Christmas Day Reflection

        A woman whose husband died six months before Christmas, sat down to write out a Christmas card to a close friend. This is what she said: “Some say to me, ‘This first Christmas without your husband will be hard for you.’ It will be, of course. But without Christmas, my life would be impossible.”

      At the time of her husband’s death, that woman thought that God had turned out the light. But then came the Christmas Message to remind her that God had reached out and turned on the light for all time and for all people.

      Today we celebrate the birth of the messenger from heaven.  In the gospel today we read that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.”  Christ was always present with God.  He was there at the very foundation of the world.  Jesus, also known as the word of God, was present when all of creation was created and existed before all times.  But, since we, mankind, fell to sin, God promised us a savior and it is for that reason that “the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”.  Through Jesus Christ, we were given life after having gained the result of sin, death.  Through our fallen nature we fell into darkness and the world was full of night.  But then came Christ, and he was and continues to be the “light of the human race; the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  Christ is the true light which enlightens everyone.    If Jesus had not been born, our future would be bleak, our present a desperate escape attempt and our past a heavy burden.  We would be hopeless of what would come in our future; we would be finding different venues to escape reality and all our past iniquity would burden us without having any relief.  If Jesus had not been born, fear, resentment and depression would reign supreme.   We can look around the world and see that there is much fear, fear of losing one’s life at the hands of another, fear of being rejected by society or by loved ones, fear of not knowing what is to come after this life on earth is over.  We can also clearly see all the resentment that young and old hold in their hearts.  This is exhibited to us by the violence we see daily.  Depression is also a phenomenon that I have seen through my time as a social services worker and that we see daily in our fellow brothers and sisters.  Life would be extremely miserable.

        But my brothers and sisters, we know that “Christ our Savior is BORN!”  With the birth of our savior, came complete salvation from all misery of life.  Yes, we must still suffer, because we are of fallen nature and it is for this reason that Christ teaches us how to suffer along with him.  But, we have hope in God’s mercy through Christ.  Today is Christmas, and we should celebrate with great jubilee, but, instead of focusing on the material gifts that we can attain from Santa or from loved ones, let us focus on the great gift that has been given us, Jesus Christ.

      Many times it seems that we focus so much on the Christmas carols, gifts, food and socializing that we fail to see the true meaning of Christmas.  We put so much emphasizes on the enjoyable stuff, which is not bad in itself, because these things help us to celebrate the birth of Christ, but it seems that at times we just give Jesus an “honorable mention” and move on.  Brothers and Sister, we must proclaim to the broken world about the truth, Jesus.  We must help the world to accept him as Lord and Savior; because in the end, none of our material possessions will save us, but Christ will.
 
     May our prayer be that “Jesus open our lips to tell a lost and hurting world about his saving love for them”.  Let spread the light that Christ so lovingly shines upon us each day.  And let us always proclaim,
ALLELUIA! Christ our Savior is born.  Praise You, Jesus! We give our lives to you.  ALLELUIA!