the womb.
Another fact of Christmas is that when Jesus was born, Mary “wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).
The fact that there was no room for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the inn at Bethlehem on the first Christmas should make us wonder, because the birth of Christ was foreseen and planned by God from all eternity. Hundreds of years before it happened, the prophets announced he would be born of a virgin (Is. 7:14) and that Bethlehem would be his birthplace (Micah 5:2). Many other details of his life and death were also foretold.
Did God, then, forget to make room for his only Son? How is it possible that there was no room, when the child born at Christmas owns the inn, and Bethlehem, and the world, and every inch of room in the whole universe?
Obviously, God did this on purpose. There was no room in the inn, because this demonstrates that world has rejected God. The world makes no room for the God who created it. There was no room in the inn because God wanted to show that His Son comes as a Savior, to reconcile a world that is at enmity with God.
No room at the inn also means that we fail to make room for all our brothers and sisters.
This Christmas, let’s embrace the depth and complexity of Christmas “peace and joy.” It’s not a superficial decoration of life the way we want to live it.
It’s a challenge to accept the truth this child brings, and live the new life he imparts. This life is a share in God’s own nature, and enables us to love as He loves, and to welcome all whom He welcomes, starting with the unborn.
Merry Christmas! And may the New Year lead us closer to a Culture of Life!
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