Christmas: God's Little Love-Protest

Christmas was necessitated by human folly. God’s marvelous creation was marred by human selfishness. God protested. “What is this you have done?” (Gen 2:13), he asked them. But the damage was done. It was as if a virus has infected humankind. Creation groaned. God expelled man and woman from the garden. Since then, a plan was brewing. God’s protest was not purposeless. There had to be a way to get his children back to the Garden.  

Over time, God tried it all - inviting, sustaining, an exodus, a Covenant, even forming a nation. God’s steadfast love and fidelity never waned, but human infidelity continued unabated. The prophets vehemently protested the human unwillingness to rise about human frailties. God even pulled his divine presence from among the people. He let enemies plunder their Ark, destroy their Temple, ravage their land, and take the people into exile. Not that the plan to get humanity back into the garden was abandoned, but whatever was to happen next needed to have eternal implications.

The only thing left was to transform human nature from within. Divine nature must enter human nature so that human nature becomes divine. Then, Christmas happened.

Christmas is God’s little love-protest. By ‘little’ is not meant that the incarnation was a blip is God’s plan for redemption. By ‘little’ is meant that God came to us in the form of a little child – an innocent, powerless, and helpless child. In every sense of the world, the incarnation of Jesus was God’s most radical protest.

Christmas was God’s protest against everything that was destructive of humankind – pride, domination, inhumanity, violence, and scandalous affluence. Jesus’ mother was a humble maiden. His father was a carpenter. He was born outside the power centers of the world. He avoided riches, power, influence, fame, and glory. As a child he had to take refuge in a foreign land.

He returned home and grew in grace and wisdom. As an adult, he began the work of saving humanity from its own inhumanity. At the very beginning of his ministry, he entered the desert and overturned the damaging events of the Garden. He rejected the temptation to power, pleasure, and glory, rather, set his heart on God and people’s redemption. When he left the desert he brought that protest to main stream society. He protested against the hypocrisy of the religious establishment, the brutality of the Empire, the oppression of the poor, and the marginalization of those on the fringes. In a world that scorned tax-collectors, prostitutes and sinners he ate and drank with them. In a world where children were demeaned, he put them centerstage in God’s reign. In a world where women were objectified, he saved one of them from being stoned to death. He counted them among his followers. In a world where hunger was rampant, he multiplied bread. In a world of legalistic and ritualistic religiosity, he dared to heal on a Sabbath. In a world where enmities mattered, he exemplified enemies and let God’s grace flow into enemy territories. In a world dominated by violence, he refused pick up a weapon or allow his disciples to use one defend him. He touched lepers, overturned the tables of money changers, and restored the Temple as a house of prayer. He preached holiness, love, non-violence, peace, mercy, justice, forgiveness and equality. Jesus’ entire life and ministry was a love-protest.

Religion and Empire came together to end his protest by nailing him to a cross. They killed him but they could not kill Love. They could not quell the protest. The very instrument of defeat was transformed into the symbol of victory. The Resurrection became God’s final protest. Human nature was restored to its original good. Heaven’s doors were open. God children were back in the Garden.

But it all began in a little womb, in a little manger, in a little stable, in the little town of Bethlehem, with a little child. It all began with Christmas - God’s little love-protest.

The Christmas love-protest must continue. Jesus’ protest must not end. He sent his disciples to preach the good news of the reign of God. We must go in his name. Protest hate by being love. Protest cruelty by showing kindness. Protest inhumanity by giving restoring the human dignity to the most abandoned. Protest legalism by executing justice with mercy. Protest ritualism by living the spirit of the law. Protest violence and bloodshed by becoming peacemakers. Protest untruth by taking a stand against lies. Uplift the weak, speak for the voiceless, protect the stranger, respect the opponent, forgive the enemy, bring centerstage those on the fringes, and confront evil with holiness. Pray humbly, worship lovingly, live simply, give generously, speak kindly, act justly. Jesus came to save humanity from its own inhumanity. The protest must go on.

Christmas was God’s little love-protest that changed the destiny of the world and humankind. Let us join in!  

Fr. Satish Joseph