Gospel: Matthew 11: 28-30
Life under Roman occupation was harsh. Taxation was high, the workload for the vast majority of people was backbreaking, and poverty was rampant. There was no hope of upward mobility (unless you gave yourself to the rulers as a collaborator), nor any possibility of regime change. There were Messiah figures in Jesus' day who promised upward mobility and overthrow of the Roman army. Such men were either charlatans or quickly executed for rebellion.
But Jesus offers an entirely different path to liberation. Freedom from our sins and vices - spiritual liberation - will lead to liberation of the entire person over time. Once the burden of our sins and vices is removed, the person is free to consider other possibilities in life. A spiritually liberated person sees others with empathetic eyes and reaches out with love and mercy. For it is in love that new things become possible and creative pathways come into existence.
The burdens of human existence are hard, but Jesus comes to ease those burdens, not with cottage industries or political revolutions, but with the lifting of the burdens of sin and vice that hold us back from our full human potential and flourishing. Once spiritually free, a person can find liberation for themselves and others in all other areas of life in creativity, not destruction, in organic growth and not pyramid schemes. This is what love can do, and Advent is our time to realize this path of freedom.
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