If Jesus was born today?

"The smells of Christmas are sweet and spicy. I can't wait to take a bite of that cinnamon-fermented fruit cake and that juicy hamonada on the table." says one fat relative of mine. Another friend quipped "The kids just loved the trees and the music all over the place."

Well, everybody loves Christmas and I have always loved Christmas more than any other time of the year and it is a good thing to honor such a sacred holiday as Christmas with homey sentiments.

But the Christmas we know that is symbolized by the Christmas trees and the parols, the songs rhymed in carols, recited in plays, illustrated in cards, have become so familiar that it is easy to miss the message behind them. If we had to ask ourselves, "If Jesus came as God in the flesh, what did we know about God when he was here that first Christmas?"

Philip Yancey in his book The Jesus I Never Knew (an excellent book I must say) depicts a very moving scenario surrounding Jesus' birth. He came into the world in a filthy, dung ridden-cave for cattle and was wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a manger.

His attendants were not midwives or doctors but beasts and shepherds who, at that time, were considered to be outcasts or men of despicable honor. Yet it was they whom God selected to see the spectacle of his first act of humility on earth.

I wonder if we ever believe him if he was born today. For sure, none of us would - fortune, power, success, fame and intelligence usually blind us of his unspoken presence just as they were during his time. Given if we believed that he would be born today, none of us would probably get chosen to see him for none of us have that same humility and acceptance as the shepherds.

Perhaps, it is the baggage which all of us carry, of status, pride and extent of our businesses or possessions have been the reason why most of us fail to see the reality of God's character.

In addition, what if God would suddenly choose to be born by midnight tonight? I think we would have been sleeping in an air-conditioned room and on a bed beneath sheets of fine linen. And perhaps he would still choose to appear to the same kind of people - people bereft of the influence, the wealth, the education, the dignity and fame and in an obscure circumstance where none of us would even bother to take notice of.

St. Paul describes God as the one who "empties himself", "makes himself nothing." Christmas therefore intimates to us that God is with us in the smallest parts of life - perhaps a reminder that we, too, may discover God in those humble, lowly and unexpected places.

Far more than just his humble birth, to me, Jesus has made himself born everyday in the faces among the outcast and the marginalized. And I wonder if we all ever get to notice Jesus in those faces today which are visible on the sidewalks, in our homes or workplace in the form of our workers or house-helps.

To see the reality of Jesus' birth today is not only through attending church services, by gift-giving or acts of charity. It is the realization of what we are as humans that we are arrogant of our physical and mental possessions - to shun away from these ephemeral treasures and to do something in our own humble way to stop the disparity among us. Wealth, power and intellect should not be a reason to separate us from each other.

Merry Christmas to all.

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