Christmas: celebration of God so humble. And why are we so proud?

by Rev. Msgr. Robinson Wijesinghe

It is Christmas. The crib and the Christmas tree, the carols and the gifts, the cakes and a good meal are what traditionally describe the atmosphere of Christmas. These do in fact speak to us something that goes beyond the material elements we can see and touch. What traditionally resounds in our ears and pleases our eyes at Christmas in fact awakens in us those sentiments of serenity, peace, joy, love, hope, friendship, fraternity, solidarity and the best of all good values and morals, virtues and qualities. Even if such wholesome and upright sentiments, so beautifully verbalized and universally aspired, could often remain remote and not so easily achievable due to human impediments, still they continue to reverberate that such ideals are inseparably interwoven with the inner core of Christmas. Despite every possible human obstacle to enter into that joy and serenity of the celebration, Christmas remains Christmas in all its facades, because it cannot be otherwise.

At Christmas we speak of God coming down to visit the humanity; God taking the form of the human person except sin, whom He himself creates. God the Creator thus assumes the nature of His creature, without sin (cf. Letter to the Hebrews 4:15; 1 Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5). As Pope Benedict XVI explains, God the Almighty and Omniscient comes down to immerse himself in the human history as a child, who is born undefended, in humility, poverty and simplicity in order to restore back the divine son-ship and dignity that the human person loses in disobedience to its Creator (cf. Jesus of Nazareth, Vatican 2012; Luke 2:1:20). Jesus Christ the Messiah born in rejection, outside the city life of Bethlehem, not received by his own in hometown of Joseph, his foster father. God our Creator and Father prefers to sacrifice all His glory and honour, His power and might to be born on a hill, inside a cave, in a cow-shed, at night while the whole city is asleep. He is born to save those who reject him. It so happens, in similar fashion, that Jesus offers his life on a cross to save those who condemn him to death on the cross. These two extreme human situations of being born and of dying in rejection and abandonment become the most fascinating and challenging events of the revelation of the nature of God in the human history.

The human history is recreated and remade by the birth of the Messiah. As Saint Luke narrates (Luke 2), Jesus is born in the time of Caeser Augustus. Seemingly it suggests that there is a very close link between Caeser and Jesus. Caeser brings Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, because of the population census he decrees. For the first time there is a government and an empire that spans the globe. The link between Jesus and Augustus Caeser goes deeper. He does not want to govern the people like any other governor. The belief of the people of the times is that the birth of the god is the beginning of the good tiding he brings to the world. In the year 27 B.C., i.e. 3 years after his assumption of office, the Roman Senate already awards him with the title Augustus, a Greek word which means “one worthy of adoration”. In the Old Testament tradition, only God is to be adored. There are two aspects of self-understanding of Augustus, says Pope Benedict XVI: peace and salvation under his imperial rule. Even his rule lasts from 30 B.C. to 4 A.D. and the peace he establishes in his kingdom lasts not more than 250 years. It is certainly an important era yet limited in result. Human enterprises do not last eternally. Jesus is born in this precise time in the history of the humanity. Luke creates a historical and theological framework to situate the events of the birth of the Messiah. To the Emperor Caeser is attributed the divine title of Augustus. The extension of his authority is implied by the fact that the census is imposed over the whole world (ecumene). Luke presents a meticulously detailed chronology of this particular moment in history. Jesus is born into the context of a powerful emperor who is ordered by decree to be adored. The peace and healing that Jesus brings into the humanity goes beyond that time and space of peace, established by Augustus Caeser.

Jesus belongs to a time and a place. The eternal Logos takes flesh in human history. God invisible becomes visible. God-divine becomes God-man. The history of humanity is sharply recreated and renewed. The humanity finds sense and meaning in human life and existence. God is so humble to be born among us that recreating a sinful world like in the time of Noah (Genesis 7). He chooses the least among all cities and locations to be born. The Prophet Micah (5:1-3; Mathew 2:6) foretells that the Messiah shall be born in Bethlehem, the city of David. There is no room for the Messiah to be born among men and women; no room in the city (John 1:11). The Son of God, through whom all things are created becomes so humble and simple (Col 1:16). Mary gives birth to the Messiah, now wrapped in swaddling clothes and is laid in a manger. He is born in a stable, in an inhospitable, even unworthy space. God the creator is born among the poorest and the humblest of the society: the shepherds and the wise of this world. He is born outside the realm of what is important and powerful in worldly terms. The whole scenario of the birth of Jesus the Messiah prefigures the paschal mystery of Jesus the Redeemer: on a hillside and the Calvary, in a cave and the tomb, placed in a manger and crucified on the wooden cross, wrapped with bandages or swaddling clothes which Mary prepares for his delivery of the baby.

God empties himself of all power and might to be born in simplicity, humility and poverty when He has all right to will and act totally free. Today we celebrate Christmas in splendour, which I feel, right and just in order to render the maximum of praise and thanksgiving to Him. But can we celebrate Christmas in glamour without entering into the depth of the scenario of the nativity of our Lord? All creativity in making the crib and Christmas tree, in making cakes and meals is good and well insofar as that inner nature and quality, that beauty and mystery of the birth of God the Redeemer is justly respected and adored. When God becomes so humble and simple, why is that we as Catholics or Christians turn out to be so arrogant and extravagant, so proud and so selfish? How can we justify our faith in God who knees down at the foot of His disciples to wash their feet and who still finds a reason to forgive those who condemn and nail him to the Cross?

Let us transform this Christmas 2021 into an experience of self-denial, emptying and purifying our inner self from all sorts and all categories of sins of attachments and self-gratifications, pride and hardness of heart, from envy and jealousy. (Courtesy Catholic Messenger)