The observant Jews, proud of their ceremonial purity, despise the shepherding class for their lack of religious integrity—in short, shepherds cannot fulfil many of the pious obligations. These marginalised few became the first visitors and the first missionaries. The shepherds, response to this privilege of seeing the newly born Lamb of God, thereafter, rejoiced by bearing witness to God and spreading the Good News of the birth of the Saviour.
That we now move within this new normal matrix of exclusion of the unvaccinated should give pause for some reflexions on how we ought to see God in the marginalised and those whom we do not ever think that God could be present to them. Indeed, it is the dismissed or the discarded who have need of salvation. Those who are healthy do not need a doctor and so to these, the excluded, to them is born a Saviour. What does that mean?
In recent past, a point that has been hammered concerns the in-built missing piece which is the universal feeling of incompleteness. This is a natural deficiency which is not a sign of imperfection. Instead it points us to the completion which can only supplied by a Saviour. Our hunger or yearning for wholeness is like a compass directing us towards God for only He can save us.
However, human history is littered with attempts to provide the total solution to our passion and aspiration. Ideologues are quick to seize on this human need for a Saviour as they try to provide Man with the “total solution”. A good example within our living memory is communism. It was proposed as the answer to Man search for the “material equilibrium” that we had when Adam and Eve were in paradise. We should be able to create the heaven of shared abundance we yearn for through the forced distribution of private wealth. Then there are rationalists who believe that “reason” could supply the solution to humanity’s ills and yet in the last century, the same “reason” or logic purchased two great devastating wars for the world. Presently science and technology have been proposed as the saviour we have been waiting for, threatened that we are by climate change and a global pandemic. We are driven, in an age of instant gratification, to search for wholeness through our sensual pleasures—food, drinks, sex or drugs as if these alone can satiate our cravings for fulfilment. There is a dissatisfaction arising from the failure of expectation that has compelled some to embrace different psychological fads and herded a few to experiment with Eastern mystical traditions.
In the emergent light of dawn, the Angels’ message to the Shepherds teaches us one thing. For as early as St Ignatius of Antioch, an early Church Father, the Eucharist was spoken of as the “Medicine of Immortality”. This itself directs our attention to whom we truly need. Jesus is the only Saviour who is the perfect fit for the missing piece in us. We long to be saved but communism, rationalism, technology, psychological techniques, sensual pleasures or even esoteric religions are never going to be the final solution to what we want. As the slogan goes. “No Jesus, no peace. Know Jesus, know peace”.
Whether the world likes it or not, the true and not just true but the only answer to Man’s search is Jesus. And so, if the world continues to search for the missing piece, then the ministry of the Angels continue. They announce to the world that we have a Redeemer. The only thing for us to do, as the Shepherds did, is to give ourselves to the Angels’ message that a Saviour has been born which consequently requires a match between what we proclaim and how we live. These are basic nuts and bolts of an evangelical or missionary life so that from Christ-bearers we shall also become Christ-givers. Like the Angels we give the message to the world that their search for the missing piece will be fulfilled by Jesus the Christ. Blessed Christmas.
