Don’t romanticise Christmas but live out….

Don’t romanticise Christmas but live out….

In Bethlehem we find God wrapped in poverty. The child Jesus has the smell of the earth and rotting dung instead the smell of the sophisticated perfumes (God has the smell of the earth). God is hooked (limited) into the sinful structures of the culture and politics and economics of time. God in Christ was worshipped and surrounded by the people and families from the lower strata. Christmas is not a romantic event but it is the expression of God’s solidarity with the broken.

Don’t Romanticise Christmas, remember it: Christ talks about the irony of God. Creator, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Adorable God lies in commonplace and lives in a particular time and space to save this world. God could have many other options but God decided to renew the world with a humble origin.

God’s Mystery Revealed: Christmas proclaimed the great fact that the mystery of the hidden God revealed to the world. God revealed God-self through favoured ones and it is known only to those who know that God’s presence is here among us in Jesus Christ, we find them standing around the Jesus in Bethlehem (Mary, Joseph, Shepherds, Wise men, Angels).

Incarnational Spirituality – The need of the time:  How do we begin to live out this incarnation?

1. Discover God: Discovery is the human side to incarnation; by it, we become alert to the presence of God in the everyday. We discover the hidden presence of God in the tears and the joys, the sorrows and the pains, of each day of existence.  The Incarnation comes to us as an invitation to discover this remarkable, silent Presence.

2. Realise God’s Intentional Movement:  In Christmas we find an intentional movement of God and it transforms the very chaotic life situations. This intentional movement brought healing to the sick, empowered the weak, restored the fallen, redeemed the crippled, liberated the bonded, and it revealed God’s identity. This intentional movement is not a onetime event but it is continuing and a few discover it and those who discover it will be the peacemakers. This movement can be seen in the every step, words and actions which deny death and affirm life. We are called to join in this great intentional movement of God.

3. Stop and See the God’s amazing movement: Incarnation demands a discipline of attentiveness (Shepherds, Wise men, Mary, Joseph and all who worship the Lord in true devotion see this amazing movement). In a fast moving world incarnation demands us to stop and see God’s amazing movements in the nature and history and to witness it.

4. Respect Life, Love mercy and do Justice: Through incarnation God embraced the neglected and reconciled all in the Love of God.  God revealed in Christ shown respect to all, irrespective of his/her colour, caste, gender, social-political- economic status. Incarnational spirituality demands us to value each moment, respect life, and find the meaning in compassion, mercy and justice. If we are outside to the circle of justice, mercy, compassion, and peace, we are outside the intentional movement of God today.

Let us to begin (again) live out the life of incarnation