Christmas means different things to different people,for some it is a time to travel home to visit long separated relatives.For others, it is all about worship, prayers and celebrating the birth of jesus.
Christmas is one of the most celebrated seasons in the world. It is a period one show love to the less privileged, and even the privileged ones.
The significance of Christmas is known to men, all over the world. Though it is true that Christmas is celebrated as the day of the birth of Christ into this world, yet it also symbolizes a very deeply significant truth of the spiritual life. Jesus Christ is the very personification of divinity. He was born at a time when ignorance, superstition, greed, hatred and hypocrisy prevailed upon the land. Purity was forgotten and morality was neglected. In the midst of these conditions, christ was born and he worked a transformation in the lives of people. He gave a new and a spiritual turn to the lives of man. Thus a new era dawned for the world. Christians believe Jesus is true God and true man;the only son of God who took on human nature and is the son of Mary , a young Jewish girl who gave birth around 5- 7 BC in Bethlehem outside Jerusalem. He lived most of his life in Galilee, north of Israel.
This is not a fairy story, a consoling myth , because Jesus lived at a difficult time in a province ruled by a tyrant. That is why cross complements the crib as the other powerful christian symbol.
The message of Christmas is that God loves all of us, is interested in the most undeserving criminals as well as the saints, in ardent church goers as well as those hostile to or hurt by the church. life is strange. History and expanding scientific knowledge confirm the wonders and variety of human life and the universe. It is strange that God should come among us by sending his son to be born into the original covenant, the Jewish people and religion. But it is also strange that humans are the only thinking persons in the universe and that so many different factors have combined since the BIG BANG to make life possible.
Christ's message of faith, hope and love works within the framework of the 10 commandments. His message brings peace and goodness; the message of Christmas.
'The meaning of Christmas is simply that it reminds us that once upon a time man fell from the fervour of God by going into deliberate sin and God made a deliberate plan to bring mass back to himself because of the love for man. That is why john 3:16 says for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will have everlasting life.This is the summary of story of Christmas every other funfair, every other ceremony is just not the thing.''
A very small, but very beautiful, point of deep significance is attached to Christmas. It is the time and the manner of the birth of the lord upon the holy Christmas day. Jesus Christ was not born in a grand palace.He was not born to very wealthy or learned parents. Jesus Christ was born in a simple lowly place , a corner of a stable. He was born of to humble and poor parents, who had nothing to boast about, except their own spotless character and holiness.
The above point of deep significance tells that the spiritual awakening comes to the seeker, who is perfectly humble and 'meek' and ' poor in spirit'. The quality of true humility is one of the indispensable fundamentals. Then we find simplicity, holiness and renunciation of all desire for wordily wealth and pride of learning.Thirdly , even as Christ was born unknown to the world and in the obscurity of darkness , even so, the advent of the Christ- spirit takes place in the inwardness of man when there is total self- effacement, self -abnegetion.
(The writer is co-founder, THINK MEDIA INC. and the views expressed in the article are his own)