The Meaning of Christmas
Manila Times
December 25, 1999
THE glitter of the dancing lights, the tinsel and the decorations can excite
and distract us from the meaning of Christmas. It has become a very
commercialized and materialistic celebration for many. The stampede for
profligate profits, the slide of society into moral decline has all but robbed
Christmas of it's purpose and meaning.
But this is the 2000 year birthday celebration of Jesus Christ the savior and
model of virtue and holiness. For most Filipinos, it is too, the season of
family reunion, the coming together to celebrate memories of childhood,
traditional customs and above all it is the celebration of the child. We tend to
pamper the children at Christmas in honor of the Child Jesus who is presented to
us as the child who had no home, for whom there was no room at the Inn. Jesus is
the impoverished and deprived child begging at the stop lights, living in
shanties and cartons along the roadside. Jesus is
the starving child we see on television crying from hunger with a shriveled body
of skin and bone in the refugee camp. He was a refugee from the moment of his
birth. That is as it should be. We ought not to let too much glitter and
twinkling lights blind us to the reality that Jesus came to save the world from
the evils of injustice
and oppression by tyrants and dictators. He came to us as one of the poor and
the oppressed. He was marked for death the day he was born when Herod sent the
troops to kill him and every other child they could find. He was one of the
trampled upon, who became the sufferin servant that opposed the evil doers, was
shamed with false accusations, charged although innocent, imprisoned and marked
for execution. He saved us all by making it possible for us to repent, confess
our sins and seek forgiveness and life eternal.
As a preparation for the birthday celebration of Jesus I,tried to explain to the young people at the Children’s Home where I work who Jesus was and why his birth is so important to all of us. Everyday we hear a story that tells us about the kind of person Jesus is. In the story of The Prodigal Son, we meet God our father full of generosity, love, forgiveness and fairness. In the story of The Good Samaritan, we see God's compassion, friendship and concern for victims of crime, the suffering and the sick.
I tried to explain to the children that it is through the person of Jesus, God chose to reveal himself and be with us as a friend. He showed us our dignity, made as we are, in “His image and likeness.” We learned the value and sacredness of every human person, that each of us is so important and precious to God that His son died for us and thousands of committed Christians carry on his work, and are killed helping the poor. From his example we learn to value each other as he values us. Human rights were first seen and recocgnized when Jesus sided with the poor and stood up for those who were trampled upon.
Jesus, I said, gives us the strength and hope to carry on through, difficulties and disappointments, his life, words, example, lift up our spirits, gives us hope, especially when we feel depressed, unhappy, lonely and sad.
Christmas is the reminder that the weak can overcome the strong, the lowly can put down the mighty, and with faith in Him we can dominate all our problems and find peace.
We give gifts at Christmas in imitation of His generosity, but we only give consumer items, material things--He gave his life for us. When on this earth he was one of the poor, owned nothing, wanted nothing, his only desire was to make people happy, end pain and injustice. He felt as we do, he endured more than we ever had to, as a refugee fleeing the salvage squads and child killers of King Herod he became one with all refugees. Through the scriptures we can see Him as an impoverished student in the temple, as clever as the best of them, a teenager who caused his parents worry and anxiety and he was too, a worker earning his living from day to day.
But His life and message set a nation. on fire with hope and pride in their
dignity as God's children and challenged them to feel for others. He understood
what it was like to be an outcast, one rejected, lonely, disabled. He
challenges, us today to try and imagine the pain and hunger of the unemployed
who have nothing to
bring their children on Christmas day or any other day. He knows the humiliation
of the beggar and the blind and called on his society and ours to lift them up
by changing the world from one living on greed and avarice to one based on
compassion and love.
Jesus Christ challenged us to follow him and still does, calling us to protect children, to heal the sick, to share food and clothes with the deprived, to visit the jailed and support the innocent prisoners and bring them justice and freedom. Whatever we do for them, he said, we do to him, for he was one with them as he is one with us. With his Spirit living in us problems are lifted from us because we accept his challenge, and see in a new light, that our sorrows are so insignificant beside the gufferings of the impoverished children. When we forget ourselves we find Him and how much the happier we are for meeting him in them, because it was with them that he chose to be.
This Christmas we must not fail to renew our lives and be ready for the new
millennium so that we will have a true purpose and meaning to our existence on
this earth. Then we will not have lived, for nothing, will be able to overcome
selfish pleasures and serve him, If we find the true meaning of Christmas we
will be dedicated to following the example of Jesus Christ born into the world
to give
his life to save us. We will be forever grateful for enlightenment, friendship
and see in this life the kingdom of love, truth, justice and peace.
