THE CHRISTMAS MESSAGE NEEDED BY A SHARPLY DIVIDED NATION
BY
ALLAN C.BROWNFELD
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Christmas
comes at a time when our nation is sharply divided. In our recent
presidential election, neither candidate received more than 50% of the
popular vote. One candidate called his opponent a “Marxist.” The other
candidate called her opponent a “Fascist.” In the past, Republicans and
Democrats did not view one another as “enemies,” but as participants in
a common democratic process and enterprise. The fact that they might
disagree over tax rates, environmental regulations, and when military
force was to be used was expected. Working together, Republicans and
Democrats ended segregation, advanced civil rights and won the Cold
War. Think of the friendship between Republican President Ronald Reagan
and Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill.
To
celebrate Christmas, but have contempt for those with whom we disagree
on one issue or another is to disregard completely the teaching of
Jesus. Consider the words of Jesus in Matthew (5:43-44): “But I say
unto you, Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them which desperately use you, and persecute you.”
Even
many who proclaim themselves to be Christian fail to understand that
the view of man and the world set forth by Jesus—-and the one which
dominates in the modern world—-are contradictory.
This
point was made in the book “Jesus Rediscovered” by Malcolm Muggeridge,
the distinguished British author and editor. Muggeridge, who had a
religious conversion while preparing a BBC documentary about the of
Jesus, pointed out that the desire for power and riches in this world
—-a desire to which so many are committed—-is the opposite of what Jesus
called for. Indeed, Jesus was tempted by the Devil with the very
worldly powers many of us so eagerly seek.
“Finally,”
writes Muggeridge, “the Devil shows Christ all the kingdoms of the
world in a moment of time, and said: ‘All this power will I give thee,
and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me and to whomsoever
I will give it.’ All Christ had to do in return was to worship the
donor instead of God—-which, of course, he could not do. How
interesting, though, that power should be at the Devil’s disposal, and
only attainable through an understanding with him! Many have thought
otherwise, and sought power in the belief that by its exercise they
could lead men to brotherhood and happiness and peace; invariably with
disastrous consequences. Always in the end the bargain with the Devil
has to be fulfilled —-as any Stalin or Napolean or Cromwell must
testify. ‘I am the light of the world,’ Christ said, ‘power belongs to
darkness.’”
This year Hanukkah falls on Christmas Eve. In an article “A Jewish View of Jesus,”Rabbi
John Rayner, a leader of Reform Judaism in England, writes: “Jesus was
a Jew…He often went to synagogue. The prayers he prayed were Jewish
prayers, the festivals he celebrated were Jewish festivals…Above all,
the religious beliefs and values Jesus affirmed and taught were those of
Judaism…The teachings of Jesus…fall comfortably within the parameters
of the several varieties of Judaism that existed in first
century Palestine.”
As
Christian and Jewish Americans gather to celebrate Christmas and
Hanukkah this year, they would do well to reflect upon how far our
society has strayed from the moral values inherent in our religious
traditions. There is, in reality, a spiritual yearning in our American
society, a feeling that things are not what they should be, a desire to
set ourselves and our country back on a better path. Christmas speaks
to that spiritual vacuum in our lives—-but only if we will listen to its
message.
G.K.
Chesterton, discussing the meaning of Christmas, wrote, “…there is a
quite peculiar and individual character about the hold of this story on
human nature; it is not in its psychological substance at all like a
mere legend or the life of a great man. It does not in the ordinary
sense turn our minds to greatness; to those extensions and
exaggerations of humanity which are turned into gods and heroes, even by
the healthiest sort of hero-worship.”
In
the end, writes Chesterton, “It is something that surprises from
behind, from the hidden and personal part of our being; like that which
can sometimes take us off our guard in the pathos of small objects or
the blind pieties of the poor. It is rather as if a man had found an
inner room in the very heart of his own house, which he had never
suspected; and seen a light from within. It is as if he found
something at the back of his own heart that betrayed him into good.”
A
key question for Chesterton was, ,How can we contrive to be at once
astonished at the world and yet at home in it?” His sense that the
world was a moral battleground, wrote his biographer Aliza Stone Dale,
“helped Chesterton fight to keep the attitude that has been labeled
‘facile optimism,’. So that he could never recover the wonder and
surprise at ordinary life he had once felt as a child.”
This
holiday season we would do well to reevaluate the real gods in our
lives and in the life of our country. Our health and the health of
America may depend on such a genuine celebration of Christmas.
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