Christmas crucified

In these days as we prepare for the first Christmas of the third millennium AD, Christians need to humbly, honestly and with a repentant heart, reflect on an evil or wickedness linked to this season. 

What have we, individually and collectively done with Christmas as portrayed in the Holy Bible? As the cakes and the cards, the bells, the balloons and the bon-bons along with the bargain sales and the 5-star buffets blare out, an honest assessment would show that Christmas today has degenerated largely into a pagan festival. 

We have betrayed, denied and deserted the gospel values of the most momentous event in history, when the Son of God chose to be born among the poorest of the poor, among the rejected and the marginalised in a Bethlehem cattle-shed. Worse still we have given a mock trial whipped and battered Christmas and nailed it to a cross, bleeding in disgrace. 

Who is answerable and accountable for this? The supermarkets, the chain stores and the commercial world for which Christmas is the biggest business boast in that they make more profits in December than in all other months put together. Are they guilty? Partly perhaps. But as Jesus Christ said at His mock trial, the greater guilt would be on those who have knowingly betrayed and condemned Christmas into a business X'mas. Who are they? Clearly the good church-going Christians who go on a spending spree with their bonuses and co-operate with the commercial world in turning Christmas into a business. 

From that perspective, shall we reflect again on the Biblical injunction - "If my people who take my name repent and turn from their wicked way, (of betraying and battering Christmas) then I will heal them, their families and their land." 

The first step in genuine repentance is to honestly admit the truth about ourselves or what we have done with Christmas. Like Judas have we sold Christmas for money? At least that man sold the grown up Jesus. We are selling the innocent Baby Jesus. 

As John the Baptist powerfully told the crowds including religious leaders sincere repentance is not only a turning away, but also bears good fruit socially. As practical steps the Baptist told the people to share what they have - to shelter the homeless, to feed the poor, to stop exploitation and to be just and fair in what they do. 

So how do we sincerely repent this Christmas? 

Confession or the Sacrament of reconciliation is an important first step, but we need to go further and bear fruit that befit repentance. A practical way in the socio-economic context of today's Sri Lanka would be to spend less and share more. It is not only spirituality at a deep level, but good economics as well.

With extra money in your hands the normal temptation would be to think of what to buy or what to do with it. But before buying anything we could ask ourselves; do we really need this before having banquets or bust-ups for the season, we could ask ourselves; are those really necessary? If not, we could save that money and share it in the most useful way with less fortunate people.

That would be the most practical way not only of repentance but also of putting Christ back into Christmas. 

By cutting spending and sharing more with the poor, we would hear instead of a festive blare, the voice of Jesus gently telling us, "I was hungry you fed me, I was naked, you clothed me, I was homeless, you sheltered me...." If Christmas is dying or dead today, we need to co-operate by putting Christ back into Christmas and resurrecting it. Then we will see signs, wonders and miracles in our lives, in our families and in our country. 

Louis Benedict

O' Holy Night

By Lenard R.Mahaarachchi 

This to me is the real Christmas story. John tells us that Jesus the Word, was from the beginning and He was with God, He was GOD, and that all things were made by Him.

John says that this "Word" was made flesh, and became man and dwelt with us, adding that "......and we saw His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of God, full of grace & truth."(1/14)

Jesus is unique in that He had no beginning, He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. So isn't Jesus's birth holy, a mystery that finite man cannot comprehend? 

Then what of the Christmas that we celebrate with nonsensical gaiety and frolic, almost bordering on folly? For Jesus to be made "flesh" in the terminology of theology, or simply to be made a man, He had to be born of a human mother. God maybe did not want a miracle that men would not grasp, in sending His Son as one of us. But then the miracle was there all the same, in that he was born of a virgin mother, a miracle that only God can perform. The Son born to the Jewish couple in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, was no mere man, but God in human flesh. 

When celebrating Christmas, we need to understand and appreciate this fact. Jesus is the "word" of God, made flesh, or the LOVE of God, made man. Christmas needs to be understood this way, and not as a mere birth, to which if it was, would have been an ordinary incident,

To understand the virgin birth we need contemplate on the scene of the annunciation to Mary. When Mary who was not married, but only betrothed to Joseph was told by the archangel Gabriel, that she was to conceive and bear a son, she was perplexed. She answered, "How could this be, for I know not man?" Then the archangel explained, saying that the One she was to give birth, would bring light to the world. 

In this context we need to take a new look at Christmas. We need to consider how we mark this holy event of the Birth of God's Son. Christmas today as a celebration of an event that took place two millennia ago, has no meaning, if we were not to see it in the light of Jesus's Second Coming, which is more imminent now than ever. 

Today's Christmas must make us prepare for His Glorious Coming again as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, in majesty, rather than as a baby in swaddling clothes that first Christmas. So let your Christmas this year and after, be more significantly celebrated as a holy occasion, not so much a worldly feast. 

Look for the true meaning

It seems like the worst of times. My mind is haunted by the thought of the ten young Muslim men so cold-bloodedly murdered in their van on December 5. "The bloodiest election since independence" announced one newspaper headline. 

