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Stanely Mushava
Christmas springs anew with mellow tidings and joyful carols. Accept, precious readers, benediction for a wholesome season and better days, laughter in every family and fire on every hearth. The refreshing interlude has set in once again to carry us over to the light merriment of childhood and fond reunions with long separated companions.
The middle walls are being dismantled between varying colours and creeds as the world celebrates the nativity of the Lord.
I will set forth, without further ado, the case for celebrating Christmas in a Christ-like way. Whereas it might seem superfluous to restate that Christ is the reason for the season, the holiday has been long redefined, secularised, and desecrated, hence the pertinence of a reminder.
Currently, the holiday is synonymous with the escalation of accidents, drunkenness, revelry and the runaway spending galore which precedes the so-called January disease. However, as long as Christmas is a self-pampering spree where no thought is spared for the poor and the disadvantaged, it remains a feast of confused wrong.
Nowhere is social inequality, itself the culmination of injustice, more apparent than during this holiday. While many bask in superabundance, others struggle to afford a modest meal and still others are destitute of a decent place to lay their heads.
Such conditions are averse to the reason for the season. Christ embodies selflessness and sacrifice. Christmas activities must accordingly typify the object of their adoration.
There is no better time than the present to recommit to Christ-like virtue, chiefly charity and love, as a way of restoring the legitimacy of the holiday: “Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin.
“You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you: ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land,’” (Deuteronomy 15: 9-1).
Love, the only word which comprehensively defines God, is the only title deed to heaven. Christianity borders on love not as an intangible abstract to be deferred to the afterlife but to be practised in daily social intercourse, especially this season.
Contemporary adherents of Christ have become malfunctioning devices in the hands of the Lord, with regard to love. God foreordained the church to be His operating centre for the propagation and practice of love. Yet licentiousness and materialism is quickly upstaging love.
Scripture unequivocally says that whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, but shuts up his heart from him, is lacking in the love of God. Such love is cosmetic and of no bearing before God. Love and giving are inseparable, especially in regard to the disadvantaged.
Christmas is not just about exchanging endearing, merry messages which are not substantiated by action. The Bible says: “If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead,” (James 2:15-17).
Love must not be confined to our familiar circles but to those who are not equally privileged enough to have the advantage of resources and warmth of company: “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels. Remember the prisoners as if chained with them — those who are mistreated — since you yourselves are in the body also.” (Hebrews 13:2, 3).
A few months ago, I bumped into a Zimpraise vocalist at a charity fundraiser and found his opinion rather perceptive in this respect.
Said he: “From where I stand as a gospel music minister, I take this as a challenge for the church to be committed to charity. We have a situation where churches are focused on their members only and charity is considered to be a Christmas event where congregants visit already established charities.
“There are already people out there who are destitute of basic amenities and deserve our help as the Body of Christ. Love must not be confined to our families and denominational compartments. It is the essence of Christianity,” the psalmist said.
Make a difference this Christmas by identifying and helping disadvantaged children who cannot afford food, clothing and fees. There are many children in town and country who can genuinely not afford a decent meal, let alone education. Cut on some of your negligible luxuries and offer a hand.
The fact that there are precipitate disparities between the poor and the rich is not their choice. It is a circumstance of birth which they are powerless to correct by themselves.
It is one thing to give a measly gift. Giving that proceeds from Christ-like love, is not just trimming left-overs for the poor as a way of easing the conscience. It is a joyful sacrifice meant to ripple over a lasting difference.
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