Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is a very special occasion in the whole liturgical year of the Church, one of the two most important events in our faith life, as well as in the reckoning of the celebration of the Church, that is the Solemnity of our Lord’s Nativity, His birth into this world, into this earth, or what we also knew more commonly as Christmas.

On this day, which we have been spending the whole season of Advent, a whole four weeks of it in order to prepare ourselves for its celebrations, we celebrate together and rejoice together as one people and as one Church for the love of God made Man, that by His perfect and infinite love for us all mankind, He had manifested that love through Jesus Christ, the Word of God made Flesh and into Man.

To many of us, Christmas is just another holiday and merrymaking season, the time much needed for us to take a break after a long and tiring year, especially with the long holidays and the New Year celebrations just around the corner. However, many of us missed the essence of Christmas and why we are celebrating it year after year, and even today, to the point that we became engulfed with the ever increasingly commercialised Christmas.

Just imagine, brothers and sisters in Christ, if we ask our brethren, both young and old around us, how many of them really understand what Christmas is and how it is so meaningful to them? Many of us might have known that Christmas is the celebration of the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ, but to many of us, that is all that we know about, and many of us did not bother to go even further to understand its meaning.

Yes, this is the danger of making Christmas so superficial and worldly to the point that it lost its importance and significance. And to many of us, after having celebrated Christmas many times since the time when we could remember it, many of us had treated it just as other occasions in their lives, happening again and again year after year, as a mere formality and routine in the reckoning of time.

And combine this with the amount of materialism and commercialism that surround Christmas now, and we should realise how grave the problem is, and how bad it will be in the future as well. How many of our young ones when we ask them about Christmas remember about Santa Claus and his elves, the gifts and the parties, the glamour and the revelries more than what they remember and know about Christ our Lord?

Indeed, today is a time of great joy and celebration, but on the other hand, all of us should also be aware lest the devil uses the opportunity to bring harm to us, by snatching away from us the knowledge and the understanding of how important Christmas is for us, as without Christmas, there could be no hope for us, and we all would have lived our lives in despair, knowing that we are heading to a certain disaster in the end.

Why is this so? That is because all of us men have tasted the bitterness of sin, and sin had entered into all of us, because of our disobedience, not just that of our first ancestors, but also men throughout the ages, tempted by the lies and the guiles of Satan and his fellow fallen angels, the tempters and all the temptations they could muster to make us all disobey the Lord.

And as a result, as we could see in the Book of Genesis, mankind who were not created to endure sufferings, pain and death. All these were the consequences of our disobedience and our sins against God. It was because of our bondage to sin and evil which separated us from the love and grace of God, for God Who is all good and perfect can have no evil and wickedness to coexist in His presence.

That was why, ever since the day when mankind were cast out of Eden for their disobedience, we have wandered in this world and we have awaited for the day of the coming of our redemption and liberation from the tyranny of evil and sin, for the day when the Lord’s promise would be made complete and perfectly fulfilled. Yes, this is because, in the Book of Genesis too, when God punished men for their disobedience, He also provided them with a hope amidst the darkness, that He Who loved them would not abandon them forever.

In particular, God spoke of how tension and rivalry would come in between the devil, that is the old snake and his forces, with the children of men, and how the devil and his angels would harm the sons and daughters of men, tempting them as they had done against their ancestors, that the children of men too would sin and therefore fall into disobedience and damnation.

But, God spoke of the Woman through whom He would bring about His salvation, when the chains of sin and the tyranny of evil would be broken forever, when the Child would crush the head of the snake, representing the final and total defeat of the devil and all of his dark forces. And God maintained His promise of salvation and liberation throughout the ages, through His servants and prophets.

And He even gave His people a foretaste of the true salvation of all mankind, that is when the Israelites, the children of Abraham were enslaved by the Egyptians in Egypt, He raised up Moses His servant, through whom He did great wonders, and through His own mighty hand, by the intermediary acts of Moses, He led His people out of Egypt and crushed the Egyptians and their Pharaoh.

But all these are nothing compared to what the Lord has done for us in Christmas, and by extension, eventually to Easter which we shall celebrate again later next year. This is because for all the sufferings that we mankind suffer in the flesh, the persecution by the world, the scourges on the flesh, the torture of the body, none of these could harm us all for eternity except for one thing, that is sin.

Yes, sin is a very dangerous ailment that had afflicted every single one of us, and it had penetrated deep into our entire being, in our hearts, our minds, our souls and our flesh, corrupting our entire being. And it is dangerous because it inflicted suffering and pain not just on the flesh, but also on our eternal soul. It was because of sin that we have been sundered away from the love and grace of God, and it is also because of sin that the souls of those who have not repented their sins are in danger of eternal damnation.

And it was through Christmas that God fulfilled the promises which He had made to us throughout the generations. Many people have long awaited for the coming of the Lord’s Messiah, and indeed, on Christmas Day, we celebrate that Saviour, or Messiah Who came into the world. And He is none other than the Lord Himself, the Word of God, or the Logos, the Word Incarnate into Flesh.

We heard in the Scriptures where it was spoken how God so loved the world, that He gave us the perfect gift of His own Son, that as He assumed the flesh of Man, by being one of us, He might bring unto us the salvation and eternal life promised to us. This is the true meaning and the essence of Christmas, not the joys and the pleasures of the world, not all the glamours, the gifts and the merrymaking, but it is truly about God’s love for us, a celebration of His Eternal Love.

And today we celebrate, we rejoice and we honour God, exalting Him exceedingly and greatly for the Love which God had showered us, and which had manifested itself perfectly in Jesus Christ. It is His birthday that we celebrate today, and today we glory in the Lord and we thank Him because God Who was once invisible had decided to make Himself visible and tangible to us, and not just that, as He had given us His own Flesh and Blood to share and to eat, so that He dwells in us just as we dwell in Him!

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we rejoice in this Christmas Day, and as no doubt our joy we will continue to rejoice in the several days to come, let us all learn to put Christ our Lord at the heart of our Christmas celebrations, and just as we should understand that Christmas is about the love of God made Man, and how God loved us so much that He sent us His own Son to save us, let us all also imitate His examples.

How do we do this? It is by sharing this joy that we have, the Christmas joy with those who have less or none. It is important that we do not keep the joy for ourselves, as we have to remember that God sent His Son to everyone without exception, even to the greatest sinners! And it is the Good News of His salvation, His desire that all of us should repent our sins and be reunited with Him that we too need to share with the world.

Therefore, let this Christmas be a meaningful one for us, where we celebrate it with true joy and with true understanding of God’s love, and let us all by our actions and deeds, and by our sharing of this Christmas joy and blessings, bring forth the Good News of our Lord’s salvation to the nations, and bring ever more souls to the salvation that only can be found in Jesus Christ, our Lord, born on Christmas Day. May He bless us all in all of our endeavours. Merry Christmas and may God bless your day with eternal joy! Amen.