To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven

By B. Nimal Veerasingham

Celebrations that mark the birth of Jesus Christ are influenced by heightened commercial frenzy and partying, there is some soberness in the air this time. For most of December just like any other year, the time is marked for merry making and festivities.

We know that the historical birthplace of Jesus Christ is linked to a small town in current Palestine called ‘Bethlahem’. Traditionally, the faithful from all around the world would flock at Bethlahem this time of the year to commemorate and celebrate the occasion of God’s grace coming to redeem humanity as Prince of peace. We are not sure how much this news was carried by the Global news media, but the official celebrations at Manger square have been cancelled this year, only limited to religious and spiritual aspects. There won’t be any customary Christmas tree decorated with thousands of light bulbs nor the bright flags and tinsels jostling every corner dazzling to the winds.

Bethlehem will stand dark and deserted, a poignant reflection of the suffering endured by the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza Strip.

Earlier this month, the Patriarchs and heads of Churches in Jerusalem called on their congregations to forgo the customary celebrations and just to observe the spiritual activities related to the birth of Christ. Its not an easy decision for the religious leaders to cancel the celebrations in Palestinian territories, Israel and Jordan, as it re-echoes into the Christian world in reflecting consciousness and solidarity.

Bishop William Shomali, the General Vicar and Patriarchal Vicar for Jerusalem and Palestine of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, emphasised the somber mood behind the decision to the media outlets. ‘How can we celebrate Christmas when thousands of Palestinians got killed and injured and thousands of their habitats destroyed? The same applies to the Israeli civilian losses. It is time for compassion and solidarity, and not for joyful and worldly celebrations’ he added.

There are victims among the small Christian Palestinian community too in Gaza during the ongoing conflict. It is worth noting that Palestinian Arab Christians hold a crucial role as natural bridges to peace in Holy land. Rooted in the same aspirations, culture, history, and language as Palestinian Muslims, they also share a history of faith with Jews. This unique position allows them to be natural catalysts for dialogue and understanding between the warring parties along with the broader support from their Western counterparts.

The birth of Jesus Christ in the historical sense has its remarkable levitations like no other major blobs in the annals of history. First, as a ragtag birth in cattle shed surrounded by animals, and then a flight to Egypt to escape the murderous intentions of Herod the great, the King of Jews and Judea, a loyal subject of his Roman overlords. Although perceived as a threat to established order and persecuted early on, the believers of Christ eventually received patronage under the Roman Emperor Constantine (306 AD – 337 AD) which sparked the spread of the religion within and outside the Empire.

Although the central message of love and hope has not changed for nearly 20 centuries, the last century brought many reflective identities to the surface, in terms of racial, social and cultural respondence. Groups or segments of society representing viewpoints hidden, or not provided rightful interpretive space, started adopting the positions they felt rightfully legitimate in their eyes. Sometimes the viewpoints clashed at opposite ends with others’, notably in the underbelly of the melting pot, the United States.

The European identity is intrinsic with Christianity as the spread naturally took wind by the connectivity and culture. So much so the physical origination of Jesus was very much Europeanized to the extend that he was portrayed as a white in literature and arts. To the contrary he was a coloured Jew from the Middle East speaking Aramaic during his times. The clash of slavery and the subsequent emancipation brought out the rightful place of a God, closer to everyone beyond colour or race. That was the major transformation in history where people could personalise the meaning of being closer to a god who would see things through their eyes and dear to their hearts.

The religious right in the United States being mostly represented by the white majority, saw Christianity as part of their way of life and as such wanted to preserve its context more conducive towards their perceptions and interpretations in their earthly journey. While everyone holds their right to configure the kind of God they would like to have, its no secret that there were instances when the interpretation of scriptures gave momentum to what’s being quoted as ‘Satan quoting the scriptures! The apartheid regime as we know justified its module, based on the loose interpretation of scripture once.

Based on the holy family’s flight to Egypt to escape the newborn’s death, it was hardly minced when religious leaders at all spectrums quoted and compared him as a refugee. A decade ago, it was not a controversy to say what is being the definition of a refugee. In 2012, the staunchly traditional Pope Benedict XVI called Jesus a refugee. In 2009 the Director of the National Association of Evangelicals described Jesus as a refugee. The phrasing never sparked any obvious backlash or rebuttal.

For most of Christian history, the fiercest debates about the body and person of Jesus focused on his status as both human and divine. But for all this focus, the specifics of the incarnated body and its outward appearance were rarely discussed at length in written documents until the recent century. The fact that he was born a Jew, dark skinned or lived in the middle East was not utilised as a reference point for religious reverence for many centuries.

Within few years, however, it had become divisively political. Many thousands of South American refugees/immigrants at the border, the political right with the religious right in tandem wanted to appease their faithful electorate in rethinking of labelling Jesus a refugee. The spiritual advisor of a former president defended this rebranding saying that comparisons of Jesus with those seeking refuge at the border were inaccurate. ‘If he had broken the law, then he would have been sinful, and he wouldn’t have been our Messiah’.

The argument is that the Holy family went to Egypt, which was still a Roman territory without legal borders and as such not broken the law. Others argue that despite geopolitical realities, one fleeing for his/her life makes him/her a candidate of a refugee. Bible is full of instances as we know when Jesus questioned and challenged the existing laws and practices, for being without meaningful to anyone. But in the political arena of today where Christianity is being asked to take sides rather than being a true practitioner of what the master cherished, ‘love one another’.

Jacquelyn Winston, a scholar of early Christianity at Azusa Pacific University agrees that describing Jesus in the racial, marginalised categories of today, mostly reflects contemporary concerns. ‘The emphasis on Jesus as refugee has to do with modern issues not directly compared to ancient and such emphasis makes him relevant to the modern human developments.

The goal is to stress his compassion towards those rejected by the society, rather than any attempt to convey anything about Jesus’s ethnic identity.’ ‘Mathew 25’ summarises the expectations that could only be expressed by a radical, an outsider, a man born not into the elite of the world, both as sufferer and saviour. It is clear whether he was a refugee or not, he conveyed the expected nexus of caring for the least cared and marginalised. Getting into heaven in the current state, or beyond in the perceived realms, is all about caring for the sick, the poor, the strangers, where one must not simply act as an outsider but as being the sufferer, to glorify God’s will and power on earth.

Herod the Great, King of Judea, followed by his children, ruled the land as being the vassals of the Roman emperor Augustus during Jesus’s times, to look after the territorial interest of the expanding Roman empire. He maintained order in Israel and a force in protecting the Western flank of the Roman empire. Herod despite being recorded as cruel and calculative, had both Jewish and Arab backgrounds. He undertook several major construction projects, notably the 2nd temple after the destruction of Solomon’s 1st, along with the port city of Caesarea maritima that became the capital, aqueducts, mines, and fortresses.

Today what is left is the bare archeological remains of the greatest empire that ever existed on Earth and lasted nearly 1000 years, the greatest temple ever built is left with just four walls including the Western (wailing) wall.

As the Manger square remain in somber mood and deserted this year, barely within miles amidst the rubbles of abodes once, thousands have lost and continue to lose their lives from both sides, majority being women and children.

The argument of whether Jesus was a legitimate refugee will also die down just like the Fortresses and the straddled great marching armies of the past. What continue to remain whether then or now, is the need to be with the dispossessed, downtrodden, broken, and hopeless, whether in holy land or closer to wherever we live.The message of Christmas is clear, though Christ’s worldly birthplace is in darkness this year.