• Ponmala

When Caesar took the census of his kingdom, Mary’s babe had its head downward, ready to come out. As fate would have it, Joseph had to take his wife along for the census to distant Bethlehem, his ancestor King David’s place of origin. And simultaneously three wise men set out from the east, their eyes set on a moving star that to them predicted the birth of some child destined to be king unique. Too tedious was their journey through hostile terrain and clime. And as could be expected, Mary felt her babe come out without the warning pains all of Eve’s daughters are by curse blessed with. Her husband rushed her to a cave where many a cattle slept in peace. The moment she lay flat on hay, the babe slipped into Joseph’s arms, hand raised in benediction.

God’s angels swarmed the starry sky.  They burst out singing, “Glory to the Lord of Hosts and peace to men who do good.” Some announced to all the shepherds there about the birth of God’s son in their humble town. Post-haste went all the shepherds to adore the infant, braving cold. Next day, the star arrived at Galilee and stood still over Herod’s palace. The wise men found no newborn king in there. Still, they explained why they had come that far and stepped out of the palace to ask the star why it had taken them for a ride. To which it reacted with a wink, suggesting their misjudgement had brought it to a halt. Instantly, the star continued on its journey, and the wise men followed it till it stopped over Mary’s suckling, to whom they bowed and bestowed rare gifts.

King Herod waited in vain for the wisemen to come and report where they had found his deadly foe. It soon dawned on him that the guys had given him the slip. But that didn’t hold him back from taking their free and timely warning gravely to heart. He ordered to kill every boy in Bethlehem and around who was less than two years old. In what was the first horrendous consequence of God becoming man, innumerable kids were killed and hearts of countless moms were pierced, a powerful sign of things to come for the Son of Man. Kind of a reversal of what he was to accomplish: to save one, many lost their lives.

This is a kind of modern-day version of the Nativity Story that appears in the gospels of Mathew and Luke, spiced with a couple of interesting comments. Apocryphal as it may seem, the Nativity Story has a huge lesson for us today. The three Magi had the wisdom to read the signs of the time in a moving star. The star portended to them the birth of a unique child born to a king, and, more importantly, they took the trouble of following it to find him. But human wisdom led them to the wrong place – the palace of a King. The star waited for them to realise their mistake and then led them to a house in Bethlehem where they found a babe born of lowly parents. And lo! They recognise in him a king! A king whose ‘kingdom is not of this world’ (John 18:36). That esoteric insight they shared only with the humble shepherds who had earlier rushed to the manger at the direction of an angel. Had not the shepherds taken the angel who had appeared to them at his word, they would not have recognised in him their ‘Saviour… Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). That the saviour of the world be born in a manger was beyond human comprehension, and yet, relying on divine wisdom, the Magi and the shepherds accepted it. But that wisdom, unfortunately, has not yet dawned on Christians as a whole.

Thinking in worldly terms, human wisdom led the Magi to Herod’s palace. Human wisdom has misled, and is still misleading, even people who have dedicated their lives to the practice and preaching of gospel values to the grandeur of kingly palaces. They have been found wanting in the divine wisdom that would lead them to the humble manger. Herod did not find Jesus, but three centuries later another king, Constantine, found him and took him from the manger to his palace. Nine centuries later, when palaces came up for Jesus all over Europe in the form of palatial Gothic cathedrals, Francis of Assisi took him back to the manger, and thus the crib staged a reappearance. But that humble crib has few takers even in the post Vatican II times; it is no more than a Christmas decoration now.

Mega churches have come up all over the world, and more so in every nook and corner of Kerala, presenting Jesus as a worldly king to the world. The Church has made pomposity a mark of the divine, looking down at the humble crib, which God Almighty had chosen as His son’s birthplace. Where the Son is, there the Father is, for ‘No one has ever seen God. The only Son, is the same as God and is at the Father’s side, he has made him known’ (John 1:18). Want to know the Father through the Son? Go and meet Jesus in the crib. God does not live in ornate altars, as some would want us to believe. He is with the Son, who lives in the midst of men. All the mystery that surrounded God disappeared at the crib. Heaven, the abode of God, is not a place. How can God, who is pure spirit, be related to a place or a location? Heaven is a state of being, a mode of existence, where “I (Jesus) am in my Father and that you are in me, just as I am in you” (John 14:20). That heaven can be achieved only if one embraces the humbleness and insignificance of the crib.