We're thrown, then, back on institutions that fail again and again and again but seem, for all that, to lack plausible alternatives. The skeptics and foes of the Christmas message urge better regulation of swindlers and better safeguards against terrorists. That's about where it stops.
Talk about doom! Doom is thinking all you can do about Bernie Madoff is devise more effective traps for his like. That the Lord of the Universe might think in grander terms -- having to do with redemption and deliverance from sin -- isn't something that comes to mind in legislative chambers. Not that it should. The point wouldn't be that legislators need to figure out God's position on tax policy and mortgage oversight. The point would be that ordinary people looking for hope might turn elsewhere than to legislators, presidents, judges and political strategists.
To the central figure of the Christ-Mass? To the baby named Jesus? We all might -- should -- account that a dependable possibility. The ancient superstructure of Christmas, and of the religion that grew out of it, overshadows the mere busyness practiced by humans: the making of money and war, the passing of laws and edicts.
If God -- think of it, God -- came in love and humility to His people in the form of a baby, does not that consideration outrank everything else on earth, then and since then? Even the movements of the market? Even war, even peace?
Well ?
Bill Murchison
Bill Murchison is the former senior columns writer for
The Dallas Morning News and author of
There's More to Life Than Politics.
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©Creators Syndicate
©Creators Syndicate