Orville Taylor | Merry Christmas and peace to all

Five days from now, we will be celebrating Christmas and from all signs, it is likely to be the most muted one in my adult life. COVID-19 could easily be called Neeko, having ‘mashed up our lives’. However, there is something very simple about this season, which, if followed, would resolve so many of our societal problems.

Now, let me make it clear, a lot of the Christmas celebration is simply hogwash. There is no flying sleigh or reindeer with a red LED on his nose. And even if the houses in Jamaica had chimneys as in the temperate countries, the morbidly obese geriatric would get stuck at the top, after he puts his oversized bearded cheeks down the opening. And, only God and the Devil know whether you have been good or bad and whether you are asleep or awake.

Moreover, the Bible says nothing about three wise men, or a stable (except maybe the relationship that Mary and Joseph were in). And most certainly, the Nativity scene with two blue-eyed adults in very clean colourful clothes and skin critically lacking in melanin represents my friends from Finland; and not a family that blended seamlessly among the Egyptians, who looked like the current-day Ethiopians. Yes I! Jesus looked more like Jah Jah Haile Selassie I than King James or any of the modern-day Jews, and certainly wouldn’t say “Hyvää joulua!”

Indeed, I accept the fact that the placing of Christmas at this time of the year is the appropriation of ‘pagan’ festivals. Some of these have to do with the winter solstice and the Roman deity, Saturn. There is even evidence that the ancient Egyptians celebrated the birth of Isis’ male child and the Greeks, as well, around the current Christmas date.

Yet, what is significant of the coming of Jesus is that his teachings, spread by the very institution which persecuted the apostles, have carried such a powerful message, that they are the blueprint for world and domestic peace. One of the reasons why I do not readily suffer ‘praise and worship’ Sunday/Sabbath-only Christians is because they often use their ‘fellowship’ to massage their own consciences and practise some of the very things which Jesus militated against.

ETERNAL MESSAGE

The eternal message of Christmas, for all its pagan antecedents, is that ‘salvation’ was for all, every man and woman was equal before God. There were no longer any ‘Chosen People’ who had permission to perform all manner of atrocities against other ‘Gentile’ ethnicities, including those who never provoked them.

Christianity is much harder than many are willing to admit. Apart from the uncompromising love for God, which it admonished us to have, the most important is the ‘golden rule;’ love your neighbour as yourself. In Matthew 7:12 Jesus taught, “… whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them.”

Inasmuch as this binding principle is popularised by the New Testament and credited to Jesus, it even exists in the Old Testament as Jesus himself acknowledged, “for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Leviticus 19:18 states “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself … .” True, it was specific to ancient Israel, but Jesus’ message made it universal, to the repugnance of the privileged Jews.

Beyond the Judeo-Christian traditions, the writings of Chinese philosopher Confucius, who lived between 551 and 479 years before Jesus was born, also taught in his Analects, “What I do not wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men.” In Hinduism, one scripture reads, “One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self.” Although it is dated somewhere in the second century, there is evidence of a pre-Christ birth origin in the more ancient writings, such as the Hindu scripture Mahabharata As a matter of fact, Egyptian papyrus sources from the period 664 to323 BCE state, “That which you hate to be done to you, do not do to another.”

All of this is easier said than done. Nonetheless, this is what is beautiful about Christmastime. It niggles at our consciences and the notion of ‘giving being better than receiving’, showing compassion for others, though ritualistic and too seasonal, are what are essential to human social existence.

And this is my Christmas message. We will never have lasting peace, productivity and prosperity and any other pleasant P until we individually pattern our daily lives using the modern version preached by Jah Jah at the UN in 1963, when racial and other inequalities of class are eliminated and the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all … .”

Merry Christmas and may we be the start of the change we desire.

- Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.