1996 Governor's Carolighting
December 1, 1996
The Beasley family has so much to be joyful about this holiday season. My kids are most joyful because we're going to Disney World this week! But for Mary Wood and I, our joy goes much deeper...to the very heart of community we've had the privilege to witness in streets and towns all across our state.
We've seen a state committed to living honorably...living by the example of perfect faith, hope and charity born 2,000 years ago. We've seen families and churches and neighborhoods serving as beacons of hope in their communities.
Many of those bearers of the light are with us today...day to day heroes like Lance Corporal Shawn Stankus who nearly gave his life to serve and protect....educators, firemen, workers committed to a job well done. I believe that as we gather today, we are all striving to find ways to achieve the ideals of unity, peace, brotherhood that Christmas represents...so we as a state can form a more perfect union. This Christmas, I hope we might learn from the world's greatest gesture of reconciliation...the gift of Jesus Christ...as a guide for how we, too, can bring peace to our corner of this earth.
Two-thousands years ago...just as today...no one had a greater reason to separate himself from mankind than God. God had created mankind for companionship...then watched as we turned away.
He had created perfection and then watched as we left it in ruins. But at the very hour when God should have washed his hands of us, he gave us all He had left to give. It was the ultimate example of unexplainable love...and it crossed the greatest divide there has ever been. Beyond all logic and reason, God made peace with humanity that night in Bethlehem. Christmas reminds us that we are called to make that same peace with our fellow man.
Thankfully, we were given the perfect example of how to do that...in what C.S. Lewis called "the divine life operating under human conditions." Jesus spent his life showing us how to love our neighbor...even those who hate and plot against us...even those living in disease and poverty...even those from cultures and lands that are different. Because the angel proclaimed..."Fear not. I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people."
The gift of that first Christmas was for all of us...not just a select few. This Christmas, our gift in return should be to share that love...as one people under God.
There's a Christmas carol my family sings every year...and probably yours does too. It's called "Good King Wenceslas"...and I'll tell you, I have enough trouble pronouncing it that I never much bothered to find out what it was about.
But the legend goes that Saint Wenceslas was a duke back in the Middle Ages. One night he was standing at his castle window watching the snow fall, when he saw a man struggling through the storm. The king grabbed his young page and they set out to help the man...but the blizzard started picking up and the boy was scared and ready to turn back.
Wenceslas was determined to forge ahead...so he told the boy to follow close behind him. That's when something miraculous happened. In every footstep the king took, the snow started melting away and green grass showed through. He discovered that as long as he kept his feet in those tracks, the path was clear and he walked in warmth.
God has given us his human footprints to follow. Rather than looking down on the world from his castle window, He first walked the path for us. And it leads straight to those in need...to the least of these...to our brothers and sisters struggling to make it through life's hardships. It's the path that the star first showed us 2,000 years ago...the path that Jesus walked...and it leads us in the direction of healing, brotherhood and finally, peace on earth....good will toward men.
Thank you and may all of South Carolina have a blessed holiday season.