“Move!“
By Fr. Adam Laski
This time of year, everything seems to get frozen up. If we haven’t moved enough, our bodies start to atrophy. If we don’t move our vehicles and clean them, rust forms. If we stay in place, salt and sand tear apart even the heaviest machinery. Imagine trying to free a rusted nut on a bolt—it takes a lot of effort and energy to bust something loose that’s been stuck for too long. That’s why people invented breaker bars or tire irons—to help apply enough pressure to break out the rusted bolt and nut.
When we try to move it with normal means—using a pair of pliers, for instance—it often isn’t enough. Once it’s stuck, it takes a tremendous amount of effort to set it free. Sometimes, we get frozen in place in our spiritual lives too. Whatever happens, we like to think we’re in control and can move whenever we want. But if we’re honest, sometimes we realize inertia is against us, and we can’t seem to get unstuck. The only real antidote is movement—but it often feels like we need something external to pry us out and get us moving again.
What contributes to slowing down in our spiritual lives? Sometimes it’s complacency—the sense that we’re too busy for spiritual matters. Sometimes it’s apathy—the attitude that we can’t be bothered to engage.
Sin also plays a role because it builds a web of selfishness that affects our relationship with God and others. As Scripture says, when we live for the “world, the flesh, or the devil,” we lose hope and give up exerting effort in our spiritual lives. Even if we’ve received Christ’s grace in the past, we may let it spoil, so to speak. We slow down, rust out, and find ourselves stuck.
The great joy of this day is that there is a way out. The second reading for today describes it this way:
When the kindness and generous love of God our Savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done but because of his mercy, He saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.
The remedy is movement, and Christ is in motion for us. The Word of God, Jesus Christ, acts to forgive, heal, set right, and break us out of the strongest grip of complacency and sin. The shepherds encountered a choir of angels praising the Lord at Jesus’ birth. When they heard this outbreak of heavenly song, they moved—they went to see the manger where Jesus was.
They were broken out of themselves by the message of Jesus– and sent on the move.