CHRISTMAS.-2013

A grade school class was putting on a Christmas play which included the story of Mary and Joseph coming to the inn. In that class was one little boy who wanted very much to be Joseph. But when the parts were handed out, his biggest rival was given that part, and he was assigned to be the inn keeper instead. He was really bitter about this.

So during all the rehearsals he kept plotting in his mind what he might do the night of performance to get even with his rival who was Joseph. Finally, the night of the performance, Mary and Joseph came walking across the stage. They knocked on the door of the inn, and the inn-keeper opened the door and asked them gruffly what they wanted.

Joseph answered, "We’d like to have a room for the night." Suddenly the inn-keeper threw the door open wide and said, "Great, come on in and I’ll give you the best room in the house."

For a few seconds poor little Joseph didn’t know what to do, and a long silence ensued. Finally thinking quickly on his feet, Joseph looked in past the inn-keeper, first to the left and then to the right and said, "No wife of mine is going to stay in a dump like this. Come on, Mary, let’s go to the barn." And once again the play was back on course.

In the beginning of creation, Satan tried to sabotage God’s plan for the creation, using innocent Adam and Eve as victims. As a result God had to rewrite rest of the story to reach the final climax he had intended. For that, God himself had to play the major role in the newly rewritten script. Christmas is the celebration of that role God played in the story of human history.

Jesus, the Incarnation of God as man, came to save us from the bondage of sin. The Hindu Scriptures in India describe ten incarnations of God. The purpose of these incarnations stated in their Holy Scripture is to restore righteousness in the world whenever there is a large scale erosion of moral values. But the Christian Scriptures teach that there was only one, only one Incarnation of God, and the reason is stated in John 3: 16: “God so loved the world that he sent His only Son so that every one who believes in Him may not die, but have eternal life.”  God had promised the coming of his son into the world through several prophets. Jesus is the only one who came into human history who fulfilled all the conditions of those prophesies of Messiah. The gospel of Mathew itself quotes 11 of those prophesies being fulfilled in Jesus. The purpose of incarnation of Jesus was not just to die on the cross and save us from sins, if that were the only purpose, he would have come down on earth a week before the crucifixion and save us from our sins. It also had a purpose to show us how to live a normal human life amid trials and tribulations and be obedient to God’s will.

Christmas is the feast of the Emmanuel -God-with-us, God who continues to live with us in all the events of our lives as announced by the Archangel Gabriel. The Christmas story tells us that there is a way out of our sinfulness and hopelessness, because God is with us. There is a mighty God within us to strengthen us in our weaknesses and temptations, and he will fight for us from within our human nature.

Christmas tells that to find Jesus we need look for Jesus in unlikely places and persons. The magi looked for him in the likely place: the palace of Herod. But they found him in the most unlikely place: the manger. Today we can find him also in the most unlikely places –   in the streets, in slums, in asylums, in orphanages, in nursing homes – starting in our own homes, workplaces and town.

Pope Francis said "God abases himself, descends to earth as someone small and poor, which means that to be like him we should not put ourselves above others, but on the contrary, abase ourselves, give ourselves in service, make ourselves small with the small and poor with the poor,".  He continues: "It is an ugly thing when one sees a Christian who will not abase himself, who will not serve, a Christian who struts about vainly everywhere,"  "That is not Christian, that is pagan." He added.

Today Jesus will come to us again in the Eucharist. Just as he came into the world on the first Christmas, quietly, gently, helplessly, entrusting himself to Mary's care, so he comes to us in Holy Communion, quietly, gently, helplessly, entrusting himself to our care. Christmas reminds us that we have to allow this God of unconditional love to be reborn in us and to start living in us.

He comes into our lives in order to invite us to come into His life, to follow him all the way to heaven. This Christmas, will we take up God's gentle invitation and let Christ come further into our lives? Will we agree to follow him more closely, even if it means leaving our comfort zones behind?

Let’s pray to the newly born divine king to give us the  courage to abase ourselves and to risk our self-sufficiency and comfort for the sake of proclaiming his kingdom of peace on earth.