The Lost Christ

PROXY Santa in behalf of Christ

Merry Christmas everyone! And I mean that in a sort of a conventional Christian flair. This season, nonetheless, is supposed to be a celebration of Christ’s birthday (you know that bearded guy over the wall that looked like George Harrison). But as it turned out, the holiday season is far from being the celebration of you-know-what, his date of birth and all that David Copperfield kind of Christ. Christmas had become a sort of a sorority party over the years, highlighted by all sights and sounds of neon lights and unlimited drinks, and from crackpots to beaches to one night stands. St. Nicolas, better known in Babylon as Santa Claus, became the patron saint of the overnight sensations. It has never been a holy night since, and I haven’t heard that drummer boy since the death of Sinatra.

What can I say? It’s not like this is my first Christmas season ever. In fact, the season has long been gone for quite some time. I guess out of some respects people have gone on to celebrate Christmas like that of a forced labor. Otherwise, it’s going to be an Inquisition not to be able to celebrate it. And besides, this is a season of mockery and make-believe, at least the latter seemed like a mild version of its former ally. And right in the middle of it is Jesus Christ, lost probably in the crowd and suffering from severe agoraphobia. At times though he is even marked as “X” as if he’s a member of Elijah Mohammed’s Black Nationalist Movement, or maybe even Malcolm X himself reincarnated. But most of our younger generation today, unfortunately, don’t even care at all whether it’s Jesus, Santa or Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Although I’m still trying to reconcile the thought of some shepherds going out at night, and below zero temperature, just to watch their flocks and pick their noses. I mean that to me was a bit controversial. We don’t even know if Jesus was indeed born at this time of year, let alone allowed those Magis to travel under extreme weather conditions. So you see, even the genealogy of Christmas was so odd that it would be impossible to send those shepherds under a thick mass of ice watching their sheep froze to death. Talk about slow capitulation instead of birth rights, which really was the essence of anything Christmas, the birth of a new life from the birth of the world’s savior.  

So much for that conspiracy theory though. Going back to Christ, you see, he’s nowhere to be found, except of course, you’re the kind who would stand there in front of an altar and worry about your failed confessions or your mother in-law. But Christ, like an absentee landlord, had been away from the festivities come December time. Usually you would expect him to lord it over the charts and maintain that billing for the next four weeks, but as it is, his presence can only be felt when someone shatters his hand from a firecracker, or when someone is stabbed in the back after a fierce argument over “My Way” inside a videoke bar. Somehow he’ll come in at that last minute when everything else fails, his arrival a consolation prize.

I doubt even if I’m going to ask my own son about the season that he’ll end up mentioning Christ as its reason. That I would have to confirm that the moment I arrive home later in the day. Christmas parties, for instance, had become too expensive at times, becoming more like a reception of a grand weeding. If this is the cost that Christ was born in order to save the world, then I might as well save something for myself, there might be some portions were I have to give my twenty dollar bill to the groom and the bride. But that is going too far really, Christ was born, according to the Scriptures, so we could go on with our lives by having our bills paid from his bloody hands and feet. The reception can come in later after the washing of those feet.

We see Christ relegated into the sidelines. That he’s not supposed to be highlighted, emphasized even, to the point of being magnanimous. He should place in a Belen, a small Belen to be exact, for him not to create an unnecessary attention from the Santas and Piolos and Cocos on those billboards. And as much as possible he should be drowned under the weight of midnight sales and what have you. Even in our Christmas décors our central figure is already being subdued and somehow replaced by still another suspicious character of the season, Frosty the Snowman. It’s already getting too crowded in here; it is as if the son of the carpenter is advised to go on leave until such time an item could be brought upon for him to work on.

I, too, am guilty of it. The idea of imprisoning Jesus for 12 days of Christmas. In fact, for almost a decade now, I guess, I haven’t had a celebration that truly speaks of what Christ meant to the spirit of the season. I was, and sometimes, caught up with a host of activities that doesn’t have any meaning at all, at least from the nativity standpoint. As a start, I like to have a bottle of beer. That perks up everything since I started celebrating Christmas in Agusan. If Christ were alive today, he would have thought it ridiculous to drown oneself with alcohol and do it again and again until it culminates just before the arrival of the “Three Kings” (George Clooney, Mark Whalberg and Ice Cube). Whatever happened to that gold, frankincense and myrrh, I don’t know, but it was frantically replaced by a sawsawan, a sinugba and San Miguel the Archangel.

I even wandered at the wrong turn. Many people thought that malls during Christmas time only make them more miserable and lonely. Somehow I felt that too, vicariously or otherwise. I don’t know really if it’s a business strategy or a marketing ploy, but somehow prices of most of the commodities inside these malls during the holidays seemed to have gone from heaven, too expensive for a gringo from the suburbs of Agusan del Sur, save for their usual “sales” schemes, these prices only makes one hellish about the idea of Christmas. And I know it would be stupid to compare the Christmas at the time of Christ (I doubt if there’s one) to what we have at our disposal, but this wasn’t the Christmas that Jesus wanted to project. A manger, by all means, was far too cheap for a pillow of your own liking.

Forgive them for they do not know what they were doing. He could have said it right. I do not know what I am doing with that beer, and so did the rest of the party people. Let me put me it this way, drinking beers will not make you less of a Christian, or more of a heathen, for that matter, it’s so happen that Christ, over the years of celebrating Christmas, was not part of the gathering and the conversation anymore. It’s almost like a stale beer every time that name above all names is being mentioned, even in passing, because it takes away the intoxication of its spirit, which is, being merry and happy all through the New Year.

Christ’s death overshadowed his birth. How boring! We have been so accustomed to think of him crucified at that cross that we begin to jeopardize his participation in those cocktail parties, or a baptismal gathering where food and drinks are served with delicacy and toast. For He was indeed born, according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, for ours to keep, whether he was born yesterday or on the 21st day of this month (the end of the world) it doesn't matter to some, but His birth should definitely be its own focus at this time of year, and should lead His followers to their own birth as well from the bondage of sin and that Wifi connection when He died for them not too long ago somewhere in that Middle East. Recently, however, he disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Christmas is supposed to be for Christ’s sake. And even that sounded more like an interjection.