The weeks leading up to Christmas are filled with longing and expectation. This is the season of Advent, which culminates in the birth of Jesus. As we sing in the hymn, O Little Town of Bethlehem, “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” We know quite a bit about these hopes and fears from reading the Hebrew prophets and the Gospels. And the age-old hopes and fears are not so different from ours today — the longing for peace, and the desire for economic security and vitality for all people.

But we look around and see that the reign of peace and justice eludes us. Are we to lose faith? Far from it. We are to remember that Jesus’s birth and his life and ministry have always been an invitation to reflect on what can and should be done to change our hearts and the world.

I love that the Bible offers us the stories of babies — baby Moses, baby John the Baptist, baby Jesus. I am grateful that my 21-month-old knows very little about Santa Claus yet, and is instead focused on Christmas Day being the day when baby Jesus, pronounced baby “cheetahs,” will be born. Baby Jesus now lies hidden under a tissue inside our manger under the tree, waiting to be revealed on Christmas Day. And as someone remarked at a Christmas party the other night, while watching children playing beneath a Christmas tree, “It’s really all about them, isn’t it?” That person may have been commenting on how Christmas is most magical when viewed through the eyes of children, but it’s also true that Christmas is all about the next generation, the hope and promise of a future that is yet to be known. Intellectually, we adults may know that Christmas is a gateway to the future and charged with hope, but are we truly as hopeful as the holiday asks us to be?

So how do we move ourselves from the familiar terrain of despair or cynicism to long-forgotten hopefulness? Perhaps the transformation rests in seeing each Christmas as an opportunity to be reborn. The scripture texts of Christmas all celebrate the sacred quality of pregnancy and birth. The story of Jesus’s birth resonates with the longing for a more just world to be born. The gospel of Luke in particular offers us songs — Mary’s Magnificat, the Song of Zechariah and the Song of Simeon, all of which are sung about and over babies. How many of us have looked at a child, or held a newborn baby, and felt profoundly moved? Felt the joy of the world and felt a profound hope for the future? And can’t you recall being a child and believing that the world could be changed and that you would be a part of that process?

Dr. Daniel Fisher house twinkles for the holiday. — Mark Alan Lovewell

Maybe Christmas is about reconnecting with our own birth blessing, to empower us with the recollection that we each were born as blessed children of God. Let’s face it, as we age, we lose touch with our sense of blessedness. Whether it is the busyness of our lives that disconnects us from the sacred, or the personal hurts and messages of our consumer culture that make us feel less than blessed, maybe now is the time for change. Maybe now is the time to part ways with all the insecurities, doubts and fears that stand in the way of your blessedness. If repentance means to turn around, maybe it is as much a returning to our blessedness, as it is a turning away from what is sinful and corrupt. How powerful to consider the path of repentance as a way back to our blessedness rather than a turning away from sin. All of which could lead to a rebirth each Christmas and a renewed commitment to change the world.

The baby Jesus is born into a cruel world, where the forces of Empire, of political, military, economic and ideological domination, conspire against his vision of the Kingdom of God. We know how power corrupts in our everyday lives as well. How is it that we encounter so many beautiful individuals, yet our political and economic systems fail us? Christmas invites us to stand face to face against every power that denigrates the beauty of creation. Christmas offers a path of resistance and a path of constructive vision and action. The path is not easy, but remember, when you were a child, you knew it was the only path to take. You knew you were born to do the right thing.

So, this Christmas, may the stories of birth, new life and a new world serve as an invitation for you to join forces with a little baby, Jesus Emmanuel, in order to change the world. Your children and your grandchildren and the child within are waiting for you.