The birth of our Lord Jesus Christ

First of all, allow me to greet our faithful readers a very Merry Christmas and hopefully a Happy and Prosperous New Year. Today, we depart from our usual commentaries, but since it is the Year of Faith, allow me to share with you what I always write every Sunday in The Freeman. It’s a column about the Sunday gospel from the eyes of a layperson, which I have been doing in the last five years now. While it is not a Sunday today, it’s Christmas Day, and therefore a Sunday of obligation. So before we make our commentaries allow me to reprint the scripture reading today which is about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. You can read it in Luke 2:1-14.

“1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. 2 This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was Governor of Syria. 3 So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph too went up to Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the City of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, 5 to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

6 While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. 8 Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock. 9 The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear.

10 The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For today in the City of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you; you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in manger.

13 And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly hosts with the angel, praising God and saying; 14 Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.

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We’ve always understood the message of Christmas from the time we heard all those stories that were handed down from our grandparents to our parents, until we learned to read the Bible and the thousands of commentaries about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ that Christian scholars have written from 2,000 years ago to the present day. Actually we could write volumes about the meaning of Christmas that we would certainly ran out of space. Due to our limited space, allow me to be brief.

First of all, we should learn that Christmas is about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is why we greet people with a hearty “Merry Christmas.” But those who seek to diminish the role of God in their and our lives, greet you with “Happy Holidays.” If you don’t know, All Saints or All Souls Day is a holiday, Independence Day is a holiday, so why don’t you folks greet one another with Happy Holidays on those days? 

Secondly, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ is a fulfillment of the promises of God as prophesied by many prophets, but the greatest prophesy of his coming is written in Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” The name Immanuel in Hebrew means, “God with us.”

We ask, “How can God be with us?” During his ministry, our Lord Jesus Christ referred to himself as the Bread of Life, and if you read the Bread of Life discourses in the Bible, it will refer to the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood. For your reference, please read John 6: 34-58 and you will clearly understand that our Lord Jesus Christ really said that if you eat his body and drink his blood, he will raise you up to eternal life.

Not all his disciples accepted this teaching… and even in the present day, Christianity has broken into a thousand different sects, while the Roman Catholic Church teaches the primacy of the Holy Eucharist, which is central to our Christian faith, unchanged from 2,000 years ago until today.

This brings us back to Bethlehem, where it was prophesied that the Messiah would come from the line of King David. If you didn’t know, the Hebrew word for Bethlehem is “House of Bread.” And the Blessed Virgin Mary placed the Baby Jesus in a manger, which is actually a food box for animals to feed on. The message that God is giving the human race is that, for the love of us humans, he allowed his only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to be born in humble surroundings, the future Bread of Life born in the House of Bread and served in a manger to save us from our sins. AGAIN, A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR READERS!

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For email responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mo-pzcom.com or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.