Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. (Lk. 1:67-68)
These were the first words spoken by Zechariah after the long months of silence, as he waited for the words of the angel to be fulfilled in the birth of his son, John, who would be the herald of the Messiah. We repeat those same words during the Lenten season as we prepare our hearts for Good Friday and Easter. Indeed, these words are at the heart of the meaning of both Christmas and Easter. Through the birth of Jesus, God the Son came into our world and made his dwelling among us. It is difficult to overstate the sheer wonderment of that fact. How is it that the eternal creator God who is wholly other, would join himself to humanity, confine himself to a human body, and live a life in space and time as we do? On the face of it, his life seemed like a failure. He was born in obscurity and poverty, the message he came to bring fell mostly on deaf ears, he was rejected by his own people, and handed over to the Romans to die a brutal death. It began with the cries of a girl in labor ringing out from a cave, and ended with the cries of a man from a cross as people gawked and jeered at him. And yet, because he came into our world, history, the universe, and you and I, will never be the same again, because that same man who cried out from the cross, breathed his last and was consigned to the grave, rose again, breaking the chains of guilt and death forever, and securing the way to redemption and life for all who will trust in him. God has come into our world—and that changes everything.
This Christmas season, may we join our voices with Zechariah in praise to our God, who has raised up a horn of salvation for us, and who has come into our world to redeem us and give us life!
In Christ,
The Enrights