Nativity: The Birth of Jesus, Who Is the Christ

THE WORLD attempts to celebrate the birth of Christ.

In so many ways they make a perversion of Nativity.

For one thing it is axiomatic that Christ could not have been born on the chilly, cold winter nights of December; for the Scriptures have plainly recorded for us that the shepherds were found herding their flocks in the field on the night Christ was born (Luke 2:8). Also much of the concomitants that are associated with this holy commemoration are flagrantly sacrilegious. What have Christmas trees, Santa Claus, Christmas plays (a violation of the Second Commandment), neon lights, Christmas puddings and such like accessories to do with the virgin birth and blessed incarnation of Jesus?

These trappings are the traditions of men and pagan superstitions that mar and contaminate the meaning of Nativity.

It is the height of blasphemy when Christian ministers introduce these pagan elements into the chapel premises to mark Nativity.

The scathing indictment of the prophet Hosea rings true in this instance:“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou has rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me… and there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings”(Hosea 4:6a,9). And yet we do not say the lawful commemoration of the birth of Christ is wrong and, for that matter, on any day.

But it is to the Holy Scriptures alone we must adhere and consider, if we are to be utterly faithful in interpreting the most crucial event that had transpired in human history. By the grace of God and through the attestation and teaching of the Holy Spirit, we infer and affirm from the Bible the timeless implications and the personal applications of the birth of the Babe, born in a manger in Bethlehem, some two thousand years ago. Like Mary, the mother of Jesus, we need to “keep all these things and ponder them” in our hearts (Luke 2:19), even the profound significance of Nativity.

Nativity is best celebrated when Christ is preached faithfully.

It is through “the foolishness of preaching” that God has ordained to save them that believe (I Corinthians 1:21b). True ministers of God effectually exalt and extol Jesus Christ — the God-man, born to suffer as no other man has suffered from the cradle to the grave, nevertheless to be raised from death by the power of resurrection — when they preach Him by the faithful exegesis of Scriptures. And I emphasise the fact that it can be done on any day from January to December. And if the 25th of December should grant a welcome platform for the preaching of the Gospel because of the special ambience and sentiments it summons, then why not? So that, as the Apostle underlines that great principle of expediency, that “I might by all means save some” (I Corinthians 9:22b).

Wherefore why accentuate on the confusion of dates to the heathen and spawn further confusion when it is more constructive and edifying to speak on the blessed meaning of the birth of Jesus to all mankind.

For the incarnation and birth of Christ is nothing but the only solid hope for all men who are doomed to perish eternally if the hope is not personally realised in their very own lives. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into this world to assert His Saviourhood. For there is none else!

Elijah Thomas Chacko