If there is anything the world today needs so badly now, it is the voice of one who brings good news. It has been a period of many forms of bad news for individuals, families and nations. We are already familiar with the agonizing news of the corona virus that refuses to give a respite. News channels compete in breaking issues of news that keep us ever in panic. As if these were not enough, the overwhelming industry of fake news takes joy in producing only messages that divide, and create more hate and more pain. In the midst of this mad avalanche of bad news, we are today treated to a different kind of news. We hear the prophetic words of Isaiah: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of one who brings good news, who heralds peace, brings happiness, proclaims salvation, and tells Zion, ‘Your God is king’” (Isa 52:7). This invigorating message sets us immediately into a mood of joy, the typical mood of Christmas.
Christmas is the divine intervention into our human story to give us a new taste of living, to give us a new sense of life, and to help us appreciate the joy of living. It is God’s nature taking control of our human nature in order to give it a new direction, to reposition it from the part of darkness to the part of light. The Gospel of John of this Christmas day sees this light as a light shining in the darkness. This summarises the real significance of Christmas. It brings a shining light in the midst of a darkness that seems to envelop the world. This light is the Presence of God made manifest in Jesus Christ. As the Letter to the Hebrews says, He is the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of his nature. Through him and in him, God is beginning a new creation, making us to reflect the radiant brightness of God’s glory which in concrete shows itself in joy and peace.
A famous song of Christmas sums it all: “Joy to the world, the Lord is come; let earth receive her king; let every heart prepare him room; and heaven and nature sing; and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and heaven and nature sing.” Yes, in the new born Jesus, the powers of heaven and the whole of creation unite in exultant joy because there is a restored harmony between God and humanity.
The real sense of Christmas joy is that God is present in our midst, and this divine Presence is new light guiding us to rediscover our humanity which is degraded by many contrary forces. These forces create division and segregation. They create hate and selfishness. They create crime, self-destruction, social disharmony, violent conflict and war of everyone against everyone. Because we remain divided and self-centered, we become incapable of pulling our resources together and confronting the forces that diminish our lives. In this state of affairs, life is grossly diminished, as pain, agony and sorrow remain on the increase. This is the darkness in which we get enveloped whenever we try to fashion an existence without the light of God’s presence.
The Christmas celebration shows us a new light, as God enters into our story to teach us how to live as human beings created in His divine image and likeness. His presence brings joy because it brings a new way of living. It brings love; it brings human solidarity; it brings peace, and with this peace there is abundant joy, as the Prophet Isaiah exclaims: “You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder” (Isa 9:3). May this Christmas bring us real peace and real joy!
