The social radicalism of the Christmas-Event

By Fr. Leopold Ratnasekera OMI

The Christmas story records the birth of a carpenter’s son whose home was destined to be Nazareth, an interior hamlet in Galilee, to the north of today’s Israel where his lower middle-class parents were to raise their family-home. Only his dear parents were aware of the secrets behind his birth with the mother Mary knowing the circumstances of her pregnancy and Joseph her husband convinced of the story he heard from her and in the light of many other factors that surrounded the mysterious birth. A purely secular mind that worships only the empirical evidence of science whose truths and conclusions are corroborated by verifiable facts and figures, will no doubt seriously raise doubts about a virgin-birth that apparently contravenes the laws of nature and its manifestations. However, this is exactly the reality of Christmas, the birth of the Messiah, the Savior of mankind foretold in the most ancient of religious literature we have in hand. At times religious truths are more abiding and long-lasting than scientific truths that keep changing and evolving as new evidence begins to surface to the contrary.

The birth connected with Christmas is on purpose given in the context of great poverty and simplicity. The savior of the world is born not in a royal chamber of a magnificent palace with all the comforts, that one can imagine, but in a cave in the backyard of an inn where the cattle lay since all inns in that crowded night in the city of Bethlehem filled to capacity. One can imagine the anxiety of a couple expecting their first child under those trying circumstances. The news of this great birth was announced to the humble shepherds who were watching their flocks by night nearby and we are told that their immediate response was curiosity and the spontaneous decision to hasten to cave and verify the news.

Shepherds who were a marginalized lot in society with their profession not much held in honor were the first to be invited to gaze at the face of the God-man and redeemer. This child was one of destiny who will revolutionize mankind’s entire history with his life, message and teaching. The shepherds see their true shepherd who will as a lamb will lay down his life to redeem the world of sin and disgrace. The shepherd will not feed on the sheep but to the contrary become nourishment to the sheep, especially the weak and those lost in the woods.

The poverty and simplicity of his birth, the Lord Jesus will carry through his entire life living a hidden span of thirty years assisting his father in the livelihood of a carpenter’s shed, attending to family chores and growing as we are told, in age, wisdom and grace before God and men. He shows remarkable intelligence in being versed with religious scriptures sending doctors of the law into tantrums of shock at the depth of his insight-knowledge and the questions he poses to them as a child of twelve: a child prodigy as we might call today. Many things he said even as young man was beyond the comprehension of his mother who pondered over them in her heart trying to decipher its meaning. Jesus, the young itinerant teacher taught strange doctrines that sounded entirely new in the hearing of the crowds who flocked to the mountains and beaches to listen to him.

He would speak about the blessedness of the poor and those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. He would teach the importance of forgiving even the enemies and doing good to those who hurt and persecute you. To be fully his disciple, young men were challenged to go home, sell what they have and give to the poor and then come and join his company. The rich were never called blessed in his vocabulary since they are inclined to fall into the worship of idolatry regarding things they possess. Rather, his listeners were encouraged to seek for the riches of the kingdom that no moth destroys or brigand steals. It was the unconditional invitation to seek first the kingdom of God.

Having known poverty, life’s hardships and simplicity, he claimed himself to be hidden in the lives of the poor, the sick, the naked, the prisoners and the hungry. Going to their aid meant serving him and such charity and compassion would prove to be the measuring rod of one’s eternal destiny as taught in the parable of the last judgment. He dared to keep the company of sinners, to touch and heal lepers and to admit women to minister in his journeys with this disciples. He taught a new understanding of what it means to relate to him as mother, brothers and sisters based on one’s compliance with the Word of God addressed to them: it is a new family-bond not based on flesh and blood. In this light, the self-righteous Pharisees and Sadducees had no place in his kingdom. In fact, they were a category of people, though religious leaders and teachers of the law, with whom Jesus found very difficult to enter into dialogue. The gospel is full of stories of incidents where Jesus clashed with them particularly when he broke the Sabbath to heal someone or in his teaching, he claimed to be the Son of God. He was falsely implicated for challenging the authority of Caesar himself and Herod the governor of his district.

A teacher who wished in the heart of hearts to bring reconciliation between the Jews and Samaritans was accused at his trial as a social rabble-rouser and one who questioned the imperial rule of Rome in his home-country. He claimed himself to be a king, whose kingdom is not of this world but embraces those who receive him as a bearer of truth and as such hear and hearken to his voice. It was a voice that came from the heart of a good shepherd and one who can bring solace and rest to all who are weary finding life burdensome and weighing heavily down on them.

The scene of the birth of Jesus Christ is on purpose placed in an aura of poverty with the parents away from home attending a census proclaimed by CThis caaesar and with no room available in the inns of the over-crowded city of Bethlehem, the event takes place in the backyard of an inn, where the cattle used to lay. It was not at all a comfortable environment for the birth of a child to take place. After the birth, the new family had to be on exile in Egypt since the life of the new-born was under threat from imperial hands and return home only long after the risks disappeared. The carpenter’s son did learn a worker’s life by following in the livelihood of his father who was given to that trade. Yet, he ventured on his own mission and life-plan by choosing fishermen from the Galilean beaches to launch his work of being a wandering ascetic, teacher and miracle-worker.

He would cry over villages, cities and even Jerusalem for not lending their ears to his call to effect a transformation in their ways of belief and life. He demanded true and authentic worship of God in spirit and truth. He chastised the merchants and the business that was going on in the sacred precincts of the temple while declaring that a temple is a house of prayer for all nations and should not be turned into a den of thieves and a market-place. It is certainly not a place for mammon. His teaching was revolutionary, praising the prayer of a humble man and denouncing that of a self-righteous person.

He never said blessed are you rich but certainly blessed are you poor, the real and materially poor who challenge the rich to be poor in spirit and call for sharing their riches with the poor and the less privileged. The unexpected overturning of the destiny of the rich man who refused to let even a morsel of bread falling from his table to the poor man at his door, is really some shocking bit of revelation!. In this sense, it is a contemporarily very relevant challenge to a world economy that remains very unjust and oppressive of world’s poor. There is the culture of waste that does not heed to the 800 million of world’s people who suffer from sheer hunger and even basics such as health care, education, healthy food and even water and good air to breathe when entire cities are inundated with polluted air. There is the call to be good Samaritans in our way of reaching out to those who are hurt and rendered helpless without any distinction of race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity or language.

Forgiving the wrong-doer, being full of compassion as to be able to forgive seventy times seven if need be, to turn the other cheek, never to demand tooth for a tooth and eye for an eye, are revolutionary teachings never ever heard of before from any religious teacher other than Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal Galilean. He is teaching us to appreciate goodness from whomsoever it radiates, even an unbeliever and the un-godly.

Christmas, therefore is the birth-story of this great religious founder that the world has the opportunity of celebrating at every year’s end. For the spirit and meaning of Christmas to enter the world, humanity must enter this world of Jesus of Nazareth or else it will just be at best an annual festival event or a cultural fiesta of external glitter and gaiety. Every Christmas will recall the great challenges that Jesus brought that are radically needed for the social transformation much needed today in which human dignity of all is respected, preciousness of life defended, human rights preserved, no one is exploited for whatever the purpose be and the world of the poor and the most vulnerable given an opportunity to rise up to a life of honour and dignity.