The longer I live, the more inclined I am to believe in miracles, the more I suspect that if we had been there at the birth, we might well have seen and heard things that would be hard to reconcile with modern science…
Whether there were ten million angels there or just the woman herself and her husband when that child was born, the whole course of history was changed. That is a fact as hard and blunt as any fact. Art, Music, Literature, our political institutions, our whole understanding of ourselves and our world --- it is impossible to conceive of how differently world history would have developed if that child had not been born.
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“Ice splits starwise,” Sir Thomas Browne wrote. A tap of the pick at the right point, and fissures shoot out in all directions, and the solid block falls in two at the star. The child is born, and history itself falls in two at the star. Whether you believe or do not believe, you date your letters and checks and income tax forms with a number representing how many years have gone by since what happened happened. The world of A.D. is one world, and the world of B.C. is another.
It has given birth to a quality of life in an astonishing variety of people over an astonishing period of time. Somewhere along the line something deep in them split starwise and they became not simply followers of Christ, but bearers of his life.
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“Adeste Fidelis” is the only answer I know for people who want to find out for themselves whether or not this is true. Have faith enough, hope enough, despair enough, foolishness enough at least to draw near and see for yourselves.
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The final secret, I think, is this: “You shall love the Lord your God” becomes in the end less a command than a promise.”
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