O’Henry, one of America’s well-known short story writers has a beautiful story highlighting the message of Christmas. In his story, the Gift of the Magi, he describes the love of a young couple and their intense desire to buy Christmas presents for each other. Both are poor and there is very little money left in their hands after their expenses. On the day before Christmas, Della, the young wife looked into her wallet and saw only coins worth more than a dollar. It had been her dream to buy a nice gold strap for the strapless gold watch that her husband had got from his parents as a present at his wedding. She turned to the mirror and all of a sudden it hit her that she could sell her beautiful golden hair and with that money she could buy a strap for her husband’s watch. She felt that it would be a total surprise for him. The husband too was thinking in what way he could surprise his wife. He thought of buying a pair of gold combs for her beautiful hair. So he sold his watch on his return home from his work and bought two gold combs. He was dreaming that this would be a great surprise for his wife. When the husband returned, the wife was all beaming with joy, thinking of the surprise she could spring on him. When he saw the bobbed hair of his wife, all the joy of his life was gone. He fell on the couch in total blankness of mind. The wife came with the strap and then she realized what her husband too had done .Both sold their great possessions to make the other one happy. What they found out was that they gave to each other their greatest gift in life….their love. Christmas is a time when we think of gifts and presents, forgetting the most important and basic gift that we can give at Christmas—love for one another.
The whole message of Christmas is summarized in St. John’s Gospel: “God so loved the world that he sent his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life.” At Christmas, in the birth of Jesus, we see the outpouring God’s love for us .Jesus came to give us love, to make us the children of God, to enable us to call God as our Father. All the glitter and glamor of the celebration would be meaningless if this love were to be absent from our lives..
In our busy life, we forget the value of persons and give importance to our schedules and appointments. We forget how our actions and words, instead of comforting and strengthening people, are hurting them. We have become victims of our own artificial systems. How to get out of this rat race and to feel once again the experience our spiritual rebirth? Christmas invites us to go back to the manger and feel once again our innate littleness. “A short span you have made my days, and my life is naught before you; only a breath is any human existence.”(Ps.39)”.The Kingdom of God will be born in our hearts when we become like little children. “Unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of God.”
We find among us a lot of intolerance and lack of sensitivity. We are Christians only in name but not in our hearts. We do not feel any pangs of conscience when we purposely ignore other people and keep them out of our circles of friendships. We carry our little jobs and responsibilities whether they are in the field of spiritual life or in the secular life with great authoritarianism and arrogance and ignore the feelings and sensitivities of those who work with us. What is Christian about us, then? . We need real inner transformation, the willingness to recognize the worth of people who live or work with us. “ Happy is he who has regard for the lowly and the poor”. Then only, we can really experience the joy of Christmas.
Let this Christmas be another opportunity for us to experience this inner transformation.
“Jesus ,be a guiding star before me.
Be a soothing wake behind me.
Be a rolling path below me.
Be a flaming hope within me.
Be all these things---now and forever.”
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