O man, why are you fearful? Why do you tremble before the face of the Lord because he comes? For he is coming to save the world, not to judge it. Long ago a faithless fellow servant induced you to steal the royal diadem and place it on your head. But you were discovered in the act. You had good reason then to be afraid. You had good reason then to flee from the face of the Lord...Now, however, in a land of exile, you eat your bread by the sweat of your brow, and look, a voice is heard on the earth proclaiming the coming of the Lord. Where shall you go from his Spirit? Or where shall you flee from his face? But don't fear, don't flee. He is not coming now in anger. He seeks you not for punishment but in order to save you. And so that you should not say, "I heard your voice and hid myself" (Genesis 3:10), look, he has become an infant, a little speechless baby.
His wailing cries should rather move you to compassion than fill you with terror. And even if possibly they are a cause for alarm for some others, surely they are not so for you. He has made himself a little one. His Virgin Mother wraps him in his poor swaddling clothes~~and are you still fearful and trembling? This alone should convince you that he comes not to destroy but to save you, to deliver and not to bind you: the fact that he is already fighting against your enemies, that he, as the power and wisdom of God, is already trampling on the necks of the proud and haughty demons.
You, O man, have two enemies, sin and death, that is, the death of the soul and the death of the body. Christ came to conquer both, and from both he will save you. So don't be afraid.
~~St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 1090? ~ 1153
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