Merry Christmas!

Sorry! No crib this year!

 As Chennai is limping back to normalcy, Churches have asked people to tone down Christmas celebrations and spend the money on something meaningful. So no crib, no cakes, not much decoration and no crackers (crackers have no place in Christmas! Do you want to shake up the sleeping baby Jesus?). Some people even gave up new clothes and donated towards flood relief. Good move indeed. But why don't we do this every year? I think this is a good starting point and expect at least some of the Churches will follow the suit in coming years. After all what those decorations have to do in celebrating the birth of a humble child 2000 years ago? So if anything we can please Jesus with that money is to help out our fellow humans in need. Fine... Let us move on. The intention of this post is to bring out some factual truths about Christmas. Now-a-days many Christians know about what I am going to write. But this is just to put things according to my understanding.

1. Christmas is not Jesus' birthday!

Even though the Church has celebrated December 25th as birthday of Jesus, Bible or any reliable historic sources don't give us the date of birth of Jesus. The possibility of Jesus born on cold winter night is slim as the Biblical account says that the sheperds were out in the fields (Luke 2:8). So there is nothing that points to the date December 25th. There are some theories that a Pagan festival to celebrate winter solicate has been converted by Roman Catholic Church in to Christmas. Whatever! I see no harm in celebrating Christmas on 25th December. But we should be aware that it is not Jesus' birthday but Jesus' birth rememberence day. Another point, December 25th is Isaac Newton's birthday and you can also include the GravMass day in your list of celebrations :)

2. The Wise-men

There are no record that the wise-men visited the manger nor there were any records saying 3 of them were there. So the usual crib scene with the three wise-men is not factually correct. Actually Bible records that the wise-men visited Jesus at his house.

3. Lack of Space! Not Poverty!

There is a common misconception that Jesus' family was so poor that they couldn't afford a lodge and took refuge in manger. There are some people like Paulo Coelho who are comparing Jesus' family with refugee crisis. And this link(thepoke.co.uk) that says that they are squatters who are wasting taxpayers' money.

 

But Joseph seems to be a law abiding citizen who was obeying orders given by government and moved to his native place for sake of registering his census records. Too much for a squatter right? There is a good chance that Joseph paid his taxes as Jesus himself did so and advised his followers to do so. Third, it is not poverty that forced Joseph to take shelter in the manger but lack of space in the inn. It may be correct that Jesus is not so rich but he is not that poor as Joseph had a profession (carpenter) to care for his family. It can be argued that they went to Egypt as refugees. Again, that is only a movement within the then Roman Empire and not illegal immigration.

4. The Santa Claus 

Saint Nicholas was a 4th Century Christian Saint who gave up his wealth and helped poor people. Also some accounts record that he used to place surprise gifts for the needy. This somehow got mixed up with the Pagan Germanic Yuletide celebrations and the Santa Claus legend hence came to life. But this has been cleverly exploited by market forces and there is so much Santa in Christmas that Jesus could not even surface for the entire month of December! Even if it is not for the "Son of God" people should realize, it is Jesus and Saint Nicholas who can influence children in the right direction.

So it is easy to get carried away from the real meaning of Christmas and actual facts behind the festival as well as better way of observing it. In this consumerist world, everything is marketed. We should draw a fine line between acceptable spending on celebrations and excess. By that we can do more good to everyone (including us)! The flood has reinforced our love for fellow humans across stupid barriers like caste and religion. So Christmas this year has become more of celebrating the spirit of giving than filling our bellies with biriyani. Hope this Christmas sets itself as a starting point for coming years of more such resonable Christmas celebrations (of course without floods)! Happy Christmas!