Three verbs and one bequest…1

We have now entered into the season of joy and happiness. The Christmas season. Apart from shopping, partying, going to church, family gatherings and gift sharing, can we learn anything from Christmas?

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

The above verse is from the Bible and it is the pearl of Christianity. If we squeeze the entire Bible into one verse, in fact if we are to condense Christianity into one single statement, it is this verse. It is the essence of Christmas. Everything about Christmas is in it; the why (purpose), the how (process) and the what (product). It is a treasure box of twenty six words, beginning with God and ending with life, and that too straight from the mouth of God in flesh (Jesus), two thousand years ago.

This mind boggling and heart stilling statement is small enough to write on a post-id, but strong enough to cause two thousand year old debate. Yet it changed the millions of lives, transformed countries, stopped wars and conquered the hearts of humanity. It simply states that God became Man to show how much He cares about Man. It is the hinge on which Christianity hangs. It is the reason for Christmas. It has three verbs – loved, gave, believe and one bequest – Life.

First Verb

If there is one ridiculously over used word in English, for that matter in any other language, it is ‘Love’. But it still has the power to bring two enemies together, stall a war, and bring down a wall that divided a nation into two. It can cause a ripple turn into waves of emotions, unfold the untold rhythms of life and joy in a person. It is a beautiful state of mind and heart. We would love to be in that state, don’t we?

Christmas is about love, not just any love but God’s way of love. They say there are four kinds of love (Eros, Philo, storge, and Agape), there is Sensual love, brotherly love, affectionate love and then there is Godly love. All of us are capable of the first three kinds and probably are experts in it, but the fourth is a speciality of God. Many a times our relationships fail and our dealings with others suck because we really do not know how to love. And in the story of Christ, God showed us how we also can achieve it, even though we might stumble few times. (well! we will stumble a looootttttttt of times!) Christmas educates us about true love, God’s way of love.

Do you want to know the kind of love God has for us…well… “Look at the round belly of the pregnant peasant girl in Bethlehem. God’s in there; the same God who can balance the universe on the tip of his finger, floats in Mother Mary’s womb. Why? Love.

Peek through the Nazareth workshop window. See the lanky lad sweeping the sawdust from the floor? He once blew stardust into the night sky. Why swap the heavens for a carpentry shop? One answer: Love.

Love explains why He came; Love explains how he endured.

His hometown kicked him out. A so-called friend betrayed him. Hucksters called God a hypocrite. Sinners called God guilty. Do termites mock an eagle, tapeworms decry the beauty of a swan? Yet God chose to allow it. Why? Love.” (Paraphrased from Max Lucado – 3:16)

True Love is supreme and it is sublime. It is a virtue only God has and He gave it only to human beings. God’s way of love involves two aspects, unconditional acceptance and forgiveness. And these are the two most important ingredients for any relationship to work.

Christ teaches us to accept people irrespective of who they are, that is caste, colour and creed. Living in a country which is divided in all aspects of its constitution, haven’t we all experienced some kind of set back or being castrated or out casted  by someone on the basis of wrong caste, wrong colour, wrong social status, wrong size or wrong address? It hurts and causes an unseen divide that runs deep in our hearts and among people of this country. This Christmas season may be we learn from Christ and become sensible and learn to accept and respect, those around us, just as they are.  There are people out there in the cold, hurt, angry, lonely, desperate,  desolate, and they need at least one person to accept them and to lean on. You could be one this season.

People hurt us, they back stab and betray us. They break our hearts with their actions and insensible words. They mock, insult and deceive us. We all have someone in our lives who committed the unthinkable. We find it hard to let that go off our lives and understandably so. There is one danger in garnering anger and vengeance, it will never make you happy. Resentment never helps. Yet that is exactly what we do when people hurt us. We become bitter, angry, cynical. We get all closed in and self-pitying. Bitterness hurts you far more than any hurt you will ever receive. No matter what anybody has ever done to you. Resentment is a self defeating attitude. It doesn't work. Today, revenge is big business. Revenge doesn't work. It always backfires. It keeps the hurt alive. When you retaliate against the hurt all you do is escalate the pain. There's only one way you'll ever get the relief and that's forgiveness.

