Sunday Times 2
Postpone Christmas and declare Dec 25 as feast of Santa Claus
29th October 2014Globalisation has vastly magnified the commercialization and trivialization of Christmas. to the extent that many thoughtful Christians wonder quite seriously if the Church ought to set apart December 25th as the festival of St. Nicholas or Santa Claus and if we could all agree on celebrating the feast of the nativity or the birth of Jesus on another suitable day. We could thereby safely separate the tinsel and glitter, the stressful shopping, the frenzied year-end sales, the parties and the over indulgence in food and drink from the deeply meaningful event of the Incarnation, leaving all that to the traders, shopkeepers, the advertising agencies, the bakers and hoteliers.
Attractive as this idea might seem to be, the Incarnation itself offers to us another perspective. It speaks to us in a clear voice invites us to look closely at the profound message that lies at its heart. That message is one of engagement and involvement with the world and not a message of withdrawal. The ‘Glad Tidings of Great Joy’ is that God manifested himself not to the rarefied religious world of temples, priests, or saintly communities, far removed from the rough and tumble of ordinary human life, its dirt and grime, its violence and ugliness, but right into the centre of human activity, the world of crafty rulers, power brokers, wheeler dealers, shrewd businessmen – the world of hoteliers or inn keepers, of keepers of cattle and sheep, to a land occupied by a foreign power where the poor were being exploited, crushed by heavy taxation, subjected to arbitrary violence and where a cosy live and let live arrangement was in place between the religious leaders and civil authorities.
Into such a world was born Jesus, child of an unknown carpenter and his wife, poor, insignificant ‘no people’, displaced and far from their home. The ruling classes, the rich and the powerful slept on in their beds or passed the night in feasting and revelry. The promise of peace, joy and goodwill was announced not to them but to some other ‘no people’ doing the night shift on a lonely field.
The message that Christmas brings us is this; Jesus cannot be isolated to the holy places, the temple, the gilded sanctuary or the prayer hall. He is right there, carrying the cross, with the poverty stricken farmer tilling his dried up field to squeeze a subsistence income, the labourer, the fisherman, the street hawker, the shop or factory worker struggling to make ends meet, the slum dweller in his tin hut in danger of being ousted at any time to make way for the new condominium or a hot spot for the affluent, with parents desperately searching for a missing child, the single mother toiling day and night to feed and educate her children …….
Will we who claim to welcome the coming of the Christ Child seek out, find and serve Him this Christmas ?