Thepfulhoukho Kuotsu
The unlocking phase of Covid-19 Pandemic is a welcome sigh of relief for many people walking out from the dark tunnel of self-isolation and nightmare. At the end of it, a slim yet promising ray of hope eventually appears in the sky. With Christmas around the corner, once again the market places, shopping malls and bazaars have been fully occupied. Everywhere you go, flashes of neon light hits the eye of the beholder.
As they say, an ice-breaker isn’t a bad way to ease the uncomfortable silence. Let me therefore share one childhood memory. Long before online and social media was conceived, my friend and I were entertaining ourselves playing caroms. On one occasion, my friend managed to convert a seemingly difficult dice. Instantly, that feat became his eureka moment. While doing rounds of self-applauding, an uncle who was watching us said something, of course, with a degree of sarcasm. He said, “Hey guys, do you know that people landed on the moon 50 years ago?” Eventually, the celebration was short-lived and we continued the game.
With this story in mind, I would like to pose a set of uncomfortable questions. Considering the era we live in, it’s easy to go with the flow. The techno-savvy comfort and the fun we derive from unexamined life has become the new normal. Apart from Biblical understanding of Christmas, we are being spoon-fed with the bazaar understanding and the religious understanding of Christmas. So the questions arise; have we lost/distorted the meaning of Christmas in the process of our celebration? Have we become self-applauding Christians while Christ is pushed to the backseat? Or are we blindly feeding the neo-liberal markets? These questions need to be raised because there is a danger of commercializing Christmas.
The force of capitalism has swept across the global world. The local contexts like ours are not exempted either. The neon god seems to be thriving even better in this pandemic with prices shooting up almost every day. Unfortunately, we don’t have the Israeli “Iron dome” technology to intercept inflation. At the receiving end, poverty strikes many homes. Come January and we will see tear drops falling down from the eyes of parents who do not have the resources to pay their kids admission and tuition fees. Faced with such a situation, what do we do? Do we recall Sherlock Holmes, the detective, to solve this puzzle? Perhaps, we need to revisit Christmas in our times and recover the meaning of Christmas.
One approach is to deconstruct the over-emphasized celebration. The extravagant parties and the glamorous possessions we often take pride in can be stripped off. Instead, we learn to give away and still lack nothing. More importantly, the experience of the person of Christ remains paramount. It is in this context where we begin to see the bigger picture of Christmas. It is where we begin to see Christmas or good news as a movement. Good news entails our encounter with Christ.
In his birth, Jesus has entered into a system that was ailing, broken, chaotic, distrustful, egoistic and fragile. Greed had colonized societies and people were caged in hopelessness. Yet in the coming of Christ, we see healing, empowerment, forgiveness, reconciliation, truth and justice beyond law and legality. It is Jesus who laid down the framework of redemption and transformation to humanity and above all, setting up the vision of a new earth and a new heaven. It is good news for the present and the age to come.
Jesus of Nazareth walked in and around the region of Galilee teaching, preaching, healing and serving even the least of all. As a movement leader, his other-worldly activism is not self-centred, neither appeasement, nor patronizing and non-status quoist. Rather, he employed the approach of humility and emphatically communicated the language of love. In this way, he has laid down the cornerstone of the kingdom of God.
The introductory passage of the gospel of John says, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”(John 1:14) It indicates the beginning of a limitless movement. Invariably, this movement is getting manifested in the lives of millions across communities, nations, and societies wherein the values and the virtues of the Kingdom are practiced and embraced. It is evident in the lives of many who have encountered Jesus. Few testimonies may be drawn for the present purpose.
First, we have Simon Peter, the fisherman turned disciple. In his crude old-self, Peter is strong headed and someone who lacks consistency. Jesus had to rebuke and confront him many times and even warned him of his denial. Moreover, he had a preconceived notion towards the non-Jews based on circumcision. However, it was the experience of the Holy Spirit and the obedience to it that he began to practice tolerance and embrace diversity. Second, we have seen how Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman has completely changed her worldview. The deep rivalry on the basis of traditions and religious practices had conditioned her life till. After the encounter, a new outlook is formed based on truth and spirit that is life-giving and empowering.
The third person is Zacheaus, the tax collector who has been found excessively exploiting the people. Like Supaandi, he comically sat on a tree the day he met Jesus. Unequivocally, it prompted Zacheaus to do and practice justice. Fourth, under the bondage of slavery and sin, we have the woman caught in adultery. She was labeled and shamed by the Pharisees of the day who took the law in their own hands. It was Jesus who showed her grace, pronounced forgiveness and freed her ultimately. Fifth, we have Paul, also known as Saul, a highly learned man and a hardcore persecutor turned apostle. He was one of the convicts in the stoning of Stephen who instigated violence. He had his Damascus experience and later became an ambassador of Christ to the Gentiles. Paul became a robust defender of the gospel of peace, love and non-violence.
From the premise of the above testimonies, we may infer that this movement is radically subversive in terms of re-conception of the world and its systems. It is about conversion of our worldview based on the truth, justice, forgiveness and reconciliation. The legacy of this movement has been felt across race, caste, tribe and culture throughout the centuries. For instance, John Newton, the slave trader had encountered Christ. Soon history would point out that slave trade was abolished. Martin Luther King junior, a vocal pastor spoke against racial discrimination. Mother Teresa walked outside the comfort of her home to stay with the destitute in India till her last breath.
This good news and the story of Jesus have even influenced people outside the Christian faith. Talk about personalities like Gandhi and Ambedkar whose contribution towards non-violence and emancipation of caste still remains a reference point for us to stand for a cause. In our own Naga context, the much romanticized headhunting culture was brought to an end with the message of the Good news. Likewise, this movement story needs to inspire, reignite and prompt us to move beyond the comfort zone of the festive mood. A critical reflection may, therefore, offer us to rethink Christmas, lest it become a self-applauding event like the way my friend and I did as mentioned earlier in the story.
To conclude, I reiterate that we inherit an incommensurable legacy - a saga foretold through prophet Isaiah. Christmas as a movement is an everyday plebiscite and not merely a one-time ceremony. It entails our continuous experience and encounter with Christ both at the personal and the public domain. Most importantly, Christmas as a movement has a future. My hope and prayer is that we continue to engage proactively in this movement till the Kingdom of God is established here on earth as it is in Heaven.
