Happy birthday, dear King

Dear Lord Jesus,

It is very fitting that I congratulate you on this day. Tradition has it that you were born around 4 BC in the obscure village of Betlehem, most likely sorrunded only by your mother and your stepfather. According to Scripture, you voluntarily left majestic glory to penetrate the divide between heaven and earth, eventually to leave your cherished creations in a much better condition.

As King you allowed yourself to be brought into this world in a manner most dignitaries would find revolting and demeaning. Your first hours on earth were spent in a feeding trough, far from the comfort and luxury of princes. You did not regard it as an insult either, when later in life you would probably recall your mother passing on to you her memories of those early days when the lowest of the low, the much despised shepherds, came bursting in on the little family of three, incoherently and in total bewilderment telling of an encounter with angels.

The rest of the story is well known, Lord. We have it in our Bibles. We read about it frequently. But, as you know full well, these days so-called experts and researchers have relegated this account of your birth to the status of myth and legend, judging it highly unlikely that your birth happened in the way it was recorded by the eyewitnesses. They have closed their minds, Lord, to the possibility that you, being capable of greater feats than humans, could easily have arranged things so that your birth was accompanied both by these strange supernatural beings, followed by visits from both the low and the detested alien magi.

I take it that this doesn't grieve you as much as the common misconception that you somehow never did leave your feeding trough behind. Even people who do not normally pay much attention to your present role as King of Kings, find it comforting to sing their Christmas carols this time of year. It probably reminds some of them of past times spent in the loving company of their parents and relatives. But as soon as Christmas is over, as soon as the wrappings have been consigned to the litter bins, you slip out of their consciousnesses and waking hours again.

But you did leave the feeding trough. Because it was never your intention to give us cause to minimize the importance of your mission to that of a good-will ambassador from heaven bent on instigating a worldwide celebration of his nativity. You do not take offense at it, as celebrating it with good food, nativity plays and Christmas carols really only lifts our spirits, fills our bellies with good things, and brings our families together for some very precious moments around the table and the amply decorated green tree.

Lord, I just want you to know that I have learned that your birth was not an event signalling the introduction of a new tradition. It was never meant to pacify the the troubled minds of those who knew then, and know now, that they still cheat on their wives, still fiddle with their income tax return forms, still spread false rumours about workmates, still callously kill the unborn, still continue the ghastly practice of keeping up trade barriers to protect themselves from ruin.

You came to challenge the status quo. Your intention was to provoke the intellectually lazy and morally perverted into profoundly thinking twice about their present states, and the eventual outcome of their lives. You came not to make them more outwardly religious, but your goal was to inject life of a heavenly quality, so as to raise humanity from its nadir in the moral gutter - and to bring us forward as a unfied people of all races and languages to a state where we will reflect, collectively and individually, the mature expressions of your divine person.

This is why your chief concern isn't eradicating the commercialization of Christmas, but to cleanse the idolatry of money-worship from our hearts and minds. You have perfected the art of giving yourself, but your giving differs vastly from ours. Because you gave without even half-demanding reciprocality: your gift was such that no one of us could possibly given back in kind. Your gift was your own body and your own blood. And as we realize how that gift relates to us, and our trivial and special tasks, we are brought to recognize that
the child in the feeding trough now commands our total attention and obedience.

As King it is your prerogative to rule. But unlike the tyrants and demagogues holding office back in your earthly days, your rule in our lives doesn't terrify us into the cowering subservience of slaves, but it elevates us to the dignity of co-regents, with a special commission to serve others - not lord it over them, forcing or intimidating them into accepting our outlook on life.

My Lord and my King, this day is traditionally your birthday. And on this day I confess, as I have done may times previously, that I gladly accept your right to rule, your right to hear from me worshipful declarations of allegiance, your right to expect from me a willing obedience whenever I come to know what your will is.

I thank you, King, that I can enjoy my food today in the company of my loved ones; my wife and our three children, and throughout this evening celebrate, in spirit and in truth, the wonder and the undiluted expression of divine love evinced through your birth in Betlehem all those long years ago.

I salute you, King, with feeble thanks and a willing heart.

Happy bithday, Jesus.