A merry Christmas to one and all!

Since we won’t be coming out on Christmas Day, consider this our Christmas column. Allow me to greet all my readers a very merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year ahead! Let me reprint today’s Gospel reading which is in Luke 1:67-79 the “Canticle of Zechariah” whom the Angel made dumb until the birth of John the Baptist, when he obeyed what the Angel had told him, that his son would be named John. When John was finally named, Zechariah’s tongue was opened after nine months of silence. Immediately, he prayed his canticle. Zechariah’s Canticle is also known in Latin as “Benedictus Deus Israhel”.

“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited and brought redemption to his people. He has raised up a horn for our salvation within the house of David his servant, even as he promised through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old: Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy to our fathers and to be mindful of his holy covenant and of the oath he swore to Abraham our father, and to grant us that, rescued from the hand of enemies, without fear we might worship him in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give his people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God by which the daybreak from on high will visit us to shine on those who sit in darkness and death’s shadow, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

While this Canticle is attributed to Zechariah, some Bible scholars say that Luke himself made it. But it is debatable because this Canticle is also a prophesy of Zechariah as to what is the life mission of his son John. Zechariah predicted that John would be a prophet, the last in the long line of prophets. Zechariah absolutely knew where his son really came from, a gift from God for he and his wife Elizabeth where already advance in years. Both of them knew that she could only bear a son through divine intervention.

So like what most people in the ancient times do whenever they receive a blessing from God, they then offer their son back to the service of the Lord. This is what Zechariah expected would happen to his son John whom our Lord Jesus said was Elijah who came back to usher the coming of the Messiah. For our Christmas gospel reading, we turn to John 1:1-18 called the Prologue.

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. A man named John was sent from God. He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify to the light.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believed in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but God.

And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. John testified to him and cried out saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’” From his fullness we have all through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.”

In 2,000 years after the birth of the Messiah, the Christian world continues to celebrate Christmas Day as a reminder to all that indeed the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. While we busy ourselves giving Christmas presents to our families and friends, these are mere material things. The greatest gift that one can give to another is to love one another as God loves us all. Those in the faith have embraced the idea that the Christmas story is the greatest love story ever told!

Yet the world today is still in turmoil despite the message of John the Baptist and from our Lord Jesus Christ. The keyword to remember is to repent and make straight the path of the Lord into our hearts. Only then can peace come into our souls, a peace that only God can bring forth.