Esther
2024년 12월 24일
a reflection on human depravity and the Christmas story
Another wave of doubt, another stretch of disappointment in humanity, and I find myself turning inward, searching for a response to the weight of it all—searching, too, through the story of Christmas.
A baby is born, knowing the task that lies ahead. Knowing the kind of people he has come to save: the very ones who will slander, mock, laugh at him. The staggering hypocrisy, the brittle faith, the sheer lack of self-awareness—it is simply too much to bear.
Thoughtlessness, unthinking and unseeing, becomes its own kind of evil, the sort that wounds others without even noticing. And yet, he came. He came not as some distant savior but as one of us—fully human, yet fully divine. He walked where we walk, carried the burdens we carry, and knew the texture of our joys and sorrows. Purpose and action bound seamlessly together, he came. But why? Why save those who cannot even name their need? Why extend love so easily dismissed by carelessness and lovelessness?
The angels sang, “Glory to the highest and peace to the Earth,” though we scarcely know what it means. And yet, in countless stories, in broken moments patched with grace, humanity proves itself capable of both astonishing cruelty and unfathomable generosity. Still, the dream of a universal reckoning—a moment when all is fully known and understood—feels impossibly far away.
Justice, heavy with its demands, finds us forever wanting. It is mercy and grace that slip quietly in, lighting the way forward. The story of Christmas unfolds as one of extravagant love—not the sweetened, hollow love we sing of, but something altogether different. The sublime love that redeems and transforms, reaching into the heart of everything.
What would it mean to follow that path, humble and lowly, here and now, in this peculiar corner of the world? To do so without turning the act into self-punishment, without letting myself be reduced to a doormat—what would that look like?