Unto You Is Born a Savior
Why our anti-child culture desperately needs the Christmas Nativity story.
Christmas, above all, is the annual celebration of the birth of Christ and is centered upon the profound Nativity story, which tells of a newborn child laid in a humble manger among animals but honored by sages and shepherds alike as the savior of mankind. In The Book of Luke, an angel of the Lord heralded the momentous occasion with the following words:
“Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”
The baby Jesus—believed by Christians to be the Son of God and God as Man—would grow up to redeem the world through His teachings, ministry, example, and sacrifice.
The Nativity is an archetypal story that can help everyone—firm believers and otherwise—understand, honor, and cherish every childbirth and every child.
For every childbirth is a sacred renewal of life. Children are the hope of the world. Every child has the potential to contribute to the salvation and redemption of humanity by learning from and remedying the sins and tragedies of previous generations.
Modern culture desperately needs the Nativity story, because in many instances and ways we fail to honor and cherish children: to emulate Mary, Joseph, the angel, the Magi, and the shepherds.
Too often we instead behave more like the tyrant King Herod, who sought to destroy the Christ child, even ordering the killing of all male children aged two and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem: the “Massacre of Innocents.” Herod “the Great” regarded the infant Christ’s prophesied destiny, not as a blessing, but as a threat to his own position, power, and pleasures.
A similar affliction of jealousy, arrogance, and vanity underlies a powerful and pernicious strain of animosity toward children in modern culture. Many adults regard children as an oppressive hindrance to their lifestyle and their worldly ambitions and as a drain on the planet’s resources that they themselves are enjoying.
This manifests in the modern Massacre of Innocents that is the state-subsidized and propaganda-fed culture of abortion. Indirectly, it manifests in the current mania for sterilizing children: a mass Maiming of Innocents.
And in manifold ways (excessive schooling, unnecessary divorces, lockdowns, environmental fear- and guilt-mongering, victimhood indoctrination, etc), self-absorbed adults are pychologically maiming children (often in pursuit of their ideological agendas). And this further contributes to the Massacre of Innocents in the form of rising child suicide rates.
We adults must save our precious children from our own vain and tyrannical impulses. If we do, they will save and redeem us in turn, which will indeed be good tidings of great joy.