Christmas Hope

TNR: The Radical Meaning of Christmas by E.J. Dionne Jr.
This is the kind of thing that I would LOVE to be able to write when I grow up (!) or even to hear in a sermon at Church, but doubt I ever will...

Snippets:

The Christian message is frequently drained of this larger meaning and interpreted, often by Christians themselves, as being solely or primarily about personal salvation. But this sells the tradition short.

Last month, Pope Benedict XVI issued a fascinating encyclical on the idea of Christian hope in which he explicitly disputed the idea of "the Christian project as a selfish search for salvation which rejects the idea of serving others." Drawing on the theologian Henri de Lubac, Benedict argued that "salvation has always been considered a 'social' reality." The tradition of hope, he says, asserts both the obligation and the ability of "every generation" to engage "anew in the arduous search for the right way to order human affairs" and to discover "the proper use of human freedom." Seen this way, hope is a promise but also a challenge. It does not guarantee success in human affairs. It only insists that success is possible.
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But there is the religious interest in the incarnation and the natural interest in birth. "The kingdom of peace comes through a child," writes the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann, "and liberation is bestowed on the people who become as children: disarmingly defenseless, disarming through their defenselessness, and making others defenseless because they themselves are so disarming."

A naive view, perhaps, but surprisingly realistic since the best defense often requires us to drop our own defensiveness. This act of trust is made possible by hope, which in turn is the precondition for reform, renewal and redemption. Without hope, none of it is even worth trying.