Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!

Friday, December 13, 2013
"Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!"

With the mountain of grading I have in store for me this weekend, I am enjoying Friday night much less than usual, so it was nice to get yet another hymn reinforcing my belief in the salvation of all mankind.  I am so blessed to have chosen, with a kind of desperation for inspiration, to work with Advent and Christmas hymns this Lent.  It has been a wonderful blessing in my life.

Also because these hymns really do the work of this interpretation for themselves, to the point where I wonder how people can sing these songs every year and not come to the obvious conclusion.  Look at the second and third verse:

Now ye hear of endless bliss;
Jesus Christ was born for this!
He has opened heaven's door,
And we are blest forever more.
Christ was born for this!
Christ was born for this!

Now ye need not fear the grave;
Jesus Christ was born to save!
Calls you one and calls you all,
To gain his everlasting hall.
Christ was born to save!
Christ was born to save!

Not to condemn.  Not to divide the world into his followers and his enemies. No, he did not come to bring peace.  He came to bring salvation.  He came to set us free from what kept us from becoming more than we were then and, to be honest, in a lot of ways are now.  Free from sin and from its painful consequences.

Now we have the hard work of creating endless bliss -- or at least moments of bliss.  Jesus came down to try to free us from an eternal hell and from the hells we insist on setting up here on earth to compensate.  We are meant to bring moments of heaven to others, to be the Body of Christ and the Face of God.

Yesterday, I did a story with my kids where a deeply wounded and confused character wonders if it's possible that he, being alone and isolated and unique in all the world (the minotaur), could have created the world and then just forgotten about it.  We had a sympathetic (mostly) laugh at this character's expense, but it makes me wonder -- how lonely it must be to be God.

How lonely He must be to want us, weak, craven, useless things that we are.  But He does.  Enough to become like us, to take on our flesh.  To die for us.  To permanently change His own nature.

Just so we will stop creating so much pain.  To give us the chance to shed our burdens, especially our sins, and make something better of our world.

We owe it to Him to strive (in vain) to be worthy not just of that sacrifice but of that trust.  Of that love.  We owe it to God to make Him feel a little less lonely and unique in the universe as a being of Love.