• Justice Kurian Joseph, Former Judge of the Supreme Court of India

From the common man’s point of view, Christmas is the celebration of an event. It is an anniversary celebration. That anniversary marks the birth of somebody who walked in history, and that somebody is Jesus Christ, who was born twenty centuries ago.  Unlike other birthday celebrations, this one is a universal one. To understand why it is universally celebrated, we need to understand what Christmas is for the world. The birth of Jesus represents a paradigm shift in history, for which reason we have history divided into the Before Christ and After Christ era. Here the stress is on the importance of someone’s birth in human history. The analysis of it will take us to a simple and sweet thought: Jesus Christ was a man who replaced the human notions that existed until then with new insights that were revolutionary in many ways. Of those insights, my favourite is this: He as a person who helped people to realize that God is not somebody inaccessible and unapproachable. We are His children, created in His own image and likeness. At the very creation itself God told to the world. “I’m creating man in my own image and likeness.” Men forgot this truth and became ignorant about his identity with God. So, to bring him back to the realization that man has His image and likeness, God chose to be born as a normal human being.

Secondly, Jesus gave a new interpretation to the laws, customs and conventions which had until then made revenge, vendetta, fights etc the norms of life. He taught that love should take their place. For building up a good society, it must have love as its foundation – love each other instead of hating each other. That was how Jesus sought to abolish the barriers of race, caste, colour, gender, poverty etc that divided society. Just preaching it without practising, as hypocrites do, won’t be of any help. For putting it into practice, it would have to sink into our consciousness and become a part of it. In other words, it would require a total change of heart. Hypocrisy is the one sin for which Jesus Christ showed zero tolerance. He asked his disciples to be as genuine and transparent to others as they would be before God, because everyone is created in the same image and likeness of God. This is what inspired Justice V R Krishna Iyer, a former Supreme Court judge and renowned jurist to say: Jesus Christ is one of the finest and pioneer human right activists, whose human right thoughts greatly influenced and continue to influence the society when he liberates people from the bondage of sin, class, caste, poverty and other divisions. So this liberating concept of a divine person brought up a new twist and order to the society. What we call today the rule of law, Jesus introduced as a rule of love, because the implementation of the law without love is not following the spirit of the law whereas implementing the rule of law with love is following the spirit of law. When the law is implemented devoid of its spirit, it will lead to oppression, whereas if law is implemented with love, it will lead to proper order in the society, a society based on tolerance, accommodation and love.

Jesus Christ was a man who replaced the human notions that existed until then with new insights that were revolutionary in many ways. Of those insights, my favourite is this: He as a person who helped people to realize that God is not somebody inaccessible and unapproachable. We are His children, created in His own image and likeness. At the very creation itself God told to the world. “I’m creating man in my own image and likeness.” Men forgot this truth and became ignorant about his identity with God. So, to bring him back to the realization that man has His image and likeness, God chose to be born as a normal human being.

The third thing Jesus taught through word and example was that man should be kind and compassionate towards others just as God is kind and compassionate to man. He had only plain questions to ask: if God has not forgiven your faults, would you be living like this? Your creator, God the father Almighty, had been kind and compassionate to you. He forgave your sins, ignored your faults and treated you with dignity and he brought you up despite your rejections, despite your dejections and despite the problems you created by yourselves. If God is so, you should behave likewise to your neighbour. Jesus defines who is a neighbour. Your neighbour must be for you an own brother, because, in a society based on fraternity, everyone is brother and sister to each other. You don’t have to be a blood relation for you be a true brother or sister to someone. It is the sixth sense or third eye that makes you see a brother or sister in anyone who is in need. “A friend in need is a friend in deed” is something which is taught to us from the childhood. But, ‘a man in need is your brother indeed’ is what Jesus told and showed us.

The dignity of a person is what mattered most to Jesus. This is the fourth aspect that inspires men to celebrate Christmas as a universal celebration. The dignity of a person does not depend up on his or her possessions or position, it depends upon his existence, because each one of us is a child of God. And if everyone in the world is a child of God, irrespective of caste, colour, creed, language, gender, race or possession or position or wealth, that means everyone is brother and sister to each other. It is this universal brotherhood that Jesus showed to mankind and made him a close friend of those who were the least, the last and the lost in the society. He showed to mankind what he shared with our Father, the same dignity that he enjoyed as the son of God. That is a unique and uplifting insight. These are some of the reasons why the world as a whole, irrespective of race, cast or creed, loves to celebrate Christmas.

Across the world, everybody lights a star during Christmas time. It has a simple meaning. The star announced to the world that God had descended on earth as a human person. It led the shepherds and also the wise men to His place of birth. But the wise men, who were otherwise intelligent, searched with their intellect and therefore had to travel long to find Him. Whereas the shepherds who were simple, innocent and uneducated, readily accepted the message they got and so found him immediately. And they were the first to reach and pay their respects to the new born Baby in Bethlehem. Another important message of Christmas is that man is the creation of God and his intelligence also is the creation of God. So, one should not use this intelligence or intellectual faculty to go beyond the divine revelation given to him. You should not measure with intelligence the one who gave you intelligence. No doubt, your approach and your understanding of divinity should be rational, but divinity should not be made subject to that rationality, because divinity exists beyond the grasp of rationality. And rationality itself is the gift of God to man.

And my last take on Christmas is this: Jesus told us that this is his first coming, but he has also told us that he will come again. In his first coming he came to show that we were not lost – I have come to redeem you. Man was once lost not because God lost him but man lost God by walking away from God, but God didn’t want him to be lost eternally. He wanted to give us a second chance. So, for giving us this second chance of redemption, we must cooperate with Him in its process. Jesus came for that. That is what Jesus said when he told us that our destiny is in our hands. Unless you cooperate, you will not be able to achieve it. It is this co-operation that paves the way to your ultimate destiny. To achieve this, we don’t have to do any supernatural things, we need only lead a simple, normal human life on the principles of love, justice, equality, tolerance, forgiveness, compassion etc. and to eschew from our life the evil of hatred, jealousy, lust, pride and division. We must build a society based on compassion, kindness, tolerance and love, just as He did. If you are in the process of building up such a society, then you are building the kingdom of heaven in you. Unless you build the kingdom of heaven in you and reside in it while you are on earth, you will not be eligible and entitled to enter into the eternal peace after your brief sojourn on earth. It is not because God did not want it but you refused to accept it. Christmas should remind every one of us to live in the kingdom of God while on earth by building a society based on justice and love which are the deciding factors in the last judgement for His right side.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!