I didn't feel like putting up the Christmas tree this year. It can be such a hassle, lugging it out of the store, hanging up all the stuff and having to dismantle it all down again. I think probably only the cat appreciates the tree, for it gets such a kick out of it, clawing at and knocking off the baubles everyday. Besides I saw no point in such labor, for the children have long since grown out of Christmas trees. Worse, they have even grown out of God. I am just thankful at the very least, they still pander to their mother's whim to accompany her to church on only 2 occasions a year; Christmas and Easter. So I didn't want to bother about the tree, even when my eldest offered to do it up. I am thinking, what an irony - the self-proclaimed atheist in the family is the one who puts up the tree and the one who is playing Christmas carols on her phone. God is funny alright.
I didn't even feel like going Christmas shopping for myself. The children of course have already 'received' their gifts - they had done their own shopping on their own time with my money, obviously. As for me, personally I don't really fancy walking for hours looking at rows upon rows of clothes, shoes, bags and all the paraphernalia of a typical woman's wardrobe. I get tired very quickly of trying to decide if this, that or the other is a better buy. Someone said, anything in your closet you haven't worn in 3 years should be thrown out. I am still wearing stuff from 5 years back, so I guess I am not exactly an active consumerist. Thank goodness the economy doesn't depend on people like me.
An old fren I was lunching with had nothing good to say about that, or anything else for that matter. Which going by the results of some poll I read sums up just about how everybody else feels too. The commonest description of the current times, at least in the Chinese language, was 'bitter.' Life, apparently, isn't rosy at all; in fact it could get depressing especially for people who are used to tinsel-laden trees, santa claus, reindeers, carols and all that 'Christmassy' jazz. A neighboring country has banned the use of such 'religious symbols'. Heck, even sending Christmas greetings can get you into jail for 5 years of your life.
If you think that's bad, it can get downright nasty. In some countries, a Christian runs the risk of being killed for daring to believe in Jesus Christ as the only Way, the Truth and the Life. Pew Research statistics apparently indicate that Christians faced harassment of one form or another in no fewer than 151 countries worldwide (there are only 196 countries in the world by the way). Of course Christians aren't the exception in being a persecuted minority. Happily, at the other end of the pendulum, we have another neighboring non-Christian country who deployed nearly 9000 cops to protect churches over the Christmas period. And right in our own backyard, we have a Sultan who big-heartedly calls for his subjects to celebrate other communities' festivals.
But having said all that, it's sobering to think that I may one day be staring down the barrel of a gun if I insist on proclaiming Jesus as God. Am I prepared? I would like to say yes, not because it's the 'spiritually-correct' thing to say. But because it's the right thing to do, since Jesus has set an example for me and all who call themselves by His name in letting people who misunderstood, disbelieved, hated and rejected Him to kill Him. Not out of suicidal tendencies or weakness or inability to fight back for His rights or His life, but out of love.
A love that can't be snuffed out, ever. Not by persecution, not even by death itself. A love that's totally incomprehensible to human minds. A love that when freely embraced by even one heart can, not only change that 1 person, but shake an entire world over 2000 years and still counting down the line of time. Christmas was when that Love touched mankind in a visible, experience-able relationship beyond the trappings of mere religion. So that all who choose to engage in it can stand unshakeable in the knowledge of a firm faith, hope and love even in the midst of the most terrible and horrible of circumstances, whatever that may be, come today or tomorrow. That's peace beyond human understanding, joy unspeakable whose source is love divine.
Take away the tree, the songs, even the church itself, but I can and will still celebrate. Because all those are not what Christmas is about, they are definitely not what I need as a Christian. For it's not Christmas but Christ, the only reason for Christmas, the One who lives in my heart, whom I celebrate. And that nothing, absolutely nothing, can steal, kill or destroy.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord... Romans 8:38-39
Published MMO 24/12/15
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