CHRISTMAS IS A FEAST of light, joy and liberation. Originally, the Romans celebrated a feast on this day, called the festum solis invicti, the festival of the unconquered sun. The winter solstice has just passed and we are now moving into longer days, with more light and the resurgence of life in the soil. One can almost see Nature slowly waking up after its long winter hibernation. The trees look dead with their bare branches but in a matter of weeks they will be decked in all their leafy glory.
Joy everywhere….
The readings resonate with the theme of light and the baby in the manger is the Light of the World. Light surrounds the shepherds as the angels sing their praises of God: “Glory to God in the highest and, on earth, peace to all who are favoured by God.”
The whole atmosphere is also suffused with joy, the joy of the angels and of the shepherds as they hasten to Bethlehem to find the new-born child. Joy is a theme which goes right through Luke’s gospel. It is one of the characteristics of the true Christian.
…. and liberation
Another cause for joy is the liberation that Jesus brings. This is shown by the way in which he comes. He is, after all, the King of Kings and the Prince of Peace. Where then are the trappings of majesty and power? Where is the palace, where are the courtiers, where are the honour guards? He comes not to exert power but to give power especially to the poor and the weak.
Gritty reality
Today’s Gospel very carefully sets the tone both for the personal lifestyle of Jesus and of the purpose for which he has come. Let us not fall into the temptation of romanticising the surroundings. In Bethlehem, packed with people coming at the emperor’s command to register for the population census (for tax reasons, of course), there was no decent place for Mary and Joseph to stay. They had recourse to an empty stable, a dirty and smelly place. The child is put in a feeding box as the only available cot. (This has a significance of its own for will Jesus not describe himself later as the Bread, the Nourishment of Life?)
The first to be invited to visit him are the shepherds: their status was much like the nomads found in nearly every society (Gypsies in Europe, ‘Travellers’ in Ireland) or any other marginalised group. They were regarded by most “decent” people as outsiders, not fit to be part of society.
Why this way?
But why did it have to be like this? Why in these degrading circumstances? If not in princely surroundings fit for a King, at least why not in the simple comfort of their village home in Nazareth?
An echo of what is to come
This, in fact, is Luke’s way of setting the stage for Jesus’ future life. Luke likes to emphasise that Jesus came especially for the poor and the needy, for the weak and marginalised. Later he will be accused of eating and drinking with sinners and disreputable outcasts and will finally die discredited as a criminal and among criminals. Some people can understand Jesus being on the side of the poor but what about the moral outcasts of our society? Why did he have to mix with them? But, as someone has pointed out, Jesus loved the poor not because they were good but because they were poor. And material poverty is not the only kind. There is also moral poverty, emotional poverty, social poverty, physical poverty…
What about today?
If Jesus were to come today, how would he come? As one theologian has written:
“If he comes to his disciples today, in what guise does Jesus Christ come, to bring God’s love and salvation, to endow his disciples with the Spirit?
“In what guise does he come, when young people die of AIDS, when millions are without employment and social dignity, when children are sexually abused, when women continue, on principle, thought subordinates, when ethnic slaughter goes on in Africa, Europe and Asia, when the earth is ravaged by its inhabitants?”
(Fr David N. Power in The Furrow, Oct 1998)
Where is our Saviour now?
Where is the Saviour Jesus today, we might ask, in all of this? Jesus is our Saviour – ours and theirs – when we who are blessed with the goods of the earth, goods material, social and intellectual, work together to restore these people to wholeness and dignity.
Our ‘demented inn’
Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and writer, has expressed it this way:
“Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those others for whom there is no room.
“His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, excommunicated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.”
(Quoted by Kenneth Leech in The Tablet, 19/26 December 1998)
Liberating the oppressed
Many years ago Paolo Freire, a Brazilian, wrote his famous book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Despite its title it was not a terrorist manual. On the contrary, Freire was a committed Christian totally opposed to all forms of violence. His book was a suggested way of teaching the illiterate poor. He believed that in learning how to read and write they should also learn: that they were poor; why they were poor; how to overcome their poverty; and that the solution was in their own hands.
The whole process was based on learning the message of the Gospel and seeing its relevance in their own lives. The process was known as “conscientisation”, that is, making the poor and marginalised aware of their oppressed situation, of their right to dignity and justice and the non-violent ways to bring that about.
Vested interests
There was violence nevertheless, partly by those who were too impatient to work through non-violent ways, guerrillas and terrorists, and largely by the vested interests in government, business and the military who were determined to keep wealth and power in the hands of a few.
The new-born Child is the Prince of Peace but, paradoxically, his message of love and justice for all is a source of violence and death on the part of those who reject him. The echo of that is already present in the Christmas story. And so, many priests, religious and lay leaders were killed died as well as thousands of innocent farmers and their families.
Meaning of Christmas
What, you may be asking, has all this to do with a Christmas Eve Mass? It has everything to do with Christmas, I suggest. Christmas is not just for tonight. It is for the whole year. It is not just about turkey, ham and plum pudding. It is not just about fancy parties in posh hotels. It is not just about imbibing large amounts of alcohol in the pubs and discos downtown.
It is about celebrating the coming of God among the poor and homeless and the disadvantaged, with a message of hope and liberation for the disadvantaged of our world. It is about our responsibility to be part of that liberating process. It is about working to remove the shameful blot of poverty, discrimination and exploitation that is the lot of too many in our environment of prosperity.
A night of contrasts
While some of us are moaning about traffic gridlocks and overbooked restaurants, others tonight are slumped in doorways, going to food kitchens for their Christmas dinner, wondering when the deportation papers are going to be delivered, lost in an alcoholic haze, overwhelmed by a terrible loneliness, entering another year of chronic joblessness…
Certainly let us enjoy and celebrate our Christmas but let us not forget what exactly we are celebrating and that the message of Christmas extends well beyond the festivities. Let it be once again a stimulus to remind us just what our being Christians means for us and for those around us.