Gospel: Luke 1: 67-79
The mission of God on earth is ransom and mercy. God has come among his people to bring liberation in the fullest sense possible: material liberation from all oppression; spiritual liberation from sin and vice; psychological liberation from the demons that possess us; intellectual liberation from error and falsehood. This liberation comes in the person of Jesus who teaches us and shows us how we are to live a life of love and mercy in the world.
This liberation comes not as some magical metaphysical gift. It comes in following the way of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is the gift to be received by living as he taught us and how he lived. In receiving the mercy of God we are to express our gratitude to God for this mercy by extending love and mercy ourselves - to be that love and mercy of God in the way that Jesus and others have been for us in our lives.
The gift of Christmas is the gift of ransom, the gift of mercy expressed in the life and person of Jesus. The task of Christmas and of each day in our life is to give that gift of mercy to everyone we meet. Then, and only then, will the gift of ransom and liberation come to the whole world. That gift is not magic. It is one we have to keep giving each and every day to all the people of the world, inviting them to give that gift in like manner.
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