War rages, not least of all in the Holy Land. Hate, violence and extremism thrive, here in Canada as around the world. Authoritarians ascend, trafficking on rage and resentment. Sham theology abounds.
When the world hurts, as it seems to in so many places this Christmas season, it’s useful to return to simplicity and first principles.
Christmas celebrates the birth in Bethlehem two millennia ago of a child, born to refugee parents and sent, as Christian teaching has it, as a redeemer to rescue humanity from its waywardness and delusion.
No small judgment. No small task.
When the child grew to be a man, the brief preaching of his brief life promoted goodwill and peace.
He called on his fellows to be better people.
He reminded us that, whatever our differences, we are all part of one human family. He insisted that comfort, purpose and consolation are found in selflessness, generosity and community.
Society of the day didn’t know what to make of it. And no society since has managed to live up to messages at once profound and simple.
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Over time, the details of this birth have been questioned, not surprisingly given that the Nativity tale was constructed long after the fact. Yet the message, and the faith built on it, the hope of transcendence, has endured.
Christmas, ever evolving through the centuries, grew into the world’s most popular holiday, producing some of our most vivid icons, music and literature.
Along the way, Christmas has been profitably manipulated and corporatized and politicized and tilted toward excess and secularism.
It’s a safe bet, for instance, that more huge inflatable Santas will adorn Toronto neighbourhoods than will mangers.
Still, the radical, counter-cultural message of Christmas survives. It turns the ways of the world on their head.
The weak shall be strong. The powerful shall kneel. The poor and lowly shall be blessed. Humility is preferred to grandiosity, sharing to greed.
These teachings are not unique to Christianity. Other religions such as Islam, Judaism and Hinduism all seek to inspire us to live a moral life guided by principles of love, charity, of caring for those less well off.
Such messages remain relevant because they address human nature, which doesn’t change at the pace of fashion.
The latest research on human happiness confirms the fruits of the Christmas lesson, suggesting that contentment is found not in wealth and status, but in rewarding relationships, connection to a community, in gratitude and the feeling of worth that comes from service.
During his life, Christ urged humankind to become brothers and sisters to one another. He insisted fear was corrosive. He offered welcome and kindness to the least of us, forgiveness to the worst of us. His pre-eminent instruction was “that you love one another as I have loved you.”
As history and recent days have shown, humanity has the capacity for both atrocity and altruism. The choice is ever present, the decision ever ours. How will we live?
The headlines of the moment make it tempting to suspect that the Christmas message was one of the least heeded in human history.
The tormented genius Shane MacGowan, the Irish musician who died Nov. 30 at 65, demonstrated in his beloved "Fairytale of New York" how well he understood both the sorrows and aspirations, loneliness and love of the season.
If MacGowan’s hymn to the soul-sick, the estranged, the wounded is topping charts again 35 years after its release, it’s as much, likely, because it fits these troubled times as it is in homage to its author.
The magic of Christmas is that every year the story of that birth comes around again to offer yet another chance to look into our hearts, muster our courage and meet the ancient challenge of loving one another.
Christmas, because it speaks so much eternal truth, whatever the historical validity of its details, and because it offers so much hope, whatever our lapses and failures, is a perennial story of reconciliation and redemption that we always have and always will need to hear.
