The Holy Spirit….

To the words of the angel that she will con­ceive and bear a Son, Mary respon­ded “how can this be, since I do not know a man?” (Luke 1:34). In oth­er words, how can I con­ceive and bear a child since I have nev­er had sexu­al rela­tion­ship with a man? Con­tinu­ing, the angel reas­sured Mary that such know­ledge was not neces­sary because “the Holy Spir­it will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will over­shad­ow you” (Luke 1:35). Con­sequently, the child to be born will be holy, and he shall be called the son of God. The Holy Spir­it com­ing upon Mary, and the power of the Most High over­com­ing her under­lines the divin­ity of Jesus. Just like every oth­er human being, Jesus did not par­take in the sin­ful nature and dis­pos­i­tion of Adam (cf. 1John 3:5; 2Cor 5:21). It is this same Holy Spir­it that des­cen­ded on Jesus in the form of a dove while he was pray­ing after his bap­tism (cf. Luke 3:21–22). Again, this same Holy Spir­it will lead him to the desert in pre­par­a­tion for his mis­sion (cf. Luke 4:1–2). Accord­ing to Luke, the Holy Spir­it is a prin­cip­al act­or in the mis­sion of Jesus, begin­ning from his con­cep­tion. How about Chris­ti­ans espe­cially, their lead­ers? What guides them in their activ­it­ies, decisions and judg­ments? The Holy Spir­it or their mere human spir­its? By their fruits, you shall def­in­itely know them.

Conclusion

Jesus the Christ is the mani­fest­a­tion of God’s love. As Paul rightly noted, “when the full­ness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adop­tion as chil­dren” (Gal 4:4–5). This is divine choice. It is also divine choice that the Son of God will be born by Mary, who under nor­mal cir­cum­stance and accord­ing to human eval­u­ation, could not have been chosen. Christ­mas peri­od is a time to allow God’s choice mani­fest in our lives. It is a time to recip­roc­ate God’s love by extend­ing such and same love to oth­ers, espe­cially, the excluded accord­ing to human cal­cu­la­tions. The word became flesh. And dwelt among us. This incarn­a­tion was and is not a tran­si­ent assump­tion of the appear­ance of human­ity, but a real fusion of the divine and the human in the child born by Mary through the inter­ven­tion of the Holy Spir­it. Here was the begin­ning of a new human­ity, to be repro­duced in all believ­ers, till the earth is filled with the “sons of God” (Rom 8:14).

After four weeks of intense pre­par­a­tion, Chris­ti­ans should be ready and dis­posed to wel­come and cel­eb­rate the memori­al of the birth of the mes­si­ah. By send­ing Jesus, God has made his decision of not allow­ing his cre­ation to per­ish. We should recip­roc­ate such decision by allow­ing our lives to be per­meated by the spir­it of God and the teach­ings of Jesus. Unfor­tu­nately, Chris­ti­ans have trans­formed the feast of Christ­mas into a peri­od of god­less­ness exhib­ited in vari­ous forms. It is a peri­od of mere out­ward appear­ance. A peri­od of show of wealth. A peri­od to mani­fest our mater­i­al accu­mu­la­tions and orches­trate our newly acquired cars and oth­er gad­gets. A peri­od to hike the price of everything includ­ing the Premi­um Motor Spir­it (PMS), oth­er­wise known as fuel. The same Chris­ti­ans who are cel­eb­rat­ing Christ­mas are the same people hik­ing the prices of things. Chris­ti­ans have really suc­ceeded in sec­u­lar­ising Christ­mas. What a pity! As Chris­ti­ans jubil­ate, they should not for­get the true scope of Christ­mas. May it be a peri­od in and dur­ing which God’s spir­it mani­fests in our actions. Happy Christ­mas and God bless you. Sha­lom!

1. Wit­ness­ing to the Light (Third Sunday of Advent – B). ↑