Remember the days of darkness, when the village chieftain’s word was law, when the internal organs of animals could portend the future, when a type of a dog’s bark meant somebody would die, when an authoritarian curse was believed, and when dogma was the law. There was no science, no reason, just a lot of BS the elders spouted or those who knew how to manipulate the fears of people with no learning. What we did not like, or what the rulers did not like was the work of the devil. When the law of cause and effect was not factored in day to day life. It was darkness. It was brutish.
Then came Christmas. It was the light. The savior had come to lift us from the darkness or ignorance. But really, did it?
Let us go back to that fateful day, and then let us look at ourselves.
Jesus Christ was not born in a five star hotel. He, or the Holy Father, and the Holy Spirit could have arranged things so an opulent inn or a hotel could have been there when Mary The Virgin started feeling the pains of labor. But there was none.
What was there was a barn. Humble as it was, it did not matter. For His coming was the matter. The circumstances then were also the matter. The simple, even impoverished circumstances. Things turned out OK. The saving of people’s souls began. It was a big success.
What did it take to accomplish what Jesus Christ did? It is very complex but one can sum it all up by his teachings not to be attached to the world and instead focus on the Holy Father and the Holy Spirit. Did he talk of having to make a lot of money? Did he talk of achieving spiritual goals through comfortable living or by being “sipsip” to the powers-that-be? Nope.
For what he was teaching was about the Holy Father and the Holy Spirit. These are spiritual in nature—the exact opposite of material things, of the crude world.
How can we think of spiritual matters if we were pre-occupied with the goal to live in a five star hotel when the basics can be enough?
Yet look around now and almost everybody is pre-occupied with opulence or accumulation of wealth with that end in view. Only very few are thinking of spiritual pursuits. The vast majority could even sell their souls to the devil anytime by being “sipsip” to those who have, and to those with power and name.
In short, we have gone the wrong way, the opposite direction. We have descended into the crude world of materialism, instead of spirituality.
We have chosen the path of ignorance, not the direction of enlightenment. We have thrown ourselves to the clutches of the tyranny of darkness.
So Christmas now has a new meaning. Look at ourselves, and it now means finding the real meaning of the occasion, and then try to find our footing towards the right direction. It should now symbolize a big effort to get out from the muck.
Let us just look back on that night at the barn. Then let us now be on our way on the difficult path of extricating ourselves from where we are.**