Christmas is here again! Time for merriness and good cheer.
But in the middle of the cakes and ale, in the middle of the Yuletide joy, perhaps we should stop to remember what Christmas truly celebrates.
It is a commemoration of God coming into our world as Jesus. He, the all-powerful divinity, came down to us in the form of a helpless child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, to be nurtured and raised as human in preparation for his great service to humanity, and finally to die upon the cross to save us from our sins. Jesus, the light of the world, born to banish the darkness in which we live.
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. On those who lived in the shadow of death, a great light has shone on them.” So said the Prophet Isaiah when he prophesied Jesus’s birth eight hundred years before that Holy Night when Christ was born.
So, to celebrate Christmas is to recall His coming with joy and hope. And if indeed He came to dispel the darkness, yet if the darkness still persists, and evil still prevails, and sorrow calls to leaden-eyed despair, perhaps it behoves us in the midst of our Yuletide joy to ask why it is so.
Perhaps it is because we wait with folded hands and mendicant patience for God to come to us and fulfil our desires, in the way we think and want.
But he came into this world in His way with the infinite wisdom of a divine plan. And perhaps His plan was for us to understand that the only way that light will shine upon our darkness is if we think of the ways in which we can dispel the darkness from our lives and the lives of others. Then indeed a light will shine, and tears will change to laughter, and leaden-eyed despair will be brightened by the smiling face of hope. Then we will perceive His presence in our midst.
But if we continue to wait in the bliss of unthinking faith, we will remain too blind to see. And our refusal to recognise His presence is a rejection of the faith he has reposed in us, which means we fail to welcome him into our hearts and our lives.
So this Christmas let us celebrate His coming into our world by surrendering to His will and allowing Him to transform our lives. Otherwise, Christmas will come again, but Christ will not.
So let this Christmas be a time to remember that Jesus who was born into the world two thousand years ago, is born anew every day. He is among us everywhere.
There is a reason that Jesus was born to poor and humble parents in Palestine. It is to tell us that He is not to be found in palaces and mansions but among the poor and the downtrodden, the sick and the dying, and the hungry and the oppressed. Yes, He is among us everywhere.
So, too, is he present in Palestine where he was born. But it is a very different place today. A place where the cries of children rend the bleeding walls; where they claw the dust for food and wring their tears for water; where they cry out for help and mercy writhing on their funeral biers; where mothers cradle their dying children; where children hold their dying mothers with eyes that do not understand: in this madness of insane inhumanity, Jesus is present. In all this suffering, Jesus suffers and carries His cross.
He suffers and carries His cross in Manipur and Mizoram and Myanmar, and Ukraine, and Yemen, and Afghanistan, in every place where the roll call of war is long and bloodied. He is there. He weeps. He suffers. But his tears will wash us clean. His suffering will heal and save.
And that is why He was born, and why His crucifixion was the completion of his divine mission. So this Christmas let us experience the presence of God and recognise the grand purpose that is embodied in his humble birth on Christmas Day.
There he lies in swaddling clothes in his humble manger. He has divested himself of divinity. He is born a child, helpless, and clinging to his human mother.
There is a message here. Like Jesus, we must have the humility to descend from our positions of comfort and power to meet Him in the people around us. If we lock ourselves in the ivory tower of isolation, we can keep waiting for God all our life but we will wait in vain. And that is why it was spoken in the Book of Matthew that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
This is the parable embedded in Oscar Wilde’s story The Selfish Giant. The giant built a wall around his garden to keep out the village children who had nowhere else to play. He thought he would be happy. He did not want anything to despoil his little paradise. And of course he became unhappier by the day until he realised his folly, pulled down the wall, and let the children in.
That was when he found a lasting happiness. He had broken down the narrow walls of selfishness and readied himself to enter into the garden of Paradise.
So let us not be self-centred anymore. Let us open our hearts and welcome the infant Jesus into our life. He will then be born in our lives, in our hearts, in our homes.
Let us help God in Jesus to fulfill his mission. And then, as it was spoken in the Book of Revelation: “He will dwell with them, they shall be his people, he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passedaway.”
For this to happen, let us pray:
“Be born in us, be born in us,take our flesh and blood and give us your humanity.take our eyes and give us your vision;
take our minds and give us your pure thought.
take our feet and set them in your path;
take our hands and fold them in your prayer.”
I wish You All A Very Happy and Holy Christmas!
Rev. Fr. Dr. Dominic Savio SJ is principal, St Xavier's College (Autonomous), Kolkata