By LEONARDO BOFF*
May they be present in our minds this Christmas, those from the Gaza Strip, hungry and thirsty, not knowing how to hide from the bombs that destroy everything.
It is not easy to celebrate Christmas, the birth of the Child-God, when we are faced with the genocide of thousands of children in the Gaza Strip, by a cruel and insensitive modern Herod. They could well be the relatives of this Child-God. And yet, we cannot fail to cultivate discreet joy at Christmas because of the very human and comforting message it conveys to us.
The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa saw this better than any preacher or theologian, with moving content. He wrote these verses that go deep into our soul:
“He is the Eternal Child, the missing God.
He is the human who is natural,
He is the divine one who smiles and plays.
That's why I know for sure
That he is the real Baby Jesus.
It is the child so human that he is divine.
We get along so well with each other
In the company of everything
That we never thought about each other.
But we both live together
With an intimate agreement
Like the right hand and the left hand
When I die, little son,
Let me be the child, the smallest.
You pick me up
And take me inside your house.
Undress my tired and human being
And lay me down on your bed.
And tell me stories if I wake up,
For me to fall asleep again.
And give me your dreams to play with
Until any day dawns
That you know what it is.”
This eternal child did not come to deify the human being but to humanize God, whom no one has ever seen, as all the evidence attests. Deeds. But in the reality of this child who cries and laughs, who wets his diapers and hungrily seeks his mother's breast, God has shown himself. Not as an old man with drool and a severe face, who scrutinizes everything in our lives to judge us. Christmas assures us: God is a child. What joy to know that we will be judged and welcomed by a child! He does not want to judge anyone. He just wants to be loved and welcomed.
A voice comes from the crib and whispers to us:
“Oh human creature, do not be afraid of God! Do you not see that your mother has bandaged your fragile little body? A child does not threaten anyone. Nor does it condemn anyone. More than helping, it needs to be helped and carried in one’s arms.”
The nativity scene with the baby Jesus shivering from the cold teaches us a lesson that we often forget: the poor were chosen to be the first to welcome God when He wanted to enter our world. At the time, the shepherds were despised and considered poor. There is a privilege of the poor: Jesus wanted to be one of them. This fact gives the poor a unique dignity.
That is why Jesus Christ would later say: “Whatever you did or failed to do to these lesser brothers and sisters of mine, the hungry, the thirsty, the imprisoned and the naked, you did or failed to do to me.” There is no greater offense than to despise a poor person, to not see their eyes pleading with hunger and more with tenderness and dignity. Let us remember: at the supreme moment of history, they are the ones who will judge us and decide our destiny.
Therefore, may they be present in our minds this Christmas, those in the Gaza Strip, hungry and thirsty, not knowing how to hide from the bombs that destroy everything, and those threatened by hired assassins in the newly conquered Syria.
On Christmas Day, let us look at one another with eyes of kindness and brotherhood. Let us look deeply into our neighbor and remember that he is a brother of Jesus and a brother and a sister of ours.
Let us embrace our sons and daughters as if we were embracing baby Jesus.
After God became one of us, no one has any more reason to be sad and desperate. Now the right to joy and love belongs to us.
*Leonardo Boff He is a theologian, philosopher and writer. Author, among other books, of The sun of hope: Christmas, stories, poems and symbols (Sea of ideas).
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