Editorial
Merry Christmas!
Time to recall Jesus' ideals
The birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, like the coming of any prophet into the realm of common men and women, remains a seminal event in history. For Jesus symbolised the principles of humanity and love we today associate with the values which underpin the Christian outlook on life. And coming within the ambit of this feeling of Christianity is the thought that Jesus spoke for all men and women and for all time. Those are the foundations on which religions establish themselves, the roots to which all are bound in terms of religious belief. The sense of piety we associate with faith, any faith, was precisely the message which came from Jesus, whose comprehension of sin, of cruelty as practised by those unaware of or indifferent to the ways of God, was acute enough to have him go through pain in an intensely personal way. And yet he did not complain, for greater than the pain was the agony humanity went through at the hands of the insensitive and the uncaring.
On Christmas Day, therefore, it is time to put into practice the ideals of love and piety which Jesus preached in his lifetime through all his moments of intense suffering. The message he spelt out, at every turning point of his life, was clear and unambiguous: that there is a God who loves us and which love is but an invitation to us all to do what our sense of humanity expects us to do, to our neighbours, our families, indeed to our friends and foes alike: love them as we would love ourselves. Turning the other cheek, Jesus informed us, is not a sign of weakness but a mark of humility. And humility is what constitutes the core of humanity's survival. Everything else, everything which speaks to us of pride and hubris and envy, only demeans the individual. It is this message from Jesus that people need to rekindle in their souls today, especially at a time when a brazen demonstration of power and a blatant display of arrogance constantly make a wreckage of the purity of the heart.
We wish all our readers, especially those belonging to the Christian community, a Merry Christmas. Let Jesus' love suffuse our souls with happiness.
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