“You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem,
Lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up and do not be afraid;
Say to the
towns of Judah:
"Here is your God!”
This statement, taken from Isaiah 40:9, encapsulates the true meaning of the wonderful season
of Christmas. Since the 3rd century AD, a period to rejoice at the
birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior was set aside and formally designated by the Christian
Church for all true Christians to acknowledge and celebrate the coming of the Son
of God. Although this has continued in some form since then, it has never
succeeded in fulfilling the true spirit of this occasion.
In the early days, in keeping with
prevailing customs, the celebrations were always held in public gatherings, and
to a large extent incorporated the existing pagan rites of Winter Solstice by equating the
birth of Jesus to the birth of the
good Season. But by the early 19th century, the focus of
activity gradually changed as it became more family centered and less public
oriented. They were also accompanied by such added traditions as exchanging gifts,
decorating the homes, attending church, and giving gifts to charity. It was a
time of true sharing and religious celebrating, when families attended church
services, exchanged greetings and Christmas cards, enjoyed meals together and
went from home to home offering greetings and singing Christmas carols. This was a time when the spirit of Christmas
truly prevailed and the feelings of goodwill to all were paramount.
Since the end of World War II however, Christmas has
been gradually losing its image as a time of sharing and caring and has instead
become increasingly overtaken by a slowly rising tide of commercialization and
secularism while rapidly replacing whatever religious meaning it ever had. In
fact today, although 9 of 10 Americans still celebrate the holiday of
Christmas, only 1 of 10 will do so as a truly religious celebration. Even the
public displays of Jesus’ birth in the nativity scenes that were formally prominent
throughout, have virtually disappeared. The spirit of the season that had been previously
so important to the community is rapidly fading into oblivion.
Instead, Christmas has become just one more excuse
for corporations to sell more things and for people to spend more money. Any
sharing with family and friends has been replaced by massive traffic jams,
packed shopping malls, and lines stretching around the block. These have become
the hallmarks of the holiday season, even as the original reason of celebrating
the birth of Jesus Christ has faded. Even uglier, are the “special sales
announcements” used to herald the start of season which are appearing earlier
and earlier and regularly lead to more pandemonium and chaos. All of this
deliberately designed by the corporations, banks and credit card companies to
convince us to spend more and more, and owe more and more.
For me however, as I grow older, Christmas is a
time for my family and myself. The powerful feeling of family is never any
stronger than at midnight of Christmas-eve when, gathered with all of them we
welcome, together with all the faithful of the Christian world, the glad and
glorious tidings of the birth of our Lord. This is a time of sharing and
caring, of exchanging expressions of love and gratitude and cherishing all the
blessings that we enjoyed.
But Christmas is more than just an opportunity for
family to gather together and share the joy and love of one another. It is an
opportunity for us all to take the time and reflect upon the message of the
season, as announced by the angels to the shepherds on that fateful night in Luke 2:14:
“Glory
to God in the highest,
And
on earth, peace and
good will toward men."
This message was addressed to all of us without exception, and was
meant for us to take to heart; words that should mean so much to every
God-fearing individual: “Glory to God”
and “Peace and Goodwill to all men.”
Unfortunately, in the same way we have deliberately
exploited the opportunity to distort and commercialize Christmas, we have also
successfully buried this beautiful command from God of “Peace on earth and Goodwill to all men” into the mud of greedy
exploitation. For as we enter this season, instead of peace on earth, we have wars raging among nations and religions, in
every corner of the world, and others even within the nations or religions
them-selves. In fact, peace appears to be the most elusive
commodity in the whole world today.
So
too, are our leaders,
irrespective of whether they were elected by the people or otherwise. We grant
the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize to one of our
Presidents and he promptly increased the size and extent of the war in Afghanistan. We
are spending more money on building greater and greater weapons, or higher and
higher walls, than we are feeding and housing our neighbors or trying to keep
them healthy.
We have clearly not learnt any lessons from
the past wars and conflicts, nor do we seem to give more than lip service to
the mounting death toll and worse still, the mounting numbers of young men and
women whose horrendous injuries are an abomination to humanity. Nor are we
seriously concerned about the rampant spread of elicit drug usage and the
resulting death and destruction they are causing. --- And we do this all, in the name of freedom and democracy!
And as
to goodwill to all men; few of us
have taken the time to understand its true meaning. We appear to specifically
prefer the most successful, the most notorious and the most aggressive people
as the ones deserving the recognition. We happily appoint men and women of very
questionable morals as our leaders in politics, sports and business and men and
women of equally questionable character as our great entertainers, showering
them with our money and adoration. Yet we ignore the millions of people who go
from one day to another not knowing if food is available to feed their
children.
-They somehow seem not to
deserve or qualify for peace and goodwill.
We glorify the freedom we enjoy of
owning arsenals of deadly weapons but give little regard to the wanton death
and destruction they cause to our children, our schools and our neighborhoods. Even
worse than this, is the lopsided attitude of our governments towards the care
and support of society. We will unhesitatingly spend billions of dollars to
support the greedy incompetence of our financial leaders, including handsomely
rewarding them with large bonuses and tax cuts for destroying the world’s
economies. Yet we do not raise a finger to help the increasing pool of our
friends and neighbors forced into failure and bankruptcy. -Where in God’s name, is the goodwill toward men?
So as we enter this season of Christmas, a season chosen by God to
remind us of our own responsibility towards our brothers and our neighbors, let
us all commit to live by his words. That we will all strive, by word and by
deed, to ensure peace on earth, and
do whatever and whenever we can, all that we are capable of doing, to restoring
good will toward men. Perhaps we could
all learn a lesson from the poignant words of the remarkable and gifted American
author, lecturer and public activist, Helen
Keller, who despite being a deaf/blind
from birth, spent her whole life in
seeking peace and goodwill on behalf of all those in need, when she declared:
“The only blind person at
Christmas time;
Is he who does not have Christmas in his heart.”
-None of us who claim to be Christian
need to be deaf or blind to truly understand or live our lives in fulfillment
of those truly beautiful and sincere words: “Peace and Goodwill to all Men.”
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