Jesus, Light of the World
Beyond a Merry Christmas
A Christmas Message from Bishop LaTrelle Easterling
The debate rages on as to whether those who take their faith seriously must stand guard against the words “Happy Holidays” to preserve the more traditional greeting, “Merry Christmas.” The semantics have become the subject of many a sermon, conversation, article, and even political debate. The depth of one’s commitment to Christianity is being analyzed and assessed by this litmus test. The struggle has become so entrenched that it actually has a name, “The War on Christmas.”
And yet, as happens with so many of the rituals we practice, the words attendant to them have become rote, staid, and devoid of passion. When we glibly say, “Merry Christmas” to one another as reflexively as we say, “Bless you” after a sneeze, are we really embodying the deep existential power of a savior, coming in human flesh to dwell among us? Are we even thinking about the miracle of our Creator God being made manifest in human form to bring glad tidings? Or have the words simply become a façade for hearts that no longer ponder the mystery and majesty of the Incarnation?
Howard Thurman wrestled with whether God is the object or subject of our worship in Jesus and The Disinherited. This season, I wonder whether Christ is the object or subject of our experience of Christmas. If Christ is merely the object, then we are satisfied with Christmas as the culmination of endless parties, cultural carols, wallet-emptying and soul-frenzying shopping, gifts, and carefully placed decorations.
However, if Christ is the subject of our Christmas, our souls are not satisfied until we have personally experienced again the profound meaning of a child born into the world to dismantle systemic oppression and reveal entrenched evil. As the subject of our Christmas, Jesus is a gift of liberation, light, and love offered by a Mother/Father Creator concerned about the humanity and the salvation of every soul.
Therefore beloved, I do not wish you a Merry Christmas this year. Rather, I wish you a Christmas full of wrestling with 65 million people who are displaced and dispossessed of a secure dwelling; I wish you a Christmas full of examining the prevalence of hatred culminating in gun violence; I wish you a Christmas full of pondering why the purchase of another human being is still an acceptable transaction; I wish you a Christmas full of weeping over the prison industrial complex that houses over 2 million persons; I wish you a Christmas full of rejecting the notion that human beings exist on a continuum of acceptability based on man-made categories; I wish you a Christmas full of proclamation against racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, bias, ableism, and every other form of violence against humanity.
This Christmas, may Christ be made manifest in the flesh through our acts of solidarity with the suffering and against the empire of corruption.
I wish you all these things, and a heart that breaks and knows the fullness of God’s transforming love.
O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel from the stupor of a disembodied Merry Christmas.