Christmas captivity and the cosmic Christ

Prof Anton Meemana

Christmas is the grand feast of the wretched of the Earth. Of course, the rich can also celebrate it, but only in solidarity with the poor. The true festive joy is in pouring out one’s whole self for the life and happiness of the others. Every true celebration is a communal enterprise.

True celebration requires a sense of healthy exaggeration, a sense of dazzling jubilation and a sense of shining exuberance, but never extravagances. Extravagances kill the spirit and the joy of celebration and make it superficial, dry and lifeless.

Incarnation and redemption

Incarnation, that is, God becoming a human in Christ Jesus, hints the proper orientation of human history. History is incarnation written large. Incarnation quenches the thirst for reincarnation. Incarnation transcends and transforms the need for reincarnation. Human history is restlessly and relentlessly in search of its Incarnator, its Redeemer. In taking human flesh, God has definitely and decisively embraced and befriended history and that is the beginning of its redemption. Repetition guarantees nothing and hence God can perfectly redeem us even without reincarnation. With God there is no past, present and future. There is only eternal now and therefore there is no need for reincarnation for our salvation.

Reincarnation is absorbed in incarnation. Incarnation offers the possibility for a new life right now, right at this moment, right here. There is no need to postpone it for another life, for another time. Now is the temporal eternity. Now is the moment of our redemption and emancipation.

Now is the moment of truth. The truth of incarnation permeates the entire universe with sacredness, holiness, divineness and therefore every second, every moment is holy and therefore is an auspicious moment. With and in incarnation time is sanctified and made sacred. Now is the auspicious time. Now is the beginning of a new life, a new creature, a new man and a new woman. Redemption has already been granted and all we need to do is to claim it and to be worthy of it.

Incarnation

Incarnation is the protective skin of humanity. Incarnation is the second birth of the universe; it is the second Big Bang of the universe. It is the motor power of history. The whole universe is an incarnated reality; it is a divinely-incarnated cosmos. Jesus’s birth affected not only human beings but also the entire universe. Jesus is the saviour of the whole cosmos, of each galaxy, of each solar system, of each star and planet, of each supernova and black hole, of each comet and asteroid and meteorite, of each human being, of each animal and plant, of each bacterium and chromosome and microcosm. The whole universe is eagerly and enthusiastically longing for its Incarnator.

Incarnation is divine flesh entering our muscles, God feeding his body to us for our life, divine blood running in our hearts, divine chromosomes entering our cells, divine red blood cells entering our bone marrows, divine lenses visioning our eyes, divine breath entering our lungs, divine enzymes entering our saliva, divine tissues entering our ligaments, divine bearings entering our knee caps and joints.

The deepest and the ultimate meaning of history stems from incarnation. History is a useless passion without incarnation. History is full of horror and terror without it. Incarnation incorporates history in its unfolding. Incarnation invests in history out of unconditional love, compassion and mercy. Incarnation investigates history out of clemency. God disincarnates from his own self in order to incarnate in our midst. God leaves his heavenly abode in order to pitch his tent amongst us.

Incarnation facilitates the process of deification. We are created to become divine, are created for the union and communion with God and nothing less than that is an absolute waste of our precious life. In this sense, a vast majority of people, without any doubt, waste their lives and have meaningless deaths. Most people may be rich, educated, famous, wealthy and self-sufficient but feel empty deeply and desperately. They are born, they buy and they die without finding as to why they are born into this world.

Human destiny

God is present in our pain, in our suffering, in our daily struggles more intimately than we are present to our selves. God also struggles with us, on our behalf, when we continue to struggle in life. The good news is that the Creator of this universe, the Maker of this universe is ever present in us, amid us, amongst us, deep within us, above us, under us, beside us, over us, below us, adjacent to us, next to us and by us.

God can never abandon us, nor can he neglect us. God has no future independently of us, apart from us, without us. God’s life is necessarily tied with our lives. God encourages us, gently coarse us to take more and more risks on behalf of love. Only a courageous person can love. Every meaningful risk in life is a leap of faith. Every such risk brings us closer to God a bit more.

Love loves reaching out, stretching out. Love thrives on endless expansion without frontiers. The one who does not love is a black hole, contaminating everything around oneself and self-destructing oneself while destroying everything and everybody else too. By nature love has to explode constantly; love must burst out, flare forth, explode and expand. What will not explode will implode, self-destruct itself. The one who loves is a supernova that gives birth to thousands of new suns, comets, planets, moons and asteroids.

Even star dust stems from God and hence contains sparks of divinity. The dust is a sacred reality. A star which was made of dust showed the wise men as to where the Christ had been born. Dust reflects the wisdom of God. God is present even in dust. The dust is the best proof that God does indeed exist. The true significance of anything is not in its size. The tiniest particle possesses a universal significance for the love of God is a cosmic event, a planetary phenomenon.

Divine nativity

The divine nativity is the death of human captivity. The moment of his birth is the moment of a new birth for humanity and the memory of it is the memory of joy and peace, light and love. We have no future without keeping that memory alive. The glory of human existence is in its best memories. Nativity liberates us from captivity in all its myriad manifestations. Christ is the true light which yearns and burns in our hearts. Without his nativity, there is no real freedom in our lives.

