A child of destiny, a turning point in history

Today Christianity has become a spiritual and religious force to be reckoned with and its global presence has a say in matters such as environment, and politics

The Pope and Vatican diplomats were instrumental in the overturning of communism in the Eastern Europe, bringing in religious and political freedom to millions.

25 December 2021

Two thousand years ago the world of that time beheld a child of destiny born on the first-ever Christmas night in ancient Palestine, a colony under the imperial rule of Caesar with a Roman governor at the helm of this Jewish colony. A rare star lit the midnight sky and an angelic chorus rang out over the hills singing “Glory of God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good-will”.   

While the young parents of the child gazed at their newborn, the heaven-sent gift, the shepherds gazed in awe and the three kings went down on their knees in adoration whispering to the parents the history of their journey to the royal city from the distant gentile territories of the east. This perennial story lives on even in the modern world of the twenty-first century with its customary poignancy and solemnity not the least diminished. The star of Bethlehem’s first Christmas night continues to glitter in the skies of our world at every dawn of this traditional Christian festival. It is the fascinating story of God becoming a man as a sign of his immense love for mankind.   

When we put world history into critical scrutiny and evaluate its various events, we see that there are certain events of singular significance and impact that changed the world and its direction many times for better or for worse. The wars, conflicts and invasions, the discoveries and innovations, the dawn of the family of nations, the two great world wars, the emergence of colonial powers, the founding of the United Nations Organization and the present nuclear-spanned global culture are some of them. They have global repercussions on humanity.   

Many of them were and some still are Copernican revolutions. But surpassing and transcending all these critical events is the Christmas event, the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal Galilean who marks a singular turning point thus changing the course of history and the direction of its journey.   

His person, lifestyle, teachings and memory has had a powerful impact that effected radical changes in human civilization inclusive of socio-cultural and even political ones. Though a single and marginal Jew perhaps, he has come to centre-stage in world affairs today.   

The religious community he founded and initiated, the complex of Christian churches and their believers all over the world are socially, culturally and internationally a modern religious phenomenon to reckon with and carries a powerful moral voice in the field of human behaviour and ethical conduct which are universally accepted as part and parcel of a healthy civilization.   

Born human, the Christmas child brought human dignity to its highest level of value. He came within a religious tradition of the middle-East, in fact, west Asia with its national culture and religiosity.   

Being in a worker family, a carpenter’s household and not in the lap and luxury of a royal palace, he learned the weariness of human labour and the need to earn one’s living through honest work and hard labour.   

His subsequent associates were drawn from the ranks of rugged fisherfolk from the rough Galilean breed. His first disciples were thus from the rank of workers and people given to strenuous work. They only knew the deep sea, the sails, the nets and the skill of fishing.   

No high intellectuals or people of great talent were to be found in the company of the twelve who were the first followers of this itinerant guru and miracle worker. Though rejected by the highest religious authorities of his time and condemned to death by crucifixion, the worst form of punishment and shame, this man Jesus of Nazareth proved himself alive and was able to re-energize his forlorn disciples who directed by him under the spell of the Divine Spirit, were empowered to take his message beyond the confines of Jerusalem and Palestine, through the great cosmopolitan centres of Corinth and Ephesus, then to Athens the intellectual and cultural citadel of the time and finally announce it in Rome itself, the imperial capital of Caesar’s empire.

This incredible and upsurge movement defies explanation in merely human terms.   

Christianity then had the opportunity of growing within many other empires: Constantinian, Byzantine, Mongol, Ottoman, supersede barbarian invasions and come under the tutelage of modern colonial powers such as the Portuguese, the Dutch, Belgian, French, Spanish and finally Great Britain. 

 
Christianity of modern and post-modern times have gone through revolutionary changes through its encounter with the many cultures of the world. In many places, it has got indigenized into local conditions and has grown as national churches.   

