101 Fear not to recognize the whole idea of sacrifice as
solely of your making. And seek not safety by attempting to protect yourself from where it is not. Your brothers and your Father have become very fearful to you. And you would bargain with them for a few special relationships in which you think you see some scraps of safety. Do not try longer to keep apart your thoughts and the Thought that has been given you. When they are brought together and perceived where they
are, the choice between them is nothing more than a gentle awakening and as simple as opening your eyes to daylight when you have no more need of sleep.
102 The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not outside yourself but shining in the Heaven within and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come. He comes demanding
nothing. No sacrifice of any kind of anyone is asked by Him. In His Presence, the whole idea of sacrifice loses all meaning. For He is Host to God. And you need but invite Him in Who is there
already, by recognizing that His Host is One, and no thought alien to His Oneness can abide with Him there. Love must be total to give Him welcome, for the Presence of Holiness
creates the holiness which surrounds it. No fear can touch the host who cradles God in the time of Christ, for the Host is as holy as the Perfect Innocence which He protects and Whose power protects Him.
103 This Christmas, give the Holy Spirit
everything that would hurt you.
Let yourself be healed completely that you may join with Him in healing, and let us celebrate our release together by releasing everyone with us. Leave nothing behind, for release is total, and when you have accepted it with me, you will
give it with me. All pain and sacrifice and littleness will disappear in our relationship, which is as innocent as our relationship with our Father, and as powerful. Pain will be brought to us and disappear in our presence, and without pain there can
be no sacrifice. And without sacrifice, there love
must be.
104 You who believe that sacrifice
is love must learn that sacrifice is
separation from love. For sacrifice brings guilt as surely as love brings peace. Guilt is the
condition of sacrifice, as peace is the condition for the awareness of your relationship with God. Through guilt you exclude your Father and your brothers from yourself. Through peace you invite them back and realize that they are where your invitation bids them be. What you excluded from yourself seems fearful, for you endowed it with fear and tried to cast it out though it was part of you. Who can perceive part of himself as loathsome and live within himself in peace? And who can try to resolve the perceived conflict of Heaven and hell in him by casting Heaven out and giving it the attributes of hell without experiencing himself as incomplete and lonely?
105 As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive yourself as a victim of sacrifice, justified in sacrificing others. For who could thrust Heaven and its Creator aside
without a sense of sacrifice and loss? And who can suffer sacrifice and loss without attempting to
restore himself? Yet how could you accomplish this yourselves when the basis of your attempts is the belief in the
reality of the deprivation? For deprivation breeds attack, being the belief that attack
is justified. And as long as you would retain the deprivation, attack becomes salvation, and sacrifice becomes love.
106 So is it that in all your seeking for love, you seek for sacrifice and
find it. Yet you find not love. It is impossible to deny what love is and still
recognize it. The meaning of love lies in what you have cast
outside yourself, and it has no meaning at all apart from you. It is what you preferred to
keep that has no meaning, while all that you would keep
away holds all the meaning of the universe and holds the universe together in its meaning. For unless the universe were joined in
you, it would be apart from God, and to be without Him
is to be without meaning.
107 In the holy instant, the condition of love is met, for minds are joined without the body's interference, and where there is communication, there is peace. The Prince of Peace was born to reestablish the condition of love by teaching that communication remains unbroken, even if the body is destroyed, provided that you see not the body as the
necessary means of communication. And if you understand this lesson, you will realize that to sacrifice the body is to sacrifice
nothing, and communication, which
must be of the mind, cannot be sacrificed. Where, then,
is sacrifice?
108 The lesson I was born to teach and still would teach to all my brothers is that sacrifice is nowhere and love is everywhere. For communication embraces
everything, and in the peace it re-establishes, love comes of itself. Let no despair darken the joy of Christmas, for the time of Christ is meaningless apart from joy. Let us join in celebrating peace by demanding no sacrifice of anyone, for so will you offer me the love I offer you. What can be more joyous than to perceive we are deprived of
nothing? Such is the message of the time of Christ, which I give you that
you may give it and return it to the Father, Who gave it to me. For in the time of Christ, communication is restored, and He joins us in the celebration of His Son's creation.
109 God offers thanks to the holy host who would receive Him and let Him enter and abide where He would be. And by your welcome does He welcome you into Himself, for what is contained in you who welcome Him is
returned to Him. And we but celebrate His Wholeness as we welcome Him into ourselves. Those who receive the Father are one with Him, being host to Him Who created them. And by allowing Him to enter, the remembrance of the Father enters with Him, and with Him they remember the only relationship they ever had and ever
want
to have.
110 This is the weekend in which a new year will be born from the time of Christ. I have perfect faith in you to do all that you would accomplish. Nothing will be lacking, and you will make complete and
not destroy. Say and understand this:
111
I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself.
I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you to imprison myself.
In the name of my freedom I will your release, because I recognize that we will be released together.
112 So will the year begin in joy and freedom. There is much to do, and we have been long delayed. Accept the holy instant as this year is born and take your place, so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening. Make this year different by making it all the
same. And let
all your relationships be made holy
for you. This is our will. Amen.
