During the Advent season we light the four candles of hope, peace, joy and love awaiting the birth of Jesus. At my vintage, for the first time in decades, everything around and deep within me bears past its best, dares pre-owned, glares dated and stares dog-tired! Be that as it may, the Good News of the birth of the baby in Bethlehem is heartening, the songs of the angels are bracing and carols are brisk. Our world ponderously ends the first quarter of the 21st century at an intersection of massive headway fast-tracked by the AI bubble as well as upsetting socio-economic political and security mayhems of anger, civil disorder, corruption, hatred, ignorance and prejudice created by incompetent micromanaging! This Christmas season summons us to survey our desecrated sacred landscape before we serenade the New Year’s Eve.

The very first day of snowfall, winter blanketing two days before Remembrance Day in November this year triggered more than 300 collisions in the Greater Toronto Area. We picked hassle-free direct flights to avoid frenetic travels. Whenever I am out on a trip, an event or a church gathering, hope plays a vital part in my projection. I think of Emily Dickinson’s words “Hope is the thing with feathers”. Mindful of Ella Fitzgerald’s song: “Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow", on that very first wintry day, my hope was fixated on the wings with no ice.

As luck would have it, my son and I gleefully watched the white stuff around Toronto Pearson Airport as our plane took an extra hour to get de-iced – a crucial safety measure of “spraying a heated mixture of glycol and water to melt ice, followed by a second application of cold anti-icing fluid to prevent new ice from forming”. In spite of all the dull and dreary autumn winds of snow flurries in the northwest, Singapore –  Joyan’s sublime stomping grounds – stunned me with their early eye-popping Christmas preparations as well as the New Year of the Fire Horse. For sure, it is sweetly surreal that the market place was on the ball to give a nudge to the communities of faith to welcome Baby Jesus and sing:
Gloria, gloria, in excelsis Deo!
Gloria, gloria, alleluia, alleluia.

Our world is a better place than it was how I found it when I showed up long ago. In fact, the world is better with superior healthcare, upgraded education, and lowered poverty. When I was stricken with rheumatic fever, my father summoned his first cousin, a physician in the capital city. Still, I recall his crushing words: “He may not make it unless we can maneuver some penicillin from Scotland!” An eight-year-old youngster’s despair was the beginning of hope. Move to Alexander Fleming’s homeland? It took sixteen years to get there as a divinity student!

We humans are behavioural; we interact with family and friends with whom we share a bond. Human bonds are relationships, connections, attachment and affinity. Our spiritual correlates are equally strong and enduring. One of my friends in our final year solemnly observed his daily prayer ritual or pooja at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kizhakke Kotta or East Fort. In order help unwind after a long day at school, he preferred strolling from the YMCA residence to the temple. And he welcomed me to accompany him rain or shine. We made an amicable quid pro quo deal that he would buy me tea and snacks. It worked well for us albeit some people with too much time on their hands got things twisted up. A few egregiously fishy folks lost sleep over a Nasarani young student chilling out in the precincts of the world’s richest temple in the dusk! Our spiritual correlates were different and quite cognizant of the phenomenology of religions or our personal perspectives and experiences, we mutually valued our ancient spiritual heritages.

Overawed by the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus, the fledgling community of faith almost ignored the mystery of the birth of Jesus. In early mid-east traditions, with the exceptions of Pharoah or Herod, birthdays were not observed as we know it today. My beloved soulmate surprised me when I turned fifty. When she drove her naïve hubby to a restaurant for a special lunch where an invited group of church and community friends, my heart almost skipped a beat. Another significant birthday showed up this year; my son didn’t want to sing a solo for ‘Happy b-day”; so, we had our American niece and her gifted children to sing for me. So, like the proverbial soldier, I would say, “I survived” to enjoy durian cake with family in Singapore three months after my birthday!

Christmas is not found in the Gospels. The Greek term Khristos was viewed crucial for the early Greek congregations. The earliest birthday celebration of Jesus began in 336 CE during emperor Constantine’s time in office. In 529 CE Pope Julius made December 25 the official day to coincide with pagan celebration Sol Invictus or the birth of the unconquered Sun, not the actual birthday of Jesus(!), which became as renowned as Christmas derived from "Christemasse" which means "Christ's mass" that originated from Old English "Cristes mæsse". The term ‘Christ’ from Χριστός (Khristos), a secular ballpark adaptation of Messiah, meaning anointed and ‘mass’ from the Latin ‘missa’, a term for the celebration of the last supper Jesus held for his disciples.

Two Gospels, Mathew and Luke, describe the birth of Jesus. Angel Gabriel and the shepherds.
One significant character in the Nativity Scene is a weak and wonky emperor. Ideally Augustus or Octavian could have granted “parental leave” for Mary and Joseph when he decreed a census to be carried out for a rip-off taxation regime. A civic duty of Joseph to register his family turned out to be a welcome break for Mary during her pregnancy.

So, Prince of peace was born in Bethlehem, a forlorn, down and out outpost of the empire. Three Wisemen from the East, who bypassed the Roman empire, followed a star to find the new born Jesus and to offer gifts to the Holy Family. Our practices and celebrations of the birth of Jesus must eloquently reflect and respond to contrasting forces in all areas. In fact, such polarized energies shape and sustain the lives of those who adhere to our community of faith. 
Therefore, Mary’s placental prophecy is a “wake-up call” for evil empires and the wannabe tsars of our day and age.

“God has stretched out his mighty arm
and scattered the proud with all their plans.
Holy One has brought down mighty kings from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly.
God has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away with empty hands.”

