Christmas: The restoration of justice
There is much talk among people today about the righteousness of God. This is not a current phenomenon. It characterizes every age and its beginning is as many years ago as the history of the world. There are many who question God’s love for His creatures and His justice. They wonder how injustice, sorrow and suffering are allowed to prevail since all these are alien to Divine love. From the very first years of life’s existence on earth, multiple legitimate questions arise in the human mind as it sometimes stands before injustice and sometimes suffers it… Why should the disobedience of the firstfruits – Adam and Eve – deprive the entire human race of Paradise? Why did God allow Abel – whose sacrifices so pleased Him – to be killed by his brother Cain? Why were good Abel and jealous Cain in the same place after their deaths? Where is the justice of God? At the time of the terrible flood, when water covered everything on our earth, only Noah and his family were saved thanks to the Ark. Were there not children all over the planet, little children, innocent children, who perished defenselessly in the flood without having committed any crime? How did God tolerate the deception used by Jacob – the second son of Isaac – to obtain his father’s blessing, resulting in injustice to the firstborn son Esau?
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But even in our day the questions are glaring… Why does God allow injustice to exist? Today, in the 21st century, when technology and science are galloping and civilized nations have indulged in addicted over-consumption, are there people dying of hunger, children orphaned and unprotected who have nowhere to lay their head – that angelic head? How does God allow young people or young children to pass away in a torturous way, for example from cancer, from various diseases or because of accidents? How is it possible that a parent can allow a parent to live and a child to die? Is he not a father too? Does He not understand the suffering of people? Why are there areas affected by wars or deadly assemblies and their inhabitants are tormented? Why are there people suffering from deadly diseases like ebola, aids and others? Is not God – I repeat – the Father of all those who suffer? Why doesn’t he have pity on them? Finally, how does he endure that countries that we horrendously call “third world” still exist and suffer from insurmountable maintenance and health problems?
Amidst all these “whys” and “hows,” who can claim and argue that God is a God of love and justice?
And yet the celebration of Christmas is God’s restoration of justice.
Isaiah prophesied it:
“Great shall be his beginning, and his peace shall have no end, upon the throne of David, and his kingdom shall be established, and he shall possess it, and shall receive it in judgment and in righteousness from henceforth and for ever”, that is, “Great shall be his power, and peace without end. He shall sit on the throne of David, and shall establish his kingdom and establish it on righteousness and justice from now and for ever.” (Isaiah 9:6)
The apostle Paul confirmed it: “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: wherefore, O God, thy God, thou hast anointed thee with oil of gladness for thy partakers,” that is, “Thou lovest the just and hatest the unjust. Therefore, O God, your God has anointed you Messiah with oil of gladness, honoring you above your shareholders.” (Hebrews 1:9) The sorrow, injustice and pain under the weight of which humanity groans is the result of our apostasy, our separation from God the Father. We have rejected the Sun of Righteousness and the heavenly life under His light. Unrepentant, we have wanted to live in the darkness of our sin under the dominion of the ruler of this world, the devil. No, God could not bear to see His creature in this condition! Even from the moment of Adam and Eve’s disobedience in Paradise, He knew what they were going to suffer next. He did not keep them there lest evil become immortal. But He immediately laid out His divine plan for the salvation of the world, promising to send them the One who would redeem them from sin and restore them to eternal happiness with Him. And He was none other than His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, who condescended to fit His deity into a human body and be born on our poor earth.
The hymns of the Church also celebrate this by singing and preaching that Christ, with his coming, gave freedom, life and redemption. They cry out : “Hear ye mountains and hills and environs of Judea, that he is coming”, that Christ has come “to save him whom he created – that is, man – as a philanthropist” (Cyr. pre Christ. v. Echo B), to reopen the doors of heaven to us, to make us once again potential heirs of eternal life. By His birth, Christ makes it possible for us not to continue on the downward disobedient path of the firstfruits. As the new Adam, He is “born” to raise up, “the image that was fallen before,” that is, the fallen image of God, man. He thus restores the righteous Abel who was unjustly slain, and with him all the righteous men of the Old Testament who pleased God in His Paradise. While, far from eternal blessedness are those who would not be His. But even in our day, Christ, by His birth, restores righteousness. How? In what way? By the possibility He grants to each of us, young or old, rich or poor, sick or healthy, to become a resident of Paradise. For Christ there is no time. Let us remember the Old Testament: “A thousand years in Thy sight, O Lord, as the day of yesterday” (Ps 89:4) and the New Testament: “One day of the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). Perhaps this was the reason why He accomplished the work of His divine economy at a young age. For Christ, eternity exists and counts. His loving gaze covers the infant and the aged with equal interest, and His anxiety is one: when He will find them properly prepared to lead them to eternal happiness in His presence. How short-sightedly we weigh and measure everything by time! We forget that we are made for eternity!
As for hardships and afflictions, the Lord gave us the example of poor Lazarus who, because of his misfortunes and humiliations in earthly life, rested eternally in the bosom of Abraham. But our Lord Himself, before reaching the Resurrection, lived a life of hardship and suffering until death. Let us not forget, therefore, that any tribulation that knocks at our door, if we make use of it, intensifies the effort we make to reach our final destination and brings us much closer to the court of Paradise. To the Sun of Justice, the divine Infant, we celebrate and give heartfelt thanks for the restoration of justice and fervently ask Him to judge us not with justice, but with abundant divine mercy as merciful and compassionate.
Blessed Christmas!
