The message of Christmas for us
A CHRISTMAS carol tells us to “Deck the halls with boughs of holly … ’tis the season to be jolly”, but the mood for many people this Christmas is far from jolly.
Many wonder if ” … happy days (will) ever return” (Straits Times, Oct 20, 2002). Robbed of the joys of a family reunion, the families of victims of terrorist acts would most likely ask, “Where is the joy of Christmas?”
To answer that question, let us look at Job. He lost all the things which humans count as necessary in life. It is an amazing story of disaster, which strikes the human spirit.
The book begins with Satan, by divine permission, gaining access to Job and then, on a single day, caused tragedy to strike in this man’s life by removing all that he held dear: his family, wealth, health and prestige. What a tragic day that must have been! But this was not all. God then gave Satan permission to afflict Job physically. Job suffered a terrible siege of boils, which persisted week after week.
Anyone with such boils or carbuncles knows how terribly painful it is. Job felt abandoned by all his friends. Even his wife finally reached the end of her endurance and patience. She reproached him, telling him to curse God and die. Job sat alone in the ash heap bemoaning his terrible lot, seeing no reason for it.
Finally, to make matters worse, three friends who came to comfort him, told him that suffering such as this could result only from hidden sin, and that Job was covering up something. It was an unjust accusation. Job, in anguish, asked his friends to leave him alone in his agony and painful suffering. Worse still, he felt that he could not reach God with his cries, and that even if he could, the greatness of God was such that it would overwhelm him and he would not even be able to explain how he felt. This caused him a terrible sense of frustration.
But suddenly, light broke in through the gloom. Out of his terrible sense of agony, anguish and frustration, Job saw a glimpse of hope and faith. He uttered: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.” (Job 19:25,26). In this brief moment he saw a Kinsman-Redeemer, who would have the strength and the ability to deliver. Also, he would work his way out through a death and a resurrection. Then the light faded as he sank back into the gloom, and Job began to cry out again, “My heart faints within me!”
The amazing thing is that in this flash of light, in the midst of the darkness of this man, there was a revelation of the two great causes for celebration in the Christian faith. Here is the message of Christmas — an incarnation. There shall come a Kinsman-Redeemer to earth. Here is also a message of Easter, the resurrection from the dead, when the ultimate solution to our problems will find expression in the resurrection of the body, and we shall enter into the life God intends for us.
My focus here is this glimpse Job had of the message of Christmas. When Jesus came to earth that first Christmas, He came as the Redeemer of humankind. He is one of us, and is related to us. Jesus would then share our anguish, our pain, our sense of frustration, and would understand. The child who was born was called, among other names, Immanuel — God with us. This is the great truth Job saw in that ancient day.
The illumination that Job had alleviated for a brief moment the agony he was going through. God eventually met this man and, though He did not answer all his questions, his conflict was resolved within his heart, and the story of Job ends on a happy note.
What Job was permitted to see, in the gloom and despair of his heart, was the ultimate solution to the problems of human agony. He worked it out through a process that would involve a death and a resurrection to follow. This is God’s process. Job could put his troubles into the hands of the One who was capable of handling them.
A Kinsman-Redeemer comes into the picture only when the person who is suffering is at the end of his tether. As long as a person in Israel had resources of his own he was expected to use them to help solve his own problems. But when he reached the end, when there were no resources left, he could then count on his relatives. Among them would be one who would be the kinsman-redeemer, one who would undertake the responsibility of delivering him from that difficulty. This is what the message of Christmas is for us.
The Rev Ho Chee Sin is a retired Bishop of The Methodist Church in Singapore. He is attached to the Local Conference of Kampong Kapor Methodist Church.