Striving to put Christ back into Christmas

STRIVING TO PUT CHRIST BACK INTO CHRISTMAS!
(Christmas Reflection 2011, by Martin Jalleh)

Many of us who are Christians have allowed rampant commercialisation and the “Walt Disneyfication” of Christmas to reduce our Christian spirituality to mere sentimentality. Christ has been hijacked by “Christ-less” carols, cakes, cool cards and cozy nativity scenes and portrayed as one entering into a world of comfortable spiritual sentiment.

In reality “Christmas is not a nice story” and “it has nothing to do with the nativity scenes we see on our Christmas cards or in most of the Christmas paraphernalia…” notes Nils von Kalm, an Australian writer and sociologist.

Real World

In sharp contrast to the modern vehicles of entertainment, the biblical (infancy) narratives are stark short and simple. They do not allow the imagination to dwell on the detail of time or setting. As Charles Anderson of God Web would put it: “The Bible does not offer brilliant descriptions of scenes or costumes, landscapes or cityscapes…

“The biblical writers were struggling to express that which is beneath the surface and to reveal the fire that burns at the very heart and center of life…One searches the scriptures in vain for descriptions of the manger, we are given absolutely no detail to satisfy your curiosity about what the baby Jesus looked like…(or) the costumes of Mary, Joseph and the magi.

“If we read the Christmas story in the original we are taken into the very depths of our own experience where the pain and the pleasure of a cold winter day are most intense. The Bible concerns those conflicting currents of our own inner life, those cross currents of pleasure and pain that are finally resolved in the experience of God's love.”

Anglican priest Joy Carroll Wallis echoes the same when she reminds us that “Jesus didn't enter a world of sparkly Christmas cards or a world of warm spiritual sentiment”. Sadly, “we have often settled for the sweet coming of a baby who asked little of us in terms of surrender, encounter, mutuality or any studying of the Scriptures or the actual teaching of Jesus” (Fr Richard Rohr).

Relevant till today

The dangerous world in which Jesus was born into and the ensuing deep struggle between light and darkness, death and life, fear and faith – is equally real till this day and in our very own beloved country. Over the past year Christians have been increasingly discriminated against due to the frequent contravention (with impunity) of the constitutional guarantees of our religious freedom.

We had to face the constant taunts, threats and tirades of baseless accusations by extremist and fanatical “Little Mullah Napoleons” in Umno, Perkasa, Pembela, the Home Ministry, and various Muslim departments.

Umno, the dominant political party of the ruling coalition (BN), has politicised religion for its survival by creating unfounded insecurities and fear amongst Muslims and a distrust of other religions. The continued racial and religious polarisation in the country which has reached disturbing levels never seen before are further compounded by a culture of corruption, cronyism and crippling fear.

As veteran Umno leader, Tengku Razaleigh has put it with brutal honesty: “Umno has indeed lost its soul” and “is tempted more and more to fan racial feeling and abuse public institutions to maintain power. This is a death spiral.”

Meanwhile communities such as the Orang Asli and Indians and the indigenous peoples of East Malaysia are increasingly marginalised. They are deceived, discriminated against, displaced, dislodged, dispossessed, deprived and disempowered. Many have become disillusioned, demoralised and dysfunctional.

We have before us a divided nation, decaying institutions, a dour economy with deepening debts, a Prime Minister dogged by allegations and a disturbing diaspora rate! We are confronted with the damning evidence that the country is going to the dogs and that we are living in a “sham democracy” (Tengku Razaleigh).

Radical Response?

The world in which Jesus entered was not very different in comparison to our world. It was “a world of real pain, of serious dysfunction, a world of brokenness and political oppression. He was born an outcast, a homeless person, a refugee, and finally he becomes a victim to the powers that be” (Joy Carroll Wallis).

Neither should our response to the challenging realities we are confronted with be different from that of Jesus’: “Herod recognizes something about Jesus that in our sentiment we fail to see: that the birth of this child is a threat to his kingdom, a threat to that kind of domination and rule. Jesus challenges the very power structures of this evil age.”

This point is highlighted equally effectively by Fr Richard Rohr: “What we call the Incarnation, God becoming a human being, becoming one of us, strikes directly at the heart of evil and corruption in the world. God becoming human looks evil in the eye and takes it on without flinching. As Bruce Cockburn sang it so brilliantly, it is God ‘kicking the darkness till it bleeds daylight’.”

The Word of God comforts and consoles us at Christmas. But it also confronts, challenges and converts us! It refuses to allow us to remain at the level of the sweetening and softening of the message of Christmas.
We have a choice of comfortable Christianity (Christmas pudding, presents and the perfect paraphernalia) or the courage to challenge (by God’s grace) both the darkness and the very power structures in our country.

Surely, the suffering and injustice in our country are too great now to settle for any “infantile gospel” or any “infantile Jesus”. The Lord invites us to work with him in His Kingdom — to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with Him (Micah 6:8). Our “fiat” would mean we striving to put Christ back into Christmas!

Reversal

Renowned Bible scholar William Barclay describes the Magnificat which Mary sang to her baby in utero as “revolutionary”. He says the song highlights four revolutions that God inaugurated at Christ’s birth – a moral, social, economic and spiritual revolution. Mary’s song links religion and politics, faith and economics.

Mary prayed a model prayer just like Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel 2 and in the Psalms, and her son grew up to pray a model prayer in Luke 11… Mary is no mother meek and mild. She is in fact a “revolutionary”! Her Magnificat is a strong reminder that God is always with us – a people called and chosen and through whom love and justice are to triumph over arrogance, truth over evil.

It is a song that encapsulates the great themes of Christianity and explicitly reveals that mercy comes to all who accept the Christ-child. It is a song about what a Bible scholar called, “reversals”. In place of the proud and the powerful, God will lift up the powerless, weak, poor and the ‘least of these’ (Matt.25). God is one on the move to bring justice, a reversal of the way things are, even the status quo!

In her Magnificat, Mary prophesied about Christ’s mission. Jesus fulfilled his mother's prophesy in his own Nazareth Manifesto — his first words, in Luke 4 — by saying, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor."

Just like Mary, we become partakers and partners of Christ’s mission and “revolution” when we first allow God to work a “reversal” in our personal lives. Will we allow the Lord to turn our world upside down – in terms of our purpose, priorities, values, thinking and our whole being – in order to bring about real, relevant and radical change in Bolehland.

May our response to the Advent call of conversion of heart result in our personal transformation – from one of compromise to courage, and from convenience and comfort to one of conviction and commitment to our duty and responsibility towards social action, justice and mission.

May our concerns and commitment be not confined to the well-being of Christians alone but may they embrace the struggles encountered by the peoples of all races and religions, yes, even the Muslims too. May we champion “the common good” and be the very embodiment of agape as Christ is born again in our hearts this Christmas! A Blessed Christmas!