To know the cure is not to become immune to sorrow.
In 1946, C. S. Lewis offered a Christmas message for people who lived outside the warmth of the church but inside the ache of the world. Reading it today, one may discover that the world has not changed as much as we pretend. We still carry that ache. We still hunger for something real. So I want to follow Lewis’s path, not repeating him, but letting his categories guide us as we look at the three kinds of people who show up each December: the ones who do not know they are sick, the ones who know too well, and the ones who have found the cure.
Those who are sick and don’t know it.
These are the “post-Christians,” as Lewis calls them, and they are everywhere. They do not feel lost because they no longer know what it feels like to be found. They move through life like people walking through the ruins of a cathedral without realizing it ever had a roof. They know the language of faith—words like sin, forgiveness, grace, redemption—but the words lie there like tools in an attic no one remembers how to use.
The post-Christian sees the world not as a gift to be reverenced but as something to be managed. He believes he is free because he has thrown off religion, but the freedom leaves him oddly hollow. His conscience flickers at odd moments, but he scolds it back into silence. If something is wrong in the world, he blames the system, the culture, the politics, education, anything except the man in the mirror.
He is sick, but he does not feel sick. He has a wound he cannot locate. He is restless, but he doesn’t know why, so he keeps scrolling, keeps working, keeps numbing himself until Advent slips past him like a bird in the dark.
Those who are sick and know it.
These are the new pagans. Not the old kind who acknowledged the sacred pulse of rivers and trees, who walked through a world humming with spiritual presence. No, the modern pagan is the person who senses that something has gone missing. He knows there is more to the world than the headlines and the grind. He feels a hunger he cannot name, a homesickness for a place he has never seen.
He may not use the word “sin,” but he knows that he is not what he ought to be. He knows there is some goodness he was meant for, some beauty he has brushed against but cannot hold. He sometimes speaks into the dark when he thinks no one is listening. He sometimes wonders if the ache in him is a kind of compass.
He is sick, and he knows it. But he does not know where the cure is.
Advent speaks gently to him. It does not scold. It does not demand explanations. It simply says, “You’re right to feel this longing. You’re right to sense that something is coming.” Advent is the season that honors hunger. It tells the truth: the world is dark, and we are unwell, and help is on the way.
Those who have found the cure.
They are not cured because they are clever or moral or spiritually disciplined. They are cured because a Child entered the world through a door we could never open from the inside. The cure comes wrapped in flesh and laid in straw. The cure has a name. And when the cure grows up, he walks toward sick people, touches them, forgives them, restores them, and finally dies to save them from death.
To know the cure is not to become immune to sorrow. It is to discover that sorrow does not have the last word. It is to discover that, beneath all our noise and fear, there is a Love strong enough to set bones, mend hearts, and raise the dead.
Those who know the cure don’t boast. They don’t pretend the world is less broken than it is. They simply live with a quiet gladness and hope because they know that the deepest truth of the universe is not darkness but mercy.
This is the heart of Advent.
A world that cannot save itself is told that Someone is coming.
A people who cannot heal themselves hear footsteps on the road.
Those who do not know they are sick are startled awake.
Those who know they are sick lift their heads with hope.
And those who have found the cure begin to sing, because they know what is about to happen.
Christmas does not begin with cheer. It begins with a world desperate for rescue. It begins with a God who does not wait for our readiness but steps into our confusion, our failure, our longing, our sickness.
Christmas does not begin with cheer. It begins with a world desperate for rescue.
So if you feel lost this Advent, you are not far from the Truth.
If you feel the ache, then you are already listening.
If you know the cure, then you know why the Light is on its way.
And whether you are the first kind, the second kind, or by God’s grace, the third, read on and receive this as a gift:
The Child is coming.The night will not last.
And the cure for the world lies in a manger, breathing softly, living, and moving, and coming to you.
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