CHRISTMAS is one of the two most important religious festivals of the Christian year.
Papua New Guinea is a self-declared Christian country.
Those two statements together summarise why in every nation on earth someone, somewhere will be celebrating the birth of Jesus tomorrow.
Historians and archaeologists, novelists and doomsayers can and do argue incessantly about the accuracy of Dec 25 as the Lord’s birthday; to us the matter seems academic.
The fact is that Jesus was born the Son of Man and came to live and die among the people of this world.
By celebrating his birthday we re-affirm that event and we acknowledge the opportunity for re-birth within our own lives.
Christmas is the time for new beginnings, just as the birth of Jesus brought a never-ending new beginning.
It is entirely appropriate that we should remember this event with great joy and happiness and celebration.
It is right that we should give what we can to our children, for they are today’s image of that baby born in Bethlehem two millennia ago.
And it is right that we adults should shake off the burdens and the problems which we all share and join in the holiday mood.
What is wrong is that so many of us have lost sight of the very reason for celebrating Christmas.
Holiday means “holy day” and the word Christmas comes from the old English Cristes maesse, meaning “Christ’s mass”. The scriptural basis for the familiar Christmas scene comes from the Gospels of Luke and Matthew.
It is sad that so many who are looking forward to the Christmas holidays have no wish to be reminded that they are supposedly celebrating the birth of Jesus.
They have the mistaken impression that celebrating the birth of Jesus could only dampen the joys of the modern Christmas.
How wrong they are, for the birth of Jesus has been celebrated with real joy by men, women and children for 20 centuries.
Part of the problem lies with the diminishing recognition of the soul and the spirit.
Today we are acutely aware of the well-being of the body.
Medical science has cured many of the diseases that have plagued humanity for thousands of years. Smallpox is now a matter for the history books and polio is about to follow in its wake.
Material well-being, even in a developing country such as Papua New Guinea, has improved immeasurably since the days of our ancestors.
These are improvements that all can see and appreciate, tangible demonstrations of the apparent might and strength of human beings.
But Christianity teaches the importance of the soul and the spirit. These are the distinctions between human beings and all other forms of life on earth.
So at Christmas we should not only celebrate the physical birth of Jesus, the baby born to the virgin Mary and Joseph in the manger at Bethlehem, but we should recognise that this was the birth of the man born to be king, the Messiah unique in all the firmament.
Christmas, the mass of Christ, should rightly generate the greatest celebrations of the year, for what other event in history could match the birth of the Saviour?
In PNG, many of us seize upon this holiday period and observe it in a manner far removed from the concept of “holy days”.
We drink to excess. Under that influence and often matched with drugs, we commit offences and on occasion, serious crimes.
Men are often more violent to their wives and families than at other times of the year. Many PNG wives and children look forward to the Christmas period with fear bordering on terror.
And even in those families where Jesus Christ is welcome, much distress and disappointment occurs annually over the cost and distribution of Christmas presents.
What should be a process of giving tokens of our affection and esteem in the name of the Lord to mark his miraculous birth becomes an agonising ritual of lavish gift-giving, often far beyond our means.
So celebrate Christmas to the full and in joy and peace.
But remember the true reasons behind those celebrations and the astonishing birth 2,000 years ago that should be the source of our joy.