CHRIST in Christmas

STRIVING
TO PUT CHRIST BACK INTO CHRISTMAS!
(Christmas Reflection
2011, by Martin Jalleh)

Many of us who are Christians have allowed rampant
commercialisation and the “Walt Disneyfication” of Christmas to reduce our
Christian spirituality to mere sentimentality. Christ has been hijacked by
“Christ-less” carols, cakes, cool cards and cozy nativity scenes and
portrayed as one entering into a world of comfortable spiritual sentiment.

In reality “Christmas is not a nice story” and “it has nothing to do
with the nativity scenes we see on our Christmas cards or in most of the
Christmas paraphernalia…” notes Nils von Kalm, an Australian writer and
sociologist.

The Real World

In sharp contrast to the modern vehicles of entertainment, the
biblical (infancy) narratives are stark short and simple. They do not allow
the imagination to dwell on the detail of time or setting. As Charles Anderson
of God Web would put it: “The Bible does not offer brilliant descriptions of
scenes or costumes, landscapes or city scapes...…

“ The biblical writers were struggling to express that which is
beneath the surface and to reveal the fire that burns at the very heart and
center of life…One searches the scriptures in vain for descriptions of the
manger, we are given absolutely no detail to satisfy your curiosity about
what the baby Jesus looked like…(or) the costumes of Mary, Joseph and the magi.

“ If we read the Christmas story in the original we are taken into the very
depths of our own experience where the pain and the pleasure of a cold
winter day are most intense. The Bible concerns those conflicting currents of our
own inner life, those cross currents of pleasure and pain that are finally resolved
in the experience of God's love.”

Anglican priest Joy Carroll Wallis echoes the same when she
reminds us that “ Jesus didn't enter a world of sparkly Christmas cards or a
world of warm spiritual sentiment”. Sadly, “we have often settled for the
sweet coming of a baby who asked little of us in terms of surrender, encounter,
mutuality or any studying of the Scriptures or the actual teaching of Jesus ”
(Fr Richard Rohr).

Relevant till today

The dangerous world in which Jesus was born into and the ensuing
deep struggle between light and darkness, death and life, fear and faith –
is equally real till this day and in our very own beloved country. Over the
past year Christians have been increasingly discriminated against due to the
frequent contravention (with impunity) of the constitutional guarantees of
our religious freedom.

The world in which Jesus entered was not very different in
comparison to our world. It was “a world of real pain, of serious
dysfunction, a world of brokenness and political oppression. He was born an outcast, a homeless person, a refugee, and finally he becomes a victim to
the powers that be” (Joy Carroll Wallis) .

Neither should our response to the challenging realities we are
confronted with be different from that of Jesus’: “Herod recognizes
something about Jesus that in our sentiment we fail to see: that the birth of this
child is a threat to his kingdom, a threat to that kind of domination and rule.
Jesus challenges the very power structures of this evil age.”

This point is highlighted equally effectively by Fr Richard Rohr:
“ What we call the Incarnation, God becoming a human being, becoming one of
us , strikes directly at the heart of evil and corruption in the world. God
becoming human looks evil in the eye and takes it on without flinching. As Bruce Cockburn
sang it so brilliantly, it is God kicking the darkness till it
bleeds daylight ’. ”

The Word of God comforts and consoles us at Christmas. But it also
confronts, challenges and converts us! It refuses to allow us to remain at
the level of the sweetening and softening of the message of Christmas.
We have a choice of comfortable Christianity (Christmas pudding,
presents and the perfect paraphernalia) or the courage to challenge
(by God’s grace) both the darkness and the very power structures in our country.

Surely, the suffering and injustice in our country are too great
now to settle for any “infantile gospel” or any “infantile Jesus”. The Lord
invites us to work with him in His Kingdom -- to do justice, love mercy and
walk humbly with Him (Micah 6:8). Our “fiat” would mean we striving to put
Christ back into Christmas!

Reversal

Renowned Bible scholar William Barclay describes the Magnificat
which Mary sang to her baby in utero as “revolutionary”. He says the song
highlights four revolutions that God inaugurated at Christ’s birth – a
moral , social, economic and spiritual revolution. Mary’s song links religion and
politics, faith and economics.

Mary prayed a model prayer just like Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel 2
and in the Psalms, and her son grew up to pray a model prayer in Luke 11…
Mary is no mother meek and mild. She is in fact a “revolutionary”! Her Magnificat
is a strong reminder that God is always with us – a people called and chosen
and through whom love and justice are to triumph over arrogance, truth over
evil.

It is a song that encapsulates the great themes of Christianity
and explicitly reveals that mercy comes to all who accept the Christ-child.
It is a song about what a Bible scholar called, “ reversals ” . In place of the
proud and the powerful, God will lift up the powerless, weak, poor and the
‘ least of these’ (Matt.25). God is one on the move to bring justice, a reversal of the way things are, even the status quo!

In her Magnificat, Mary prophesied about Christ’s mission. Jesus
fulfilled his mother's prophesy in his own Nazareth Manifesto -- his first
words, in Luke 4 -- by saying, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because
he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor."

Just like Mary, we become partakers and partners of Christ’s
mission and “revolution” when we first allow God to work a “reversal” in our
personal lives. Will we allow the Lord to turn our world upside down inside out – in
terms of our purpose, priorities, values, thinking and our whole being – in order to
bring about real, relevant and radical change in this country .

May our response to the Advent call of conversion of heart result
in our personal transformation – from one of compromise to courage, and from
convenience and comfort to one of conviction and commitment to our duty and
responsibility towards social action, justice and mission.

May our concerns and commitment be not confined to the well-being
of Christians alone but may they embrace the struggles encountered by the
peoples of all races and religions, yes, even the Muslims too. May we
champion “ the common good ” and be the very embodiment of agape as Christ is born
again in our hearts this Christmas! A Blessed Christmas!