Christmas: Imitation of Christ, Peace on Earth - - about Christmas  

By Janina Gomes  

Christmas: Imitation of Christ, Peace on Earth - - about Christmas  

In the Old Testament, (Biblical events recorded before the birth of Jesus) God assures His people that if they obey Him and are careful to carry out His commandment of love, they will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country, blessed when they come in and blessed when they go out. He will grant them a blessing in their granaries and in all their labours. There will be a blessing on the fruit of their bodies, on the fruit of their ground, on the fruit of their beasts, on their baskets and on their kneading troughs. He also assures them that He answers even before they call and grants our prayer - even before we finish uttering it. God thus emerges in the Old Testament as the giver of many gifts.

In the New Testament, God emerges as not only the giver of infinite love but also as the God who gifts us Self through the birth of His Son, and the giver of the greatest gift of all - which is gift of Self to humanity. God became part of human history by taking physical birth as a babe in Bethlehem. He identified Self with our human condition, that we may become one with Him. An important part of Christmas therefore, is not merely the giving of gifts to friends, relatives and strangers, but the gift of self to others. In imitation of the divine incarnation, we are called to gift and share our innermost being with others.

Christmas is therefore a time for selfless giving. It is also, however, a time for receiving, when we open our minds and our hearts to receiving graciously from others. Theologian Hubert M Dunphy says the birth of Jesus was one moment in time when the God of omnipotence deliberately made Himself helpless. That moment began in Bethlehem on Christmas eve when Jesus was born, an infant in a manger. Nativity was for Jesus a time of receiving. As an infant, there was nothing he could give. He had to depend completely on his mother for everything. "The Creator who clothed the world in nature's splendour, who cloaked craggy mountains with capes of ermine snow, who smothered whole countries with the splashing colour of tropical flowers, who streaked the sun's dawning with heaven's own pastels of green and blue and rose and stained the sunset with streams of His own bright red blood, this God who dressed the world let Himself be dressed by one of His own creatures."

Christmas is also a lesson in divine mercy. As St Bernard, a mediaeval monk says, God's power had already appeared in the creation of things; God's wisdom appeared in governing them; but God's goodness and His mercy appeared above all in his humanity.

So, human beings can welcome the birth of Jesus not with fear but with hope because he comes to the world not to condemn us but to save us. He comes to set the captive free, to relieve the oppressed and to bring hope to sinners. He also comes to bring peace to a troubled world. Peace is not arbitrated through war. When he said to his disciples: ''Peace I give you, my peace I give you, not as the world would give'' he gives us an insight into the kind of peace he came to bestow upon us. It is not the peace of compromise or peace after battle, but the inner peace of realising his presence in our hearts and the world.

Christmas symbolises peace and goodwill towards all; that is why ceasefires are inspired by Christmas. It also means that we should ready ourselves to receive the child God, who epitomises the spirit of giving and receiving.

For many of us, sadly, the spirit of Christmas is ''hurry''.And yet, eventually, the hour comes when the rushing ends and the race against the calendar mercifully comes to a close. It is only now perhaps that we truly recognise the spirit of Christmas. Christmas itself is eternal, said Burton Hillis.

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See also: Christmas, Indian Festivals, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)