In fact, today Christianity is a spiritual and religious force to be reckoned with and the various churches in which it is incarnated have begun to impact modernity. In its wider forms of Catholicism, Orthodox and Protestantism, it has a global presence and has made itself the moral conscience of society and is able even to have a say in matters such as environment, world economics, politics and other international issues such as human rights and nuclear disarmament.   

It is in dialogue with many other religions of different faiths in a common effort to forge ahead a humanism that is truly contributive to humanity’s betterment. The religious leadership functioning within Christianity is capable of making itself the voice of the voiceless, the oppressed and the most abandoned in raising issues that are socially and politically relevant to them. 

 

It is able even to intervene morally in issues of international conflicts and problems that keep vexing humanity almost daily.   

In every era, Christianity has had an impact. First of all in the pre-medieval world within the various eastern empires as we see in the great intellectual of that time, St. Augustine of North Africa, in the middle ages within the world of philosophy in its luminary, St. Thomas Aquinas and in more recent times at the heart of the secular world charged with innovations and discoveries in the fields of scientific exploration and technology, one hears the voices of Pope Leo XIII with his land-mark encyclicals on Capital and labour. 

Most recently one hears of Pope St. John Paul II with his remarkable leadership in taking the Christian teaching to the heart of secular ideologies. He has spoken about the dignity of man and work, and the role of women in modern-day society. It was he who together with Mikhail Gorbachev of Russia, Ronald Regan of the USA and the Vatican diplomats was instrumental in the overturning of communism in Eastern Europe, bringing in religious and political freedom to millions who were subjugated for seven decades under the so-called iron curtain, the infamous symbol of which was the Berlin wall, that crashed with the people’s revolution spanning many of the former Eastern European countries in November 1989.   

Christianity in its various historical forms like the medieval Christendom and colonial-era may have made mistakes. But, of late these errors have been rectified and it is now on the path of the radical teachings of Jesus Christ contained in the Gospels of the Bible. It defends human life and speaks in favour of social democracy and freedom.   

It was he who together with Mikhail Gorbachev of Russia, Ronald Regan of the USA and the Vatican diplomats was instrumental in the overturning of communism in Eastern Europe, bringing in religious and political freedom to millions who were subjugated for seven decades under the so-called iron curtain

 It decries a system of world economics bent relentlessly on capital and profit, the accumulation of wealth that leads to an increase in world poverty. It calls upon the world to create a system of world trade that is just and equitable: a social system that cares for the migrants, the elderly, the differently able and the poor in shanties and slums; to invest money spent on weapons in feeding the world’s poor.   

One must realize that the infant whose birth is celebrated globally happened in pitiable conditions. He lived a life of a carpenter and as he said once, had no place even to lay his head. He was an itinerant preacher-healer who depended on the charity of others for his daily sustenance. His classical Sermon on the Mount given in Galilee declared the poor in spirit and the materially poor blessed. So are the meek who will inherit the earth and those who suffer for the cause of right and justice. His teaching carries a strong indictment of the rich who do not care for the poor and those who idolize money into a god of Mammon.   

The earliest followers of Jesus lived a common life, sharing their resources and caring for the poor. The Romans were struck by the life of love they saw among Christians. Giving only relative value to worldly goods and concerns and looking for the treasures that moth cannot destroy and thieves cannot steal is the Christian way of living not however marginalizing one’s duties and obligations regarding other concerns like an honest means of livelihood, avoiding waste and social duties. As we celebrate Christmas again, it is good to focus on the humble birth of the Christ-child and the incredible impact this poor child in due course brought to the world and its history at large. He was destined to give his life in sacrifice for the life of the world and to be a beacon of hope to a world often prone to evil. This Christ-child stands for life in all its dimensions and came to establish a culture of life and a civilization of love. May the spirit of Christmas endure beyond the Christmastide making us welcome life and the poor who long for that same fullness of life where the strong are just, the weak secure and the peace preserved.