wfn.org | Christmas Message from NCC India

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

National Council of Churches in India
New Delhi Office :
2744 Ranjit Nagar May 14, 2004
New Delhi  110 008
Tel&Fax : 25891263
Email : nccidel@bol.net.in

				      Christmas Message from NCC India

CHRISTMAS IS RELATIONSHIP

Love, joy and peace are the regular themes of Christmas. We know that these 
can be expressed only through relationships. At Christmas, God renewed 
relationship with the creation. The transcendent God became imminent. The 
celestial became the terrestrial. Jesus also is known as Emmanuel, which 
means God is with us. It is Gods avatar as human being which built a new 
relationship between God and human beings. God also reaffirmed that 
humanity and creation can be changed and transformed only through 
intervention in their lives.

Many people appropriate the reality of God through meditation, prayer and 
the other worldly attitudes. Christmas tells us that there is a better way 
of relating to God, i.e. through touching, feeling, hearing and seeing. 
Touching whom? Touching the Baby in the manger. Seeing and understanding 
that there is nothing extraordinary about the divine because we see that 
the fully divine being is present in an ordinary child. God renewed 
relationship with ordinary people or the bahujan (ordinary people). They 
are represented by the shepherds who received the Good News of the birth of 
Christ first. The Good News reached them in the form of celebration and 
singing of the angels. That is what bahujan need  celebration of life.

The message of Christmas also tells us that we must stop our search for 
heaven elsewhere. If our definition of heaven is that it is a place where 
God is in fullness, then it is in the manger that we see heaven. So it is 
time to stop searching for heaven in other worlds. Heaven is among the 
bahujans, in the depravity of a manger.

The incarnation of Jesus  Christmas - adds dignity to human life. 
Remember, Rabindranath Tagore asked us to leave the singing and chanting 
and telling of beads, and look for God where the tiller is tilling the 
ground! Until our society, nation and the Church recognize the truth that 
God is present in the lives of the poor and the marginalized, and 
accordingly accord the dignity they deserve, Christmas will not be real to
us.

The message of Christmas also says that wherever, in whichever human 
conditions you are, heaven is reaching you. And when heaven reaches you, 
you will praise God like the angels, yet knowing that it is Gods presence 
that changes our lives and not the comforts of this material world.

A Blessed Christmas to all!
Ipe Joseph (Rev. Dr.)
General Secretary
National Council of Churches in India

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News letter : N C C India