Faith and reality in the year ahead

by Revd. Dr. Rienzie Perera

The Christmas festival is over. Are we left just with gifts to be counted, hang-overs, loss of sleep, piles of wrapping paper and, decorations to be taken down? Were the festivities merely a break from the usual grind of life?

Although we, Christians, remember the birth of Jesus the Christ during the season of Christmas, its significance cannot and should not be confined to a few days in December. We tend to move on in life after a few days of Christmas celebrations and forget the significance and the challenge that Christmas brings to our entire life.

In order to keep before you this particular perspective, I decided to write this article after Christmas to remind Christians and the rest of the world that the birth of Jesus the Christ has a message for all times and seasons and it should not be confined to a few days in the month of December.

Jesus, the Christ, is not only a gift from God to this world to save humankind from Sin which alienates we, human beings, from God the Creator, from our fellow human beings and, from the environment in which we live. Jesus, the very presence of God, which we call Emmanuel or identify as the Incarnation, is a challenge from God to remind the human family that we have gone astray and abused the humanising powers given to us since the Creation. Hence, Jesus whom we remember during Christmas, is not merely a memory confined to that ‘season’ alone.

For Christians, Jesus should become the centre of their lives and when his presence becomes a living experience in their lives they will be challenged and empowered to become a transformative presence in the world: to dismantle all principalities and powers which dehumanise humans created in God’s own image. When that happens, the mission of the Church will be to say ‘Yes’ to God and ‘No’ to all demonic powers operating in the world in disguised ways.

The birth of Jesus and the events around it as recorded in the Gospels clearly signify that God ignored and bypassed the demonic powers who felt threatened by the birth of Jesus. The God who ignored demonic powers in the past will ignore such powers in the present and the future. God instructed the three Wise Men not to go back to King Herod and, therefore, the Scripture says “…they departed to their own countries by another way..” (Matthew 2:12). That is God’s way of ignoring and bypassing those who abuse and exploit power to serve themselves rather than the people whom they are supposed to serve. God, who ignored King Herod during the time of Jesus, calls us to ignore the Herods of our day.

These are some of the insights we can draw from the birth narratives of Jesus and these narratives have implications for our day-to-day living and not merely for the Christmas season set apart by the liturgical calendar of the Church. Therefore, we must think of Christmas as a challenge for today, tomorrow and the future.

Jesus was born at a time where places like Palestine, Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem were governed by the emperors of the Roman Empire. Although history speaks of the ‘Pax Romana’ – Roman peace and stability – that peace and stability was brought about by brute force. There was hardly any room for dissent or opposition to the rules and regulations of the Empire.

In spite of the peace assured to the subjects of the Empire, there were dissenting groups within the Empire who were against authoritative authoritarian Roman rule, and such groups were suppressed with brute force, at times leading to execution by crucifixion. There were also individuals and groups who cried to the Lord with cries of Lament. Lament was a form of dissent or protest against oppression and injustice.

God heard the cries of the people and intervened to redeem God’s people. The classic example for God’s intervention to redeem God’s people is stated in God’s challenge to Moses: “Then the Lord said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh and say to him ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” (Exodus 8: 1-2). This reflects the nature and the story of God from the beginning until now and it shall be so until the world is free from oppression, exploitation and corruption. God will always raise individuals/communities from time to time to become God’s channels of liberation and say boldly ‘No’ to the representatives of the Empire.

Christmas is such a time when God intervenes in human history to break the power of oppression and to become a light to this world which is overcome by the power of darkness. It is for that reason and, keeping that at the back of our minds, we must read the narratives related to Jesus’s birth.

One such narrative is Angel Gabriel’s appearance and message to Mary and Joseph, the parents of Jesus. When the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she is going to conceive and bear a son, and he shall be called Jesus (Luke 1: 26-31), Mary was greatly troubled, yet accepted it and said “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1: 38) What is amazing is that after hearing this message from the Angel, Mary sings a song, known as the Magnificat, that brings out the character or the nature of God which is revolutionary and challenges the status quo understanding of God, then and now. I invite you to turn to the Bible and reflect on Luke 1: 46-55.

