Christmas Day, 10:00 AM. 34 degrees, wind W, gusty. The channel is roiled with white caps, the sky is overcast, and I have shoveled 4”-5” of slushy snow form driveway and walks. The city plow just came through so I still have work to do clearing the end of the driveway. The barometer predicts more of the same.
Christmas is mostly known for its message of “peace on earth…” and rightfully so. But, second only to the message of peace, is the equally strong message of freedom. Freedom from sin and error, and freedom from all oppression of the spirit. In the words of St. John “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” And, as Martin Luther proclaimed in the old hymn, “…the body they can kill, God’s truth abideth still…”
The concept of mortal freedom is a more secular idea, but it is a natural extension of freedom of the spirit. In fact our secular American freedoms emanate from our spiritual freedoms. Our Declaration of Independence states unequivocally, that “all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…” endowed by our Creator, not by the largess of kings, or dictators, or even the pronouncement of parliaments, for all these secular guarantors can simply declare these rights not to exist and place us once again in bondage. Our rights are inalienable because they are spiritual.
In that vein, the American Revolution and later our Civil War were natural and inevitable progressions from spiritual freedom to secular freedom. With these thoughts in mind, I propose that we celebrate, along with a traditional Christmas, Washington’s crossing of the Delaware on the evening of Christmas Day, 1776, which led to his first real victory in our war for independence, at Trenton the following morning; and thence on to a string of victories which eventually led to our triumph over the oppression of the British Empire. That victory rang the bell of freedom, and for the beginning of the end of tyrannies on earth. That struggle continues to this very Christmas, 2009.
In that spirit of the triumph of freedom over tyranny, I propose that we celebrate other past Christmases as well, those spent in the agony of the Civil War, those the Yanks spent in the trenches of France during WWI, the Christmas of the Battle of the Bulge and all the dreams of “White Christmases” during WWII, and those Christmases spent mostly unheralded in Korea and Vietnam, right down to this Christmas as it is being celebrated by our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the other places around the world where tyranny reigns or threatens.
Peace and freedom advance hand in hand, since one cannot exist without the other; and it all began over two millennia ago, in the little town of Bethlehem in ancient Israel.
May peace and freedom reign throughout the world, some holy Christmas yet to come! MERRY CHRISTMAS.
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