The violence that prevails in our own country is a part of the world scene. While I grieve for the families of the thousands lost in the attack on the World Trade Centre on September 11, families who will weep for 'loved ones lost who blest last Christmastide', I think of how death and destruction has rained down on the ordinary, innocent people of Afghanistan since then. The recent massacre in the Indian Parliament springs to mind. The agony of both Arabs and Jews in Palestine. Trouble and turmoil everywhere. How do we celebrate Christmas at times like these? 

The way in which the tinsel and trappings of Christmas are highlighted in the media might make it seem as if we have lost sight of Christ who is the reason for the season. He seems to have been replaced by the figure of Santa Claus. Confused people may imagine that He is in the shops and supermarkets and hotels, looking benevolently on the extravagant shopping sprees, the fabulous parties and dances. An uninvolved onlooker might be excused for concluding that all that Christmas signifies is an orgy of spending and self-indulgence. 

It is not so. Christmas was, is and ever will be the stupendous event of God's coming into our human situation in a lowly manger - and thereby touching and transforming the lives of countless women and men everywhere for all time. He loved people and during his brief sojourn on earth He encouraged and healed and inspired them and He continues to do so even today. Christ's birth, life, death and resurrection showed us Love made visible and triumphant. We have only to look around us with discerning eyes to find that God still enters our human lives and dwells in people who transmit the divine message of love. "In our acts of generosity, compassion, forgiveness and kindness, the Incarnation comes full circle." God came down in human form to show us how to become like Him. 

Whenever and wherever men's hearts have been moved by the love of Christ, there has followed a burning concern for the disadvantaged and the deprived. Long before the idea of the Welfare State caught on, Christian people had begun to care for the orphaned, the destitute and homeless, the aged, the disabled, the outcasts of society. William Booth began his great reclaiming work of the Salvation Army, George Muller opened his orphanages, Dr. Barnado established his Homes. Christian nuns - mainly Roman Catholic nursing sisters - devoted themselves to working in hospitals, leprosy asylums and TB sanatoriums all over the world. Mother Teresa in Calcutta - her work is carried on even in Sri Lanka by her Missionaries of Charity. 

The Colombo City Mission began its work in the slums in the heart of the Pettah as far back as 1913. The first School for the Deaf and Blind in this country was started in Ratmalana in 1912 by an Anglican missioinary, Mary Chapman, and still flourishes today as two separate schools. There was Evelyn Karney coming to Ceylon at the age of 27 in 1896 and starting what was called the Gampola Village Mission, but later moving into the more primitive conditions that then prevailed in remote Talawa in the NCP, labouring on behalf of women and children there and eventually founding her 'House of Joy' which still functions today. Constance Mendis Jayawardena devoted her life to working among the poor and needy in Urubokke where malnutrition was widely prevalent and setting up the Diviya Seva Asramaya - the House of Divine Service. 

For me, Christmas comes at any time of the year, in every act of loving kindness inspired by Christ. Let me relate my Favourite Story of the Month - my friend Seetha's "Toilet Project". Seetha learned, from her daily helper who came from the Dehiwela beach community, about the appalling lack of toilet facilities for the beach people. She and her husband went to have a look at the existing six dilapidated old toilets that were in a state of sad disrepair, toilets put up by the late Major L.V. Gooneratne a long time ago. She decided to do something about it. So, in the Christmas newsletter she usually sends friends and relatives abroad in December, last year she included a paragraph about her desire to put up toilets on the Dehiwela beach and invited donations. 

One letter went to her former minister at Kollupitiya Methodist Church, Rev. Dr. Norman Taggart, now back home in N. Ireland. He made "Poverty" the theme of his message to his congregation at Coleraine Methodist Church on Christmas Day, 2000, and read out Seetha's paragraph about the need for toilets on the beach at Dehiwela. 

The outcome was a more generous response than he imagined, with another Irish Methodist Church also chipping in, and, in no time at all, Rev. Taggart had over one thousand pounds sterling to send to Seetha for her "Toilet Project". 

One lady in his church had donated the entire sum given to her by her husband to buy something for herself at Christmas. 

Eventually, with gifts from a few other concerned individuals, Seetha had £1625 in her hands. But it was simpler for these Irish people to give the money than it was for Seetha to get the necessary co-operation from the Dehiwela-Mount Lavinia Municipality in order to go ahead with her project. Space doesn't permit me to describe her long and arduous struggle to achieve this end; but sheer persistence ultimately won the day. By the end of November this year, six new toilets on the beach off Auburnside became a reality and a plaque on one wall testifies to their having been erected through the generosity of the Methodist Churches of Coleraine and Ballimony and other friends overseas. 

A shining example of how one person can make a difference!

"And not one simple, loving deed

That lessens gloom or lightens pain, 

Or answers some unspoken need

Is done in vain. 

For Thou has taught us that Thou art

Still present in the crowded street; 

In every lonely, suffering heart- 

That there we meet. 

O Lord, our Master, teach us then

To bless the lonely and the sad, 

And, comforting our fellow men, 

To make Thee glad." 

So I shall join the happy throng of worshippers on Christmas morning, blending my voice with theirs as we sing with our whole hearts, "Oh come, let us adore Him - Christ the Lord."