Taking Jesus out of Christmas: How commerce hijacked a sacred festival

By Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ*

Let there be Christmas to help us realise that Joseph together with his young, pregnant wife had to trudge a long distance to get themselves registered in Bethlehem due to a Roman decree by Caesar Augustus, which required everyone to return to their ancestral hometown for a census to account for taxation and lineage. Joseph was of King David's line, so he had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem (David's city) with Mary.

We live in a similar reality today in India: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has disenfranchised innumerable citizens who belong to the minority communities and to the poorer sections of society. With Census 2027 on the threshold, the reality for the entire country will perhaps become even worse! So let there be Christmas which does not disenfranchise anyone!

Let there be Christmas when we humbly learn to accept that Joseph and Mary are migrants, who come from a different part of the country; they are kept out on the streets, very strongly told that “there is no place in the inn.” Later, with Jesus, they become refugees. Scripture tells us, “An angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph, saying, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. For Herod is about to seek the child to destroy him.” Like so many today, the Holy Family of Nazareth becomes refugees overnight. The land that will provide them refuge and protect them, is Egypt - a pagan country. So let there be Christmas when we will accept and integrate migrants and refugees in our lives and treat them as family!

Let there be Christmas which makes us focus on the stable, the manger, the crib. The place Jesus is born! He is the Son of God! The Saviour of all mankind. He could have chosen a palace as his birthplace with its wealth and pomp, comfort and security. But Jesus choses the poverty and frugality of a stable: with its stench and squalour, the straw and swaddling clothes, the moos and the warmth of the animals housed there. So let there be Christmas which leads us to the frugal and simple, the poor and vulnerable of this world.

Let there be Christmas so that we identify with the shepherds! They live in the rugged hills. They are simple, unlettered, marginalized folk, a minority community; their expertise was in tending sheep. Their life was difficult: with long nights spent in the open, biting cold. They are like our rural poor who are today deprived of the benefits of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). When the shepherds were given the “good news” of the birth of the Saviour they leave their sheep behind (their attachments) and ran in haste to worship him; their priorities are very clear: they had to be the first witnesses to the herald of the angels! So let there be Christmas for us to reach out to the excluded, the exploited, the minorities, those who live on the peripheries, the ‘others’, the ones who are denigrated and demonised, who are treated as ‘untouchables’!

Let there be Christmas when we are attune to the song of the angels and make it our own! It is not ‘Vande Mataram’ but “Glory to God in the highest and peace to all men and women of goodwill!” A song of peace, a song which is inclusive and belongs to all!! It transcends narrowness and pettiness; xenophobia and jingoism; arrogance and divisiveness. So let there be Christmas when we live the song and communicate its spirit to others and ultimately ensure that is peace is a reality in the lives of all people.

Let there be Christmas when we learn the openness and the persistence of the Magi. They lived in a distant land. They possessed wisdom and wealth. However, they had a singular mission in life: a relentless search for the truth and for the Messiah that would epitomise that truth. These were men who studied the ancient manuscripts. They were no pushovers; they knew their stuff. They go out of their way, find Jesus and give him of their best! They realise that having found the truth they have to take a stand for justice. They go back home by ‘another way’ thwarting the evil designs of a ruthless, jealous, fascist ruler. So let there be Christmas, when we are not afraid to seek truth and stand up for what is right.

Let there be Christmas to look for the Star. The Star which guided the Magi and which needs to guide us, always, particularly in this Jubilee Year, when we are called to be pilgrims of hope. That star is a lodestar that guides us when we are lost, when we are caught in the pitfalls of life (like the wiles of a dictator). If we are open to its directions, it will give us endless and relevant possibilities, to take a different path and to stand against the power of evil and injustice in this world. So let there be Christmas which gives us the prophetic courage to dream the impossible dream and to reach for the unreachable star!

Let there be Christmas when we search for what is right, what is just, what is holy! Like the ‘Anawim’ a broken people, who waited in patience and hope, searching for the Messiah; someone who would liberate them from their suffering, from the shackles of bondage. Mary who sings the ‘Magnificat’; everyone respects her; no one dares pull out her ‘hijab’! The relentless search of a people for truth, light and for a new tomorrow! It is a search by so many people for a meaning and fulfilment in life, that will have no end! So let there be Christmas when we awake to a new dawn, and bring hope to our brutal, broken world!

Let there be Christmas that gives us the honesty and authenticity, to live against the stream however difficult it is. Material celebration of a festival certainly has a place. But Christmas has been relegated to vulgar materialism, crass commercialisation, unbridled consumerism, blatant hedonism, dancing and merriment, overeating and drinking, the vulgar display of opulence and wanton waste. All this throttles the real spirit and meaning of this festival! We must say an emphatic “NO” to all this.

Besides, Christmas is today equated with Santa Claus and Christmas Trees, reindeers, sleighs and snow, with splurging, shopping and extravagance, with tinsels and baubles, mistletoes and holly wreaths. None of these, we all know, have anything to do with the birth of Jesus. Powerful, commercial and other vested interests have meticulously and manipulatively taken Jesus out from Christmas. Sadly, many have succumbed to this trickery! So let there be Christmas when we truly celebrate the birth of Jesus!

When God our Creator created the world, the Holy Bible tells us he said “Let there be Light…sky, water, earth, fish, animals….” He finally created man (Adam and Eve). Looking from above, he tells each one of us today, “Let there be Christmas!”

Are we listening?

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*Human rights, reconciliation & peace activist and writer

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