The only ultimate meaning in life is to love God. The failure to do so is the origin and summit of all our misery, emptiness, and suffering. Emptiness is the absence of love in our hearts, it is the absence of fire, the lack of embers in our innermost chambers. The divine fire propels us to serve and love, to break and die, to bless and pray. Without a burning and a bleeding heart, one cannot contain the divine spark in one’s heart. All finite human love points to an infinite divine love. All our conditional love yearns and longs desperately for unconditional love and real frustration in life is not to glimpse it.

One’s interior darkness, gloominess can darken, further and add to the already existing exterior darkness. By the same token, one’s interior light can also lighten the exterior light further; more light is added to already existing light.

Jesus is the true torch bearer; that is , Jesus is the torch as well as the bearer. He is the true light and the carrier of it as well. Without divine light, love is not possible. One cannot love heart-bleedingly if one lives in darkness. The quality is love is in proportion to the light we bear and breed. He it is that loves us, saves us. He saves us so that we can continue to love Him.

Christmas day is a decisive day, a day to make some tough decisions. Every decision we make is either for God or against God. There is no neutral ground. Life is never neutral. There is no third possibility. Either we live in and with God or we do not. And if we sincerely feel that we do not, then we can always go back to the divine path. Every decisive day is a joyful day if we know how to discern in God. Decision-making is not a reason for fear and trembling.

Every crisis is a spiritual opportunity for us to deepen our character and broaden our horizon; the deeper the crisis, the greater the opportunity. Every day we need to make a decision to follow Jesus Christ and each subsequent day we need to renew, reinstate and reiterate that decision for to follow Christ is an ongoing decision.

If humanity is to progress, Christ is inevitable. No one can kick him out of history. Jesus restores in us our capacity to love for he is the true lover par excellence. Jesus is the sinless one (Sebastian Moore) for he gives us back our capacity to love. Sin blocks our true nature which is to grow in love.

Jesus has called us out of bondage, out of captivity, out of idolatry. The one who loves mostly is the freest innermostly. The one who loves freely lives joyfully. Christ is closer to us than we are to ourselves. In Christ, there is true freedom and there is no any other source of freedom except in Christ. Military victories cannot restore real freedom. Christ is our true freedom. To restore and to maintain freedom, people need to live like Christ.

Love indwells amongst us, takes flesh in the midst of us. Love makes its tent amongst us. Love makes a permanent abode in our slums, shanties, and shabby shelters in order never to leave us.

One does not need to be a holy person to recognize it. A sinner’s recognition of this truth is the beginning of a new prospect of a new life.

It is true that people seldom change or some will never change significantly. We need to look at such people very sympathetically and not judgementally. Even if they do not want to change, they deserve our love, patience and sympathy. It is true that people are lazy, selfish, complacent, greedy, evil, cruel, vengeful, hateful, arrogant, stupid, silly, idiotic, loathsome, banal, ruthless, lustful and weak. But still we have to love them precisely because people are such.

The divinity of Jesus is not a separate reality, but hidden, contained deep within his humanity. Humility is another name for humanity. Humility is not timidity or backwardness or feebleness. It is born of innermost freedom, strength and magnanimity of one’s character. Humility is the virtue of the brave, the strongest and the courageous. A weakling can never radiate it or practise it. Pride is the existential condition of the weakling. That is precisely why humility is such a rare virtue amongst us humans.

Our true homeland and fatherland

To redeem is to reveal our true identity. Our true homeland is to live in God at each second. Homeland is beyond one’s country of origin. The one who has found one’s homeland is well on the way to Fatherland (or Motherland). Home is God, our real home is God. All the other homes we try to dwell in are slums and shanties, tents and huts. No other home can truly satisfy our homelessness. Searching for God is longing for our real home. The deeper the search for God, the more intense the at-homeness.

We feel at home when we live and move in God. Every day we must go in search of this home. The real shelter is divine shelter. The real shade is divine shade and the divine shade will never shake.

So we can have a true foretaste of heavenly joy here and now. That is the true spirit and joy of Christmas. The birth of Christ is the beginning of our heavenward journey. Right now, let us take the first step towards it.

Panorama

I carried Mary and led Joseph along
Bethlehem’s crowded streets
Though I’m only a foolish donkey
Whom nobody heeds.

Those who came from near and far
Followed me - the guiding star
Piercing through the velvety night
Shedding my light Oh! So bright

I’m the lamb that moved away
So the Christ child could on my crib lay
‘Twas a sacred mystic hour that night
Not a ‘moo’ from me at the wondrous sight

I joined my spouse and remained mute
Though in the distance I heard
A shepherd’s flute.
I also heard the beat of the drum
As the drummer boy played
His rum-a-tum-tum.

I brought the mis-shapen lamb I had
As mis-shapen as I, the crippled lad.

We came from afar, we followed the star
We brought him gold, frankincense and myrrh.
We knelt in adoration before the Godhead divine
Born to redeem all mankind

And I - I kneel in adoration today
Over two thousand years from that holy day
Reviewing the night when Christ was born
To save my soul and lead me on.

Jeannette Cabraal

It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you...yes, it is Christmas every time you smile at your brother and offer him your hand. -Mother Teresa