By Leon Bent –
It’s Christmas once again! Rejoice and be glad! May we catch and live some of this spirit as we commemorate the Christ-Child’s birth with joie de vivre!
Joy is the true gift of Christmas, not expensive presents that demand time and money. We can transmit cheer simply through: a warm hug, a sweet smile, an appreciative word, a kind gesture, a gentle caress, a tender look, a life-giving greeting, healing forgiveness, an act of mercy. Let us seek, in particular, to communicate the deepest exhilaration, that of knowing God, in Christ. We pray that God’s liberating mirth may shine out in our lives during this festive season.
Let us consider God’s messenger’s words at the Annunciation. He does not address Mary with the usual Hebrew salutation shalom – peace be with you – but with the Greek greeting formula chaire, which we might well translate with the word, “Hail,” (cf. Lk.1:28, 42). It is only right, then, to draw out the true meaning of the word chaire: rejoice! This exclamation from the heavenly attendant marks the true beginning of the New Testament.
“Rejoice,” pronounced by the angel immediately opens the door to the peoples of the world: the universality of the Christian message is evident. Archangel Gabriel’s fervent and jubilant words to Mary take up and bring into the present, the prophecy of Zeph.3:14-17: “Rejoice, daughter of Zion: shout, Israel…the King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst.”
“Rejoice, full of grace!” One additional aspect of the greeting chaire is worth noting. It connects joy and grace. In Greek, these two words, chara (calm delight, exceeding gaiety) and charis (grace/God’s magnanimity) are derived from the same root. Hence, whoops of joy and divine embellishment and empowerment, belong together.
The word reappears during the Holy Night on the lips of the angel who says to the shepherds: “I bring you good tidings of great joy” (Lk. 2:10). Joy appears in these texts as the particular gift of the Holy Spirit (Gen.5:22), the true sending down to earth of the Redeemer; and the glory of the Lord shines upon them. “They were filled with fear” (Lk.22:9). But, the angel takes away their panic by announcing, “a great joy, will come to all people; for, to you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord” (Lk.2:10f).
“When the angel went away from them…the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go over to Bethlehem, and witness this phenomenon.’ And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger” (Lk.2:15f). The shepherds hurried! How many Christians act with urgency, where God is concerned?
For the sheep-tenders, who had seen God’s glory shinning in the meadows, hills and dales, this is sign enough. They see inwardly. They realize that the angel’s words are true and return home with elation. They eulogize God and praise him for what they had heard and seen (cf. Lk.2:20).
At this point our Bible text comes in, for it is a report on how those who witnessed the first Christmas expressed spontaneous exuberance, subtle silence, sublime simplicity, scintillating gladness: “When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told to them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. The herdsmen returned, acclaiming and rhapsodizing God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told” (cf. Lk. 2:17-20).
They became zealous, fiery, and the first evangelizers of the Jesus-event, with contagious exhilaration. Can we doubt that the sheep-carers had something astonishingly exalted to narrate? Hardly! For, if their story was not worth talking about, then, no story that has ever been told is passionate, profound, engaging, animated and meaningful enough, as that of the ‘Boy-Child’s Incarnation.
“And, suddenly, there was with the angel, a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among men with whom he is pleased’” (Lk.2:12-14). And, immediately psalms begin to inhabit the hills; the air is hallelujah! Hidden harps! Dormant songs! Cosmic mellifluousness!
Christianity has always understood that the speech of angels is delightful melody, in which all the glory and ebullience that they proclaim becomes tangibly present. And so, from that moment, the angels’ lyrical panegyric has never gone silent. It has continued down the centuries in consistently new forms, and it resounds ever new at the fiesta of Jesus’ birth. It is only natural that simple believers would then hear the shepherds’ soft refrain too; and to this day they join in their carolling on the Holy Night, broadcasting in magnificent song that, from then on, until the end of time, is bestowed to all people.
The “glory” of God is real. God is awesome, and this is truly a reason for intense bliss: it comprises truth, goodness and eternal beauty. Joy is always part of the Christmas message. But it’s an ecstasy that comes from the heart, rather than from the external trappings that, we sometimes mistake for essentials. Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI highlighted how: “We realize that today’s world, where God is absent, is dominated by fear and uncertainty.” Nonetheless, may “the words ‘be joyful because God is with you and with us,’ truly open a new time” (cf. Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, the Infancy Narratives, Bloomsbury, pp.73-79).
It’s easy to associate transports of ravishment with Christmas flavour. The end of the high-spirited preparation and waiting in joyful hope, during Advent, the scintillating music, the nostalgic carols, the sparkling, eye-catching decorations, impressively-contrived ‘fashion parades’ by pencil-thin damsels, even for Christmas Mass, the iconic and emblematic glowing star, the brilliantly-lit-decorated Christmas tree, and the reminiscing and festivities here, there, everywhere, of the sanctifying birth of the Boy-Child, make our “tidings of great joy,” as natural as freezing, glacial snow in Antarctica, especially during winter.
Now, this Gold Nugget: Let us pray that the incredibly liberating joy of the ‘Babe-in-the Manger’ radiates in our lives, forever!
And, this final flourish! “Christmas…is a Liturgy that sings [in mellow tone] of the new covenant between the God of eternity and the man of history!” (St. Pope Pius VI).
Leon Bent is an ex-Seminarian and studied the Liberal Arts and Humanities, and Philosophy, from St. Pius X College, Mumbai. He holds Masters Degree in English Literature and Aesthetics. He has published three Books and have 20 on the anvil. He has two extensively “Researched” Volumes to his name: Hail Full of Grace and Matrimony: The Thousand Faces of Love. He won The Examiner, Silver Pen Award, 2000 for writing on Social Issues, the clincher being a Researched Article on Gypsies in India, published in an issue of the (worldwide circulation) Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection, New Delhi. On April, 28, 2018, Leon received the Cardinal Ivan Dias Award for a research paper in Mariology.