"With or without material gifts, yet our wish and hope will always be Liberation!"
A Christmas message
25, December 2010
Friends, Family, and Comrades,
"not giving Christmas baskets, but working for political, social, and economic justice, which always means a redistribution of power. It is the kind of power which enables blacks to fight their own battles and thus keep their dignity."
These are the words James Hal Cone said in regards to the Theology of Liberation amongst African Americans. It also speaks of realities what a real Christian ought to be-of being with the people and struggling for Social Justice and People's Liberation.
These words are also meaningful to us, since we are now celebrating an occasion, that was and is, truly unforgettable to us, from the gifts and money gave to us to the new clothes and food, this event what we celebrate nearly forgets its true essence-that is, celebrating the man behind the occasion, the man born and died, sacrificed in the cross to redeem mankind.
But then, I am still glad that despite the Crisis and the trend sprung out of this Commercialized event like Christmas kept on reinterpreting our people, there are still trying to relieve, practising the real meaning of this event upon to us-not because we celebrate the birth of our lord, but also a call to liberate our mind, soul, and even our bodies from the cycles of repression what the society laid upon to us.
Sorry if I make these words more agitating than be joyful in celebrating this sacred holiday like Christmas, but then Christ's call will always be Redemption since he, the Emmanuel, came to the World for salvation. And Christmas, in its real essence, may also meant a call to arms and repentance- as according to Matthew 10:34 of the King James Version, said:
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."
and in Isaiah 61:1, also said:
"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;"
These statements shows Christ's objective on this Earth, from the day he born today, life, death, resurrection, Ascension to his promising return on this Earth, his acts inspire us to "take up the weapon and serve the people wholeheartedly" like the way he did in his era; that with or without gifts in ours, our wish and hope will always be Liberation, and these words are also being acted upon, being put into a protracted praxis, even life as its price.
And as time goes by, despite all the events, of calamities, crises and even incidents put upon to us by fate, Christ always tells us not just to do mere share and give material needs, but rather, to tell us to give the real essence, spirit of this Yuletide season, his Birthday, a chance to be celebrated-simply by serving the people wholeheartedly, of learning from them and help themselves alleviate from their misery, of breaking the chains and be redeemed from the cycle of repression that is, creeping always within us.
Have a liberating Christmas and a promising new year to all!
Peace, land, and bread in our homes and in the world!
Solidarity,
Paul