What does Mary say about God through this song? Mary’s revelation of God through the Magnificat is the God incarnate in Jesus the Christ. In other words, Jesus is the embodiment of the God whom Mary revealed in the Magnificat. In the Gospel of St. Matthew it is stated that this God is Emmanuel which means ‘God with us’. (Mat. 1: 21-26). In the Gospel of John it is said: ‘’And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth..” (John 1: 14).

These passages are a challenge to us to reflect on the meaning and the significance of Christmas we celebrate year after year. I invite you to re-reflect on the birth narratives recorded in the Gospels during your devotion times. Based on the birth narratives recorded in Scripture, I invite you to ask the question: Does the most traditional way of celebrating Christmas across the entire world today come close to the Jesus whom we encounter in the Gospels, especially in the manger scene and in the people who came to visit Him?

Why did God ignore the most powerful people in the empire and reveal the birth of God’s son to the most insignificant shepherds? Those people whom God embraced and included at the centre of the birth narrative of Jesus, are the very people we, the members of the Body of Christ, ignore today. The poor are the people who are looked upon by the churches as objects for charity or, at times, wholly ignored by the churches.

The story of Jesus recorded in the Gospels does not come even close to the story of Jesus we treasure when we celebrate Christmas today. Unfortunately, our popular way of celebrating Christmas, I argue, is a distorted version of Christmas. This distorted understanding has influenced our way of observing and celebrating the birth of Jesus for a long period.

When we prayerfully reflect on the life and ministry of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels and, compare that reflection in the light of what Jesus himself announced right at the beginning of his ministry – referred to as the Nazareth manifesto – we find a big gap and a contradiction. Hence, we must repent in order to re-tell and re-enact the story of Jesus as recorded in the biblical birth narratives.

Christmas is the story where God in Jesus the Christ breaks into human history and becomes a human being in the midst of the suffering and the marginalized. Jesus our Savior, according to the Gospel narratives, identified fully with the poorest of the poor. In his Nazareth manifesto Jesus explains the purpose of his coming to this earth by quoting a passage from the book of Prophet Isaiah. Jesus says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19; also see Isaiah 61:1).

Jesus came to this world to inaugurate and fulfill this task and that was his Mission. We are called to be his disciples in order to carry forward this Mission. Hence, Christmas, which we celebrate as the day of the birth of Jesus, calls us to reflect on Jesus in the spirit of His Nazareth Manifesto. We must reflect on the birth of Jesus in relation to our times within our own contexts of the Nazareth manifesto where Jesus is present as the crucified one.

This demands a radical shift in what we do in the name of Christmas during the season of Christmas. It is a challenge to confront, expose and dismantle the mercantile or the profit-making enterprises which have distorted the true meaning of Christmas and, thereby, to liberate Jesus to become the Jesus of the Gospels, the Jesus of the powerless and vulnerable people in this world. In other words, it is a challenge to all of us to liberate Christmas from the deceptive power of Mammon.

In order for this to happen there must emerge, within faith communities, groups of dedicated women and men, young and old who can say NO to the distorted image of Jesus and refuse to take part in distorted ritualistic services and festivities during the season of Christmas. This is difficult and it is like swimming against the current!

But, it is not impossible as long as we have an authentic commitment to embrace Jesus of the Gospels. To me, this is what it means to be a ‘born again Christian’ or, as St. Paul says, to be “In Christ”. (2 Cor. 5:17)

The shepherds, on hearing the message of the Angels, went all the way to Bethlehem in search of this Jesus and shared their holy encounter with Mary and Joseph. (Luke 2: 15-20). We too must search the Scriptures to encounter the authentic Jesus in order to proclaim and worship him. All our teachings, preaching, devotions and liturgies should, and must, be freshly articulated to reveal Jesus the Liberator who came to liberate all humankind. The distortions that have occurred in the commemoration of some of the main events of the Christian faith have contributed to the overall distortion of the Christian faith and made Christianity subservient to the empires of our own day.

Instead, the carols we sing, the dramas we stage, the prayers and intercessions we recite, all must lead to the awakening of the faith and empowering of devotees to become agents of change. May this begin with me!

(Revd. Dr. Rienzie Perera, a distinguished Anglican theologian, lectures at the Theological College of Lanka, Pilimatalawa.)