Forgiveness doesn't mean that you say "It's OK that you hurt me." Forgiveness is not minimizing the hurt. Forgiveness is not saying it didn't hurt. Forgiveness is not denying that evil is done in this world. Forgiveness is allowing yourself to be healed and letting go off the guilty one unconditionally. Christ taught that while he was on the earth, people don’t deserve to be forgiven, and yet we choose to forgive them, and that’s God’s way of love. Doesn’t God forgive us all the time? Think about it. Do we really deserve all that we have in lives? I doubt it.

Do you suspect that we will never be able to exhibit that unconditional love of Christmas in our lives?…Read the story of Christina.

We will look at Second Verb in next post…

Christina

(Continued from Three verbs and One Bequest)

The small house was simple but adequate. It consisted of one large room on a dusty street. Its red-tiled roof was one of many in this poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of the Brazilian village. It was a comfortable home. Maria and her daughter, Christina, had done what they could to add colour to the grey walls and warmth to the hard dirt floor: an old calendar, a faded photograph of a relative, a wooden crucifix. The furnishings were modes: a pallet on either side of the room, a washbasin, and a wood-burning stove.

Maria’s husband had died when Christina was an infant. The young mother, stubbornly refusing opportunities to remarry, got a job and set out to raise her young daughter. And now, fifteen years later, the worst years were over. Though Maria’s salary as a maid afforded few luxuries, it was reliable and it did provide food and clothes. And now Christina was old enough to get a job to help out.

Some said Christina got her independence from her mother. She recoiled at the traditional idea of marrying young and raising a family. Not that she couldn’t have had her pick of husbands. Her olive skin and brown eyes kept a steady stream of prospects at her door. She had an infectious way of throwing her head back and filling the room with laughter. She also had that rare magic some women have that makes every man feel like a king just by being near them. But is was her spirited curiosity that made her keep all the men at arm’s length.

She spoke often of going to the city. She dreamed of trading her dusty neighbourhood for exciting avenues and city life. Just the thought of this horrified her mother. Maria was always quick to remind Christina of the harshness of the streets. “People don’t know you there. Jobs are scarce and the life is cruel. And besides, if you went there, what would you do for a living?”

Maria knew exactly what Christina would do, or would have to do for a living. That’s why her heart broke when she awoke one morning to find her daughter’s bed empty. Maria knew immediately where her daughter had gone. She also knew immediately what she must do to find her. She quickly threw some clothes in a bag, gathered up all her money, and ran out of the house.

On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing. Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself. With the purse full of small black-and-white photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janeiro.

Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do things that were before unthinkable. Knowing this, Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes. She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture – taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note.

It wasn’t too long before both the money and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home. The weary mother wept as the bus began its long journey back to her small village.

It was a few months later that young Christina descended the hotel stairs. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth, but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds for her secure pallet. Yet the little village was, in too many ways, too far away.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation. “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.”

She did.

(Max Lucado – No wonder they called Him saviour)

Blinded by Appearances

Our thoughts and actions are primarily based on our assumptions. We think that we are expert judges of a person just by looking at his/her outward appearance. We even presume that person’s character itself. Sadly most of us are wrong at our inference. We are mostly blinded by appearances.

When we encounter a person who is fair and handsome / beautiful, we presume he is a gentleman, while we might immediately conclude that an individual is a thief or a beggar or crooked one, because he looks shabby and distasteful. I suspect, our reactions are based on what we accept to be beautiful and ugly.

Our behaviour patterns change according to our own initial conclusions based on exteriors of a person. We receive one person pleasantly, because he is better looking; while we probably are rude to another who is scruffy.  Our prejudices, miscalculations, quick judgements lead to blindness towards the true self an individual. We may not even consider the fact that a person is not what he appears to be. This misjudgement leads not only to ill-treatment of an innocent person but also diminishes our own personal value in the sight of that person. Our callousness in estimating a person by looks alone is blindness.

In 1884 a young man died, and after the funeral his grieving parents decided to establish a memorial to him. With that in mind they met Charles Eliot, president of Harvard University. Eliot received the unpretentious couple into his office and asked what he could do for them. After they expressed their desire to fund a memorial, Eliot impatiently said, "Perhaps you have in mind a scholarship." "We were thinking of something more substantial than that... perhaps a building," the woman replied. In a patronizing tone, Eliot brushed aside the idea as being too expensive and the couple departed. The next year, Eliot learned that this plain pair had gone elsewhere and established a $26 million memorial named Leland Stanford Junior University, better known today as Stanford! (Taken from Today in the Word, June 11, 1992.)

Judging people alone by appearance will cause a heart break for both parties, first to the one who was misjudged and then to the one who misjudged.