Christmas at Bethlehem

From the Washington Post

Bethlehem, the place of Jesus’ birth, is not celebrating Christmas this time, says the Washington Post. The only scene related to Christmas is Jesus entering the world amid a pile of Gazan rubble.

Christmas is a festival of joy, peace, magnanimity – goodness, in general. It is a terrible irony that the very place of Jesus’ birth is marked by the opposite of all what Christmas stands for. What meaning will a Christmas carol like Joy to the World have in Bethlehem today?

What would Jesus say about the kind of religions that we have today? Isn’t religion the cause of all the strife in Bethlehem and many other places in the world? The Hamas who attacked Israel were motivated by religion. Israel is a nation founded on the bricks of a particular religion. It is another irony that Jesus was born in that religion.

Did Jesus found a new religion? I would hesitate to say ‘Yes’ to that question. His intention was to reform Judaism, his religion, not establish a new one. The problem is not with religions but with the believers, Jesus knew. That is why he said, “The Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath” [Mark 2:27]. The Jews were very particular about obeying the laws and rubrics of their religion. The Muslims are no less particular in that regard. Nowadays, this sort of vehement adherence to the rubrics at the cost of human love and relationships is contaminating Hinduism in India too.

Jesus would have questioned all these religions. If your religion makes you a blind follower of certain rules and rituals instead of making you a better human being, then your religion is useless, Jesus would affirm without any hesitation. Love was Jesus’ religion, not Christianity. Christianity as a religion is an invention of Saint Paul who came after Jesus. Jesus wanted people to love one another. And where there is love, there is no need for rules and rituals. That is why Saint Augustine said, “Love, and do as you will.”

Too many of our religions today (yesterday, as well) do the opposite of what they should be doing. Instead of promoting love, they generate hate. Jesus wasted his life!

My elder sister rang me this morning to greet me on Christmas. During the course of our conversation, she said, “Kerala (our state) has so many churches, religious programmes like retreats and Bible conventions… yet why is evil flourishing more than ever?” Jesus wasted his life!

The last sentence of the only novel I ever wrote, Black Hole, ends with these lines: “The cross smiled at Jesus. Jesus smiled back. They were in love with each other.” Those were the last words of the gospel being written by the protagonist of my novel, Ishan Salman Panicker. Ishan was of the view that Jesus wasted his life.

Jesus must have realised towards the end of his life that humankind was rather irredeemable. Will he choose to return to earth once more if his father, God, demands that?

Can there be another real Christmas, I mean?

Well.