No wonder William Temple, mendacious archbishop of Canterbury, in order to exonerate an evil colonial empire, instructed his missionaries “to limit the use” of the Magnificat in their incensed colonies not to bring a tyrannical hegemony to its knees.

When Edgar Allan Poe endured a dreadful period of time in between hope and despair, he chose to share what he endured to his friend George Eveleth in these words, “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” Very much like the first quarter of the 21st century world of ours.

Most of the people who live in the poorest and oppressed people in the world are prisoners of hope who need to become pilgrims of hope during this Christmas season. Christmas is not a season to make bonkers demand on things one could live without. In our beautiful, creative and thriving world, from Burundi to Haiti and Myanmar, low-income microstates or underrepresented splinter groups or a demographic segment of populations live in the grip of hunger, indignation, trepidation, despair and gloom. Perhaps someday we would look back to 2025 as the year when millions of noble and reliable but dismayed and befuddled citizens took to the streets all over the world – from Gaza and Ukraine to the USA.

Elton John ticked off with the messed-up situation to say: “We can stop the spread of AIDS, if people just got off their backsides and treated human beings in a Christian kind of way.” In our chaotic world, following the Evening News, we need another Christmas-wait to quell sinister darkness and evilness! Cases of abysmal abuse of humanity in our thin veneer of civility beg for a shred of decency. Rhetoric of ethnic cleansing is a hobby for a few unschooled no-hopers.

A method of sensible reckoning that helps us achieve an outcome based on two premises known as syllogism.
Humans are created in the image of God.
Ilhan Omar is a human.
Therefore, Ilhan Omar is an image of God. 
So was Jesus – an incarnated image of God in our midst.

A psychological dynamic where one’s internal misery projects harmful postures on to others and then try to feel loftier is far from what we call ‘Christmas spirit’ of festive cheer, generosity, holiday joy, kindness or Christmas happiness. “Christmas spirit” is an attitude of joy, kindness, and generosity associated with the holiday season. Let us give thanks to God for unique and unrivaled women and men who crushed colonialism, eradicated modern slavery and dismantled Apartheid - Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ― icons of larger seismic global movements whether in Asia, North America or Africa - exceptional examples of inspiration to achieve justice, human rights and prosperity for all.

What else do we have beyond ‘Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells’ and the Holy Night? 
The angels visit and revisit. 
Mary and Joseph with the newborn had to flee Bethlehem to Egypt for life. 
The shepherds completed their chores and returned to the paddocks. 
The Magi disappeared to the east. 
Now the tinsel and lights are fading. 
And Octavian, one of the greatest emperors in Europe ended his reign.

It’s joyful holiday season; however, Brigham and Women’s doctor Elliott Marshall Antman says “It’s heart attack season!”. So, keep singing and lighten up. Shorten travels, wind down merriment, feverish shopping etc. Now, we better return to dark world with the light of the Christmas stars where the poor are still poor, the hungry and still hungry and thirsty. The prisoners are still locked up. The homeless are still in the cold. May the mystery of the manger still a mystery. In spite of all these, perhaps of because of all these, our call to serve the world with infectious joy and caring love must go on………. During these frenetic days before Christmas, we need such energizing, uplifting words to keep going...when the going gets tough, the tough get going. With good leadership in place, a nation keeps its citizens civil, safe and healthy. With good leaders, a society prospers. With democratically elected leaders in charge, a nation can eat well, clothe well, educate its young children well, provide gainful employment for its youth, take care of its elderly well, give a generous helping hand to its neighbors in times of need and be a good example for all nations.

Remember Maya Angelou’s words: “Love life. Engage in it. Give it all you've got. Love it with a passion because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.”

In my onerously dawdling academic journey fortuitously I was honoured to complete a program of study at a grad school which was not on my dream list. The head honcho’s coercive persuasion was so intense that I accepted the offer to do it. Towards the end of my programme, he reminded me, “You are not going to be you anymore – resolute, resolved and rooted you forever”. In hindsight, maybe that’s why the Magi took another way back home. To borrow a line from T. S. Eliot’s poem ‘Journey of the Magi’ this changed everything about me and those around me. In the dead of this bleak winter in our grim and ghastly year, following the example of the Three Wise Men from the east, we must let go off all the demonic gods of darkness, despair, demagoguery, despotism, deception and depravity.

Placide Cappeau, author of “Minuit, Chrétiens” (Midnight, Christians) or “O Holy Night”, one of most cherished carols, reminds us of “A thrill of hope”; precisely, the whole world jumped for a hilariously uplifting joy with hope at the birth of Jesus. Now that the year of the limbless, slithery snake is behind us, let us usher in the New Year of the Fire Hose with new dreams, perspectives and possibilities. The prophet jogs our memory:

“The people that walked in darkness
Have seen a brilliant light;
On those who dwelt in a land of gloom
Light has dawned.” (Isaiah 9:2).

May you have vim and win to get creative things done,
May the bright sun guide you on your journeys,
May you be refreshed by snow squalls and rain drops,
May you have enough dough to pay for your spread,
May you slow down to enjoy those around you,
May the Holy One be your companion in the New Year!

(The Rev. Dr. John T. Mathew is an ordained minister in The United Church of Canada who served several urban and rural congregations in Ontario, Canada since 1974 and taught in the Department of Religious Studies, Laurentian University, Sudbury. Mathew was awarded Merrill Fellowship at Harvard University Divinity School and served as Pastor-Theologian at the Princeton Center of Theological Inquiry. He was Ecumenical Guest Minister at St. Machar’s Cathedral, Aberdeen (Church of Scotland) and Interim Minister at St. Andrew’s Church in Gore, Southland, New Zealand (Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand).

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