BY FR. ROLANDO V. DE LA ROSA, OP
THROUGH UNTRUE
Many still think that when Christ was born, everything changed. It did not. What it brought was a promise of radical transformation that can only be realized when we actively cooperate with God’s initiative. The problem, however, is that we tend to understand such “cooperation” in terms of what we should do. We are like the Jews in our Gospel reading, who, after hearing St. John the Baptist’s preaching, asked, “What should we do?” (Luke 3:10-18).
Perhaps we remain resistant to the transforming power of God’s grace because we keep asking the wrong question. Instead of “What does God want me to do?” we should be asking, “What does God want me to BE?” God is far more concerned with being than with doing.
Many of us think that we must accumulate good acts as evidence that we deserve to be saved and loved by God. Unwittingly, we become like the Pharisees during the time of Jesus, who thought they could impress God with their devotion to duty. They mistakenly assumed that, in order to gain entrance to heaven, they needed to present God with a list of their good deeds, as if to say, “Here, these are the reasons I deserve to be in heaven.” They reduced religion to a mere checklist of things to do.
What we often do during Christmas reflects this distorted view of the Christian faith. Today, many of us approach Christmas as a series of self-imposed obligations: sending Christmas cards, emails, selfies, videos, and texts; shopping and bargain-hunting for decorations, gadgets, clothes, and other gifts; holding reunions; and organizing vacations to distant places.
We know that these activities rarely lift our spirits or help us focus on the true joy of Christmas. More often, they leave us physically exhausted and financially drained. Yet, we continue to engage in them year after year because this is how we answer the question: “What must I do to make Christmas meaningful and enjoyable?”
This question has become second nature to us and is gradually undermining the real meaning of Christmas. John Eldredge writes, “Once you have lived so long in a certain spot, no matter how odd or ugly, you come to think of it as home.”
When we view Christmas as an endless pursuit of more things to do, we reduce it to a business plan rather than a joyful celebration. Our talents and resources, instead of being gifts we offer to God, become mere tools for fulfilling our expectations, while God—the proper object of our desire during Christmas—is left out.
Let us look back. The first Christmas occurred because God wanted to stir our desire for Him. He became human simply because He wanted to be desired, to be needed, to be wanted, and above all, to be passionately loved. He wanted us to say, “As the deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1).
In a very real sense, Christmas opens our eyes—not to what we should do or keep doing, but to what we should be in God’s eyes. The image of the infant Jesus in a manger reminds us of a new beginning, a chance to be born again. It invites us to say: “I am not the same as I was yesterday. I am becoming someone who desires God more deeply and who believes that my real worth lies not in what I do but in what I can become through His grace.”
