Wherever in the world there are people of the Christian faith, this time of year ushers in – The Festival of Christmas.
Commercialism often threatens to obscure the primary cause for celebration, but Christians believe that Jesus was the Best Gift ever given to mankind. And just look how Christmas tends to pervade all groups. Especially in Guyana.
However, every Christmas time I tend to provoke some thought on the Christ Child. And the significance of that Holy Baby to Christians.
So we have ourselves now reminded of the well-known “reason for the season” -the BIRTH, reportedly, of the Christ Child to a rather mis-matched couple – matured carpenter Joseph and Virgin Teenager, Mary, (One friend tells me that in those days no one frowned on the spousal/generation gap)
The priests and pastors, the Christmas carols and Nativity re-enactments strive to emphasise the myth-like fairy tale of the story of God’s Word Being made Flesh to dwell amongst us – the realisation of the fore-told concepts of God the SON. I have often heard and read that “the whole of Christian teachings would fall to ground if it were the case that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus were NOT events in real history, but (just) stories told to illustrate truths which are valid, quite apart from these happenings”.
In other words, if Christians, through their immense faith, belief and/or evidence(?) do not accept, or even have some doubt about the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection after the public crucifixion, then there would be no real basis for their Faith. For, so far, I have not come across any Christian theologian, researcher, scholar or student who rejects those two fundamentals of their faith, replacing them with other foundations.
Where the miracle of the Virgin Birth/Immaculate Conception is concerned, I suppose modern-day medical science can even offer lots of evidence of such non-intercourse conceptions and eventual births. The good Christian position, however, is that the entrance of the Baby Jesus was indeed God’s Divine Creation which merely used young Mary as a pure, innocent vessel. As mentioned before, Christians just have to accept that. How about you? If you are a practicing, devout Christian on this Christmas occasions, reflect on what has made you believe in the Virgin Birth.
What time? What baby?
Again, elementary research tells us that December 25 is certainly not the month or day of Jesus’ Birth. And there are even Christians who don’t accept the concept or doctrine of the TRINITY – a Son, Father and Ghost – so there is no celebration or Christmas for them just as “there is no contemporary evidence of the exact date of Jesus’ Birth”. Bethlehem is given as the Christ-Child’s birthplace and Nazareth of Galilee, his childhood neighbourhood.
In fact, the first December 25 “Christmas” celebration was, reportedly the year 354 in Rome so as to popularize their own earlier periods of celebration. Eastern countries used early January (06) as their date and it is said that various months were used by other societies to mark the Child’s advent.
No need to dwell on the ethnicity (Jewish) or physical appearance of the Christ Child. He certainly could not have been lily-white-fair as earlier depicted in European imagery, but we are told that (somehow) his physical hue or appearance DOES NOT matter. Again I ask: what say you? And do you accept that this Divine Gift, born amidst such drama as a Census and a reported Massacre of Innocents by a troubled jealous King Herod, was indeed the Messiah of mankind? As predicted in the Old Testament? A Reflective Christmas Season to you. Or, Happy Holidays.
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