Like most other annual festivals, Christmas comes round on the same date every year, but nonetheless this worldwide festival seems to take us by surprise each time.
It was like this when Christmas first happened. For those who believed in what books of the Old Testament had spoken of and what prophets had heralded for centuries on end, this event had been expected to take place at one time or other but no one knew when. And then suddenly it happened.
One cold winter night, a shining phenomenon appeared in the sky in an area known as Palestine. The shining star with a brilliant tail came to rest over the city of Bethlehem and right over a cave where another phenomenon was taking place.
Watched on by a cow and donkey, a beautiful young woman was giving birth to a lovely baby boy while her young husband tried to help as much as he could. Both the man and the woman were dead tired. They had been travelling all day when suddenly the girl felt the pains of childbirth coming as they arrived in the small city of Bethlehem.
They went around the city looking for some shelter where they could spend the night but all lodgings were full. They knocked frantically on their doors only to be confronted with the words “no empty place”.
Then a woman who went to see who had knocked immediately noticed the girl’s situation and suggested to the innkeeper, her husband, that he should show them a cave nearby where he kept his lifestock. He took up a lantern and showed them the way to the cave.
When he left, the couple thanked him and then tried to settle down on the hay as best they could, watched over by a cow and donkey.
Then it happened… the girl gave birth to a lovely baby boy and the rest is history. The cow and the donkey warmed the baby with their breath as his mother laid him in a manger, Angels dangled from the sky above the cave, as also did the big shining star and shepherds came to visit after being informed by angels of this special birth.
People today are facing changes so profound and rapid that they are discovering themselves anew and questioning themselves about the meaning of their own being and of their collective survival
This birth made the night truly one to remember, not only for the parents of the baby but for humanity itself because from then on world history was never the same again… for those that believed that the humble birth in Bethlehem heralded a new age in the history of mankind.
It was the new revelation of the love and power of God. And every year Christmas reminds us of a special baby who was later to grow into a young man who preached a new doctrine of love and peace and for which he died on the cross. In a nutshell, this is what Christmas is all about. Cribs, cards, decorated trees, gleaming glass balls, beautifully wrapped presents give colour to Christmas and bring happiness to children and pleasure to grown-ups, but they are only symbols helping to generate nostalgia which touches human hearts.
But most of us feel that Christmas is much more than this and although we celebrate it immensely once a year, we know that its significance is something we should ponder on, not only on the day we commemorate it but throughout our lives. As things stand, believing in God or not, we still face ailments, problems and contradiction in life. And contradictions exist all around us.
Notwithstanding that we live in an age of technological wonders, not to mention the advances in healthcare, problems and difficulties arise not only at our place of work, in our family circles or healthwise, but at times events lead to serious confrontation even between countries. Not to mention the modern mishaps from climate change and other natural disasters.
People today are facing changes so profound and rapid that they are discovering themselves anew and questioning themselves about the meaning of their own being and of their collective survival. So much so that in spite of the great milestones achieved, people seem to be adversely affected by the results of their own activities. Misuse of gadgets, of pills supposedly for our health, of knowledge and results of research are making man ponder where he really stands in all this cacophony that is our world today.
And from all the ghettos of our world today, the cry comes out for help and solace for the hungry, the homeless, the destitute and the ragged, while statistics send the message that 800 million never saw a doctor, 12 million out of 15 million lepers are without medical attention, thousands are dying before reaching 30 years of age because their lungs become deceased by their working underground in mines and millions are poor, sick, lonely.
Others suffer from an acute and growing form of emotional poverty and every night snuggle down in a cardboard box. For these people Christmas means nothing. There is no significance for them although some of the lucky ones manage to acquire meagre substances from charitable and social institutions which themselves have to struggle to acquire goods and material to distribute to the needy and the poor.
This is why we have to look for something to alleviate all this suffering and bring humanity out of this bedlam, this mess it has fell into, very often due to its own fault. And the spirit and significance of Christmas will surely help us to understand the mystery that engulfs our life and look up to Him our Saviour who on Christmas Eve descended on earth to live as one of us, to teach us the new way of life, to die on the cross and to rise again in glory to show us that suffering can be overcome, with faith and love. This is what Christmas is all about.