Original Christmas and Christmas Today
As little children we would dream of Christmas morn
“we are the reason” song by avalon
Of all the gifts and toys we knew we’d find
But we never realized a baby born one blessed night
Gave us the greatest gift of our lives
We were the reason that He gave His life
We were the reason that He suffered and died
To a world that was lost, He gave all He could give
To show us the reason to live.
1st Misa de Gallo
Welcome to Misa de Gallo 2024! It’s been 2,024 years since the very first Christmas. That is so long. No wonder our Christmas this year is so different from the day Jesus was born. How different? Let me tell you.
First, the original Christmas was a silent night. Everyone was asleep except Joseph, Mary and a few shepherds. Now our Christmas is so noisy with all the firecrackers the Chinese has introduced to drive away bad luck. Not to mention the night long karaoke singing of the neighbor.
Second, the original Christmas was poor. The baby was wrapped in swaddling clothes, born sharing room with the animals in a stable. Now our Christmas table has overflowing food. And everyone dons new clothes.
Nevertheless there are also some things very similar between the original Christmas and our present day Christmas.
First, the angels that night sang “Glory to God in the highest” inviting the sleepy shepherds towards the place of the newborn king. Nowadays in imitation of these angels we go also about singing carols at every house we could visit.
Second, the three kings followed the bright star that guided them to Bethlehem at the house of the infant Savior bringing him gifts of gold, incense and myrrh. Today we hung up lanterns and hundreds of lights summoning people from all over to celebrate Christmas possibly giving gifts to every friend and kin.
But why give gifts to each other and not to Jesus the real birthday celebrant of the day. Why have kris kringle, manito- manita or exchange gifts? Well on the very first Christmas happened the very first exchange of gifts between God and us. When Jesus was born, we gave Him our humanity so that by dying 33 years after He could return to us His divinity!
That’s also the meaning of the Christmas trees we put up. The tree on Christmas would be the cross where the savior would be hung to save us.
Jesus is the reason for the season. He was born only to die to save us from sin.