COMMENTARY
This year, I am celebrating a Woke Christmas. Not Woke in the contemporary sense of Wokeness and Cancel Culture. Rather, Woke in the traditional, old fashioned sense of Wokeness where Woke meant being aware of what is ultimately true, good and just and not just socially acceptable.
This old-fashioned sense of Woke Christmas tells me that humanity – all of humanity – needs salvation, a salvation accomplished only through a loving being outside of all human arrangements – God. This old-fashioned Woke Christmas tells me that all human beings are precious, unique individuals that are loved, are sinful, and need the free and gracious salvation provided by a force outside of themselves – Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
This old-fashioned Woke Christmas tells me that I need to love and esteem others more highly than myself, that I need to live with humility and mercy toward others being quick to forgive and to forget so that I, too, maybe forgiven when my darkness gets the best of me.
This old-fashioned Woke Christmas tells me that no sociopolitical arrangement regardless of its brilliance can solve the ills of the human soul that spill unto our homes and streets. Only the maker of my soul – God – can heal my soul.
This Woke Christmas tells me that no scientific theory or project can bring meaning to my life or solve the mystery of life and death. Only the maker of the universe and my life – God – can grant my limited and fragile mind some understanding of the mysteries of his universe.
This Woke Christmas tells me that I need to be grateful for all good things I have received and never allow the evils that I have suffered to define or darken me. This old-fashioned Woke Christmas tells me that matters of eternity are much more important than temporality, that the eternal God loves us and is full of goodwill toward us, and the God is our friend and not our enemy.
This old-fashioned Woke Christmas tells me that we need to truly love and help one another and not just enable our blind desires and wishes that darken not enrich our lives and common humanity.
This old-fashioned Woke Christmas tells me that the essence of Wokeness is to be fully aware of the tremendous magnitude of my own sins, faults and weaknesses before I seek to make others fully aware of the magnitude of their own sins and shortcomings.
And this old-fashioned Woke Christmas tells me that I need to rectify my own sins and shortcomings before I attempt to remove the sins and failings of others.
As for me and my house, we will be celebrating a Woke Christmas – in the old-fashioned sense of Wokeness. Merry Woke Christmas!
Gerson Moreno-Riaño, Ph.D. is executive vice president for academic affairs and professor of government at Regent University.
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