As I sang the first one to my daughter before bed last night, I began to wonder: What is the saddest song ever recorded? I nominate the two below, though the first takes it for me. What say you?
UPDATE: I just remembered this one….
Christmas marks a momentous occasion in the history of Man’s salvation. With the coming of Our Lord, those who walk in the Spirit with Christ are restored to God’s family. God so loved the world that He gave his only Son that we could be saved. St. Paul teaches that God wishes to adopt us into his own family as brothers, sisters, and heirs of Christ (Rom 8:14-17). We as human beings are, of course, imbued with inherent dignity by our creation in the likeness and image of God. But, how much more does it increase our dignity to be adopted heirs to Christ’s throne? Each person possesses a claim on Christ’s Chair when he professes his faith in Christ and partakes of His flesh and blood. As adopted sons and daughters of God, each person’s intrinsic worth is increased over his former state, albeit immeasurably short of Christ’s Divine Sonship.
Of course, concomitant with God’s overwhelming beneficence comes a reciprocal duty to recognize the import of such a gift. Our response to such an astounding gift can be no less than full acceptance and spreading of that Good News to anyone who will listen. If God makes the faithful more worthy through his Divine Condescension, we can do nothing short of respecting that quality in others. We do this by imitating Christ, the supreme example, and treating others with the respect that their station as co-heirs with Christ rightly entitles them. Our personal interactions, our familial interactions, our public interactions, and even our national interactions should be guided by that example.
A child was born in a manger a little over 2000 years ago to a family of humble means. And the world was changed. With that child came hope for every man, woman and child. With that birth, we were freed from the slavery to sin and given a great promise that we might share in Christ’s heritage. Rejoice and be glad for this is the day the Lord has made. And, in this day, we are to be called to God’s family through our Redeemer.
Merry Christmas to one and all.
RSS
