QUESTION: John Joseph

While seeing various kinds of preparations for Christmas and the ‘mania of celebrations’ in the Church I feel Christ is somewhere away from Christmas. What is its authentic meaning and how can it be relevant in present India?

ANSWER: Saji Mathew Kanayankal CST

A search for the authentic meaning of Christmas in contemporary India may help us to reflect on the Gospel and its message. We prepare for Christmas in many ways and people are happy with different kinds of celebrations. The decorations, stars and lights, cribs and sale festivals, competitions and gatherings, and many other ‘mega events’ make Christmas highly commercial and most of the programmes are conducted within the frame of the neoliberal market economy. In such cases, ‘the spirit of the manger’ is ignored and the ‘traits of market’ rule. When we forget the mystical sense of the incarnation and ignore its essence, the celebrations of Christmas may turn into mere commercial fests. Unless the external celebrations touch the life of the people and the mission of Christ, it becomes a mockery and Christ is hidden not only from the celebrations but also from the people. To grasp the authentic meaning of Christmas, we have to reflect on the mystery of the incarnation on a larger horizon, on God’s plan in salvation history.

A Radical Self-Emptiness
Primarily, the mystery of the incarnation is a radical reformulation of the then existing concept of God, especially the God of the Old Testament. God – the absolute transcendent, was inconceivable according to his essence, and his vision was impossible. The ‘inapproachability’ and ‘the radical otherness’ attributed to him kept people away from him. For the people of the Old Testament, human beings could only grasp the divine presence through mediated realities. If any human person sees or speaks to God face to face, s/he would disappear in the presence of the absolute mystery. This absoluteness and otherness are radically shifted in the event of incarnation, for the essence of incarnation lies in the mystery of the humanness of God. Incarnation is the result of the self-emptying process of God and he becomes a human person in all realms. Since God is the unfathomable mystery and stands away from the human realms, it was impossible for humans to approach him without a radical process of self-emptiness of the transcendent. The meaning of the terms like ‘self-giving’ and ‘self-expression’ (K. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 176), gets its significance in this context. Incarnation expresses the wish of God’s nearness to human beings and He self-communicates to humankind in Jesus Christ (K. Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol IV, 120). This divine self-communication takes place ontologically in Jesus Christ, in whom God speaks to human beings face to face without any reluctance. From the other pole, the human being also speaks to God, face to face. Through the process of self-emptiness, the ‘radical otherness’ has taken a U-turn to intimacy and closeness.
When John tells, “the word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14) this intimacy is expressed with a deeper theological significance. It challenges our perception of God and our fellow human beings! The dwelling of the ‘word’ among the created world is an expression of sharing the entire human environment, an experience of the most complete sharing of different dimensions of human createdness. In the incarnation, God becomes human in all senses, which means, he enters into the spheres of humanity. “Incarnation expresses the shared life, without confusion, admixture or separation, of the entire humanity of Jesus with his entire divinity,” says Leonardo Boff (Cry of the Earth Cry of the Poor, 116). From the very moment of the incarnation, God enters upon a whole new range of experiences and relationships. He experiences life in a human body and in a human soul, and he has to undergo the different experiences of a human being, such as poverty and humiliations, loneliness and negations, and to face different temptations of a lifespan, pain, sufferings and ultimately the death. Like any other human being, he becomes a being in the world, a child of the planet. He belongs to a member of the human family; God is with us.

