jesus@christmas.world
By: Fr. Shay Cullen
justright magazine
autumn 2002 issue
Fr. Shay Cullen’s powerful and compelling mediation on Jesus challenges us to rediscover the true meaning of Christmas.
The world at Christmas these days is like a mad carnival spinning into a meaningless void. The end-false need to give gifts, suggesting that the more expensive the gift, the greater the supposed sincerity and love of the giver.
The celebrations of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth ought to be e reflection of the values he lived and died for. A time to bring values he lived and died for. A time to bring together family and friends, renew vows, strengthen bonds and redirect our lives.
On the basis of the bare historical record alone, Jesus of Nazareth, born under poor and humble circumstances, was a child of no consequence to most.
He did not come from an influential or powerful family. He had no wealth, position or privilege. He did not bring about a socio-political upheaval or lead a revolution, a movement of national liberation or even found a religion. Other who came after him did a lot of those things in his name, but most have faded from the pages of history and none have been remembered as much as this simple carpenter from a small obscure town in Palestine.
Yet he was hardly a week in the world that first Christmas night when the corrupt Herod made hum refugee and an asylum seeker. He was threatened , driven with his parents into exile, barely escaping the bloody massacre of the innocent children. Were he and his parents to come knocking on our doors or immigration offices today, would they be turned away or imprisoned.
He certainly had a mission: to change the world, to revolutionize the way people related to each other.
He was unique, indifferent and shocking to many because he challenged the practice of religious leaders to impose upon others what they failed to practice themselves. He confronted the hypocrisy of the proud and the privileged. They plotted his downfall, manufactured false evidence and bribed witnesses to lie.
He was a threat to the status quo, he reached out to the wretched of the earth and lifted up the downtrodden and took the side of the victims of discrimination and justice.
He was a true champion of the poor, and he said they were God’s children, they were equal before God and emerged from God’s own image. Yet people of religion, power and wealth despised them. When we see the images of the starving of Africa or the child prisoners of the Philippines today, we know his message has been ignored, his example spurned and we are challenged as never before.
He makes clear the path to peace. Retaliation and revenge must give way to unconditional forgiveness and reconciliation, violence and coercion has to be replaced by non-violence and peace-making, pride and jealousy are to be abandoned in favour of humility and selflessness. For hum hatred and envy were to be exchanged for love and respect, selfishness and greed were to be discarded in favour of generosity and self-denial. The criminals and crooks are called to repentance and recompense and to ready themselves to receive love and forgiveness.
It was and is a revolutionary message.
It turned the pious hypocrites inside out. It burned the heart our of the religious fakes and frauds. It undermined the principles on which political power was built. It exposed and confounded the corruption and injustice of the economic system.
It told the forgotten that they were remembered and the downtrodden that they would walk with God. Those rejected are welcomed, those despised are praised, the abused are treasured, and the wounded are healed.
What us so enduring about Jesus of Nazareth and so challenging to each one of us today is that his invitation to friendship is a living reality, that we can know when we accept it. That acceptance brings us into his living presence. There, embracing the changeless values he taught, we can find the strength to live them out and the courage to face the consequence of our convictions.
According to Jesus, we find the meaning to our loves by losing ourselves in serving other, being with them in their suffering and need, by taking up their just cause and being with them as he was and seeking no reward. By denying ourselves the pleasures and pomp of this world and rejecting the trappings of wealth and power in favour of simplicity and humility we discover a greater power and spiritual wealth, - a world of happiness. We can have that inner peace of mind and heart that is never found amid the profits and prospects of stocks and shares or the mindless pursuit of pleasure and privilege. His message turned the world inside out and transforms each of us who open ourselves to him and his word.
The road to ruin is strewn with the landmines of compromise and corruption. Lies and self-deception cloud our conscience and fire up our imagination to justify our wrongdoing. We need to find the truth about ourselves and overcome denial and delusion and embrace the source of happiness itself, the enduring spiritual power that has brought us to life and to conscience.
Too easily our lives can drift away, down an avenue of world ambition and material pursuits.
And all the while we delude ourselves that we are righteous, pure of mind, noble and honourable. Jesus sees our inner heart and calls us to repent to undo the harm and pain that we have brought to others and ourselves.
‘heal the wounds, end the war, share the bounty, save creation,’ he cries.
He offers forgiveness and understanding when we are depressed and become victims of our own vices and viciousness, he offers friendship and peace of mind, where there was nothing but a dark, brooding loneliness and unhealed anger. When our hearts are filled with the desire for praise or emptied by self-pity, he can lift us up with compassion and common sense.
Never had any human being come into the world with such respect and compassion for the poor and the oppressed. No one else had such simple but powerful wisdom that confounded the “learned” and the mighty. None have inspired so many with so much love or empowered so many to pursue justice and peace with such fervour and commitment.
None has established our right to love and be loved in freedom and truth as Jesus did. Not a sparrow falls to the ground, but it is noted, and how much more is each of us loved and our rights established by the presence of a loving God.
Jesus ignited a revolution of the spirit that moves through the world like he did, a combating evil, freeing the enslaved, opposing injustice, building peace, touching the untouchable, living and dying for the truth, loving the unlovable and healing the sick.
He is present in all who believe in him and follow his ways without condition or compromise.
His followers seek no personal reward, ask no special favours, and seeks no place of privilege They want to serve others like he did, and change the world.
That is the meaning of Christmas.
Email: preda@info.com.ph
