God's Love Made Visible

When we are young, the thought of  getting married one day can seem daunting. We fear that we will lose our freedom if we commit ourselves to spending our lives with just one person.

Many young people ask themselves:

Will I still be able to stay involved in all the activities I enjoy? What will I have to give up?

How will we know that we have found the right man or woman? What if someone better comes along? After several years, won’t we get bored with each other? Is it possible to remain faithful to one person for the rest of my life?

And how will I know that the person I choose to marry will be faithful to me? What guarantees are there that I will truly be happy?

When we focus on all the risks involved in committing ourselves to one person for the rest of our lives and all the sacrifices required to raise a family, it can seem overwhelming and even impossible.

Then, we fall in love. We meet that special person whom we find attractive and fun to be with. We find ourselves totally fascinated with our beloved. We want to know everything about him or her. Hours pass by without our even realizing it because being with our loved one feels so natural. For maybe the first time in our lives, we can be ourselves and know that we are accepted as we are. Any other activities we might have enjoyed in the past now seem irrelevant because nothing else compares to spending time with the one we love.

Once we fall in love, the thought of spending our lives with one person no longer seems frightening. In fact, we can no longer imagine how we can continue to exist without our loved one by our side. We actually want to commit ourselves to this beautiful person who has come to mean the world to us. Building a home together is no longer something we dread but an adventure we look forward to. In the throes of romance, what once seemed daunting and impossible now becomes desirable. What we once shied away from we now commit ourselves to with all our heart. Why? Because we have found the one our heart desires. Our love conquers our fear.

You might be asking yourself, What does this have to do with Christmas?

Well, we often look at religion the same way a person who is not in love looks at marriage. From the outside, it just seems to be a bunch of rules and regulations designed to limit my freedom. Aren’t there better things I can do with my Sunday morning than spend an hour in church? And who can make any sense of the Bible? What relevance can a book that was written thousands of years ago have to my life in the twenty-first century? It all just seems like a bunch of hoops to jump through for no reason.

Religion can seem like nothing more than empty rituals and restrictive rules. Then, we fall in love with Jesus.

It could be that we heard a passage from the Bible which made sense of a personal struggle. It could be that we were sitting quietly and had a strong sense of being in God’s presence. It could be that we woke up one day realizing how empty our lives were and asked Jesus to change us.

Once we realized how much God loved us, everything changed. Going to church was no longer something we did out of fear or obligation. Rather we wanted to celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection and receive Him in the Eucharist. The Bible no longer was just some book written thousands of years ago with no relevance to our lives today. Rather we realized that it is the  word of God and, reading it with the eyes of faith and love, it finally began to make sense to us. And the rules were no longer hoops to jump through. Rather we found true freedom in turning away from sin and making choices that were good and holy.

On Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. He is God’s love come down from Heaven. He is a love that we can see and experience for ourselves. Jesus did not come to earth to bring more rules or take away our freedom. He came so that we could know just how much God loves us and so that we could love Him in return. And like a young man who finds the woman he desires to give his heart to, we want nothing more than to live for Jesus once we experience His love for us.

 Christmas has become one of the busiest times of the year. Though it may be difficult, we should each take a few minutes either today or tomorrow to stop and be silent. We should ponder God who became a baby so that we could love Him. If our hearts are as cold as a stable in Bethlehem, let us ask Jesus to fill them with His warmth. If our souls are as dark as midnight in December, let us ask Jesus to fill us with the same light of the star that brightened the sky at His birth. If there is any prayer that our Lord will answer it is the prayer of  humble people who simply want to experience His love.

Then this Christmas will be the kind of holiday we have always dreamed of - a Christmas in which we experience love itself filling our hearts and brightening our souls. Christ will be born in our hearts, our fears will give way to that love and our lives will never be the same.