The Emmanuel Experience
God did not speak through a human being, but he became a human being and thus in the incarnation all barriers between the divine and the secular is broken, for we do not simply say that God is in Jesus, rather Jesus is God. By this act, God enters into history concretely and he becomes a part of the human community. “By means of this “humanization” of the Word-Son, the self-communication of God reaches its definitive fullness in the history of creation and salvation” (John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem, 50). The transcendent touches the material realm substantially and the ‘presence of the ultimate’ becomes tangible and experiential to every human being. God who emptied himself to enter into the real sphere of humanity, truly wants to talk to human beings face to face.
In a profound sense, it is the expression of God’s solidarity with his people. The God of Jesus of Nazareth is not the God of the philosophers who is hostage to the notions of perfection, ultimate, supreme, sovereign etc., rather, the ‘radical otherness’ is living with his creation, moves one with the people, becomes the part of their everyday reality. Through the mystery of incarnation, the historical Jesus, who was present from the beginning of the cosmos, is present in the universe more visibly and perceptibly, thus he becomes a part of this material earth. “Christ united himself with the reality of entire humankind – in reality with all flesh, with the whole creation.” The son of God has manifested himself in true earthly reality, “in a sense … everything that is flesh: the whole humanity, the entire visible and the material world” (Dominum et Vivificantem, 50).

Salt and Leaven
The present crisis of our country is multi-faced and its signs are apparent day by day. Even after seventy-five years of independence, the dreams of our freedom fighters are not yet realised. The majority of them are scattered. The growth of the country in the first decades of independence was promising with a vision of a progressive, socialist and secular nation. But the corruption and authoritarian regimes, especially during the emergency and following years, were a setback to the progress of the country and now it is moving towards an ethnic democracy (Christophe Jaffrelot, Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy). As Jaffrelot observes, Indian democracy is in a state of precipitous decline. Religion and politics are highly contaminated and the leaders become more self-centred. Like any populist leader of the present era, Prime Minister Narendra Modi uses his tactics to continue in power by exploiting the religious sentiments of the majority. The growing division, categorisation and polarisation disturb and destroy the social harmony of the country. Moreover, the struggles of the poor and the fight for justice are continuing. Many are still deprived of their basic rights. The exploitation of the farmers, the indigenous people and the tribals and discrimination based on caste, gender and religion are increasing every day. The effect of corona and the impact of climate changes are badly affected the entire country, especially the middle class and the poor, and the remedies offered by the government are not sufficient to address the real issues!
This context invites every Christian to be more authentic and be active as ‘salt of the earth’ or the ‘little leaven’ that can function as a catalyst for change. But if we ignore the call of the time and are preoccupied with ‘the excessive concern with programmes of self-help and personal fulfilment, and satisfied with ‘the self-centred and elitist complacency obsessed with the law, preoccupied with social and political advantages, moved with a punctilious concern for the Church’s liturgy, doctrine and prestige, and pondered on a vanity about the ability to manage practical matters’ (Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate, 57), the message of the Gospel will never be incarnated in our country.
India does not need Christ as a doctrine or dogma to be preached nor does the country look for a decorated statue, rather what we need is a living reality of the Gospel in its authentic form. To give flesh to ‘the word,’ the mystery of the incarnation is to be communicated to the people of India in a larger frame of God’s plan of salvation history. It should not be limited to the little frame of the Christian religion, but to be viewed in a multicultural and multi-religious context with all social, political and economic implications. The incarnation of Jesus in our midst is to be reflected in the frame of radical emptiness. It should be an experience of entering into the life of the people of present India, to the struggles and pains of the people. The word of God should become an authentic answer to the agonies and pains of the suffering people. We have to learn the art of recognising human beings as persons, in their totality, without any kind of discrimination, nevertheless with all rights and dignity. More than any social phenomenon, the universality of God’s saving love in the grace given to all is the foundation of this solidarity of the human community. To realise the incarnation in everyday life, while accepting the ‘rightful differences between human beings’ (Gaudium et Spes, 29), the equal dignity of persons is to be respected and valued. The ideologies or political agendas that oppose life itself, that violate the integrity of the human person and insult human dignity, are to be challenged with prophetic courage and wisdom. For a genuine change and actualisation of the mystery of incarnation, liberated from rigidity, narrowness and ritualism, we have to listen to Jesus with all the love and respect that the Master deserves. We should also allow the Spirit to penetrate what is obscure and hidden in every situation, and grasp its every nuance, so that the newness of the Gospel can emerge in a new light, to challenge us and demand a real change in the way we live to carry the mission of Jesus for the good of our brothers and sisters (Gaudete et Exsultate, 66, 171).