Oy Vay! A Merry Christmas?!

O.K., this may seem a stretch, and in the hyper-sensitivity which spews out of our culture like so much manure from a cow, this is likely to offend, but if it does, the reader needs to chill out because he is over-reacting. The bombing of the WTC is something to get upset about, not the fact someone is making a sincere comment to you in good faith.

So, it's the Christmas Season again. No, just because it is Dec 30th, Christmas is not over. Liturgically speaking, the season does not traditionally end until the feast of the Epiphany; you know, the story of the visitation of the three wise men who go to King Herod to inquire of the birth of the Messiah which takes Herod by surprise, so he decides to kill all the baby Jewish boys in his Kingdom two years and under in an attempt to kill the infant Messiah, which he doesn't get because Jesus' foster father, Joseph is warned in a dream by an angel to beat feet to Egypt and wastes no time in heeding the warning. Yeah, that story. The Epiphany, of course, is traditionally celebrated on January 6th giving the Christmas season its "12 days".

But what I really want to propose in this post is an open invitation to my Jewish brethren to celebrate Christmas. What!? You say. Has this Gentile gone mad!? Perhaps, but hear me out. Christians celebrate the birth of the Messiah which, in their minds, occurred 2000 plus years ago. Now, Christians anticipate the return of the crucified and risen Savior of the World. However, their Jewish friends also await the Messiah. They believe when he comes, he will come in power and glory as foretold by the prophets in their common Sacred Scriptures. Jews and Christians must concede that both faiths will unite at the moment of the Messiah's coming because Christians will recognize the Christ of 2000 years ago come back as promised and their brethren Jews will unmistakably recognize the Messiah whom they missed at that time come in power and glory as their prophets foretold he would 2000 years ago.

So isn't Christmas really a celebration of the Messiah whether he was born 2000 years ago or whether he will one day return in glory? In the Holy Scripture readings of the Advent season, i.e., the four weeks leading up to Christmas day, the Old testament readings of the daily Divine Liturgy are the readings of the Jewish Scriptures which foretell the coming of the Messiah.1 As a Catholic, I can easily celebrate Hannukah because the story of Judas Maccabeus is part of our Old testament tradition. However, as Jewish feasts figure in the Jewish calendar, Hannukah is relatively minor and the only reason it has taken on popularity (which by the way has only been in the last 35 years or so...the same period in which the liberal movement in our country became so entrenched in our culture) is because of our hyper-political sensitivity which needed a Jewish holiday in proximity to Christmas so that advertisers could ensure that Jews take part in the commercialization of the season as well (OK, hyper-sensitive ones, this is NOT a racist statement, stay with me on this). So, I have no problem making Hanukkah the "Celebration of Lights" that it is, but at the present time, let's face it, the meaning of Hannukah has been completely prescinded from its origin. It has really become an excuse for a Jewish Christmas. If you really think about this, the logic behind it is embarassing. If you are celebrating Hannukah as a substitute for Christmas, you might as well be celebrating "Festivus" or some other made up holiday like Kwanzaa (Another excuse for a Christmas substitute so that pagan Africans can open presents on Christmas morning. I mean, really, someone needs to wake up the masses and tell the Emperor he isn't wearing any clothes here.)

OK, so what is the fix? Well, what REALLY needs to happen is that practicing Jews must reclaim their Messianic hope. If they missed the Messiah 2000 years ago, or simply cannot believe that Jesus was that Messiah, this should not stop their celebration of a true Christmas. The very idea of a Messiah is theirs in the first place. The first Christians were Jews. Christmas as Christians celebrate it celebrate the birth of whom they believe to have been the Messiah 2000 years ago, but they are also celebrating his eventual promised return.2 For Jews, this Second Coming will correspond to his First Coming for them. Even the Christian Scriptures (specifically, St. Paul in the New testament, as does the Catholic Church today) proclaims that salvation which is the Messiah's reconciliation of mankind to God due to the sin of Adam, is given "to the Jew first then the Gentile." Neither Christians nor Jews will mistake that return in glory. This is not only "common ground" but a true bond which unites Christians and Jews in faith. So, to my faithful Jewish friends, a Happy Hannukah, and a Merry Christmas to you.

Footnotes: (1) Incidentally, the timing of these readings coincide with the Jewish celebration of Hannukah, although this feast has less to do with the Messiah than it does with the predilection of the Chosen People of Yahweh at the time of Maccabeus. Now, it is true that some of these Scriptures were only found in the Greek "Septuagint" manuscripts and the Jewish Council of Jamnia which met in 100 A.D. used in its criteria for determining the authenticity of their Scriptures that what was found in the Septuagint must also have been found in the extant Hebrew manuscripts or it was not to be regarded as "inspired" of God. Unfortunately, this criteria was prejudicial to the fact that the many Hebrew scriptures that would have corroborated the Greek Old testament writings had been destroyed during the Babylonian destruction Jersusalem and of the Temple in 574 B.C. Copies of extant Hebrew texts corroborating the Greek were simply not to be found. What is more pertinent here is that it is highly unlikely the Hebrew scribes (copyists) writing in Greek just made up new chapters of Holy Scriptures to amuse themselves. A fortiori, dubious additional criteria that prejudiced the Council members against the obvious prophesies which came way too uncomfortably close to the reality of the life and fate of Jesus of Nazareth and against the pesky Jewish "sect" called "Christians" by the Romans ensured that the Scripture texts such as the suffering servant passages of Isaiah did not make the cut. Yet, for the previous 525 years, these writings did make the cut and were proclaimed from the Synagogues of that age.)

(2) The word, "Christ" or "Kristos" is Greek for Messiah or Messhiacha which is Hebrew. Thus the word and concept of the "Christ" is synonomous with "Messiah".