Monalisa Changkija
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n exactly a month’s time, it would be the night before Christmas. Now is as good a time as any to ask ourselves how we plan to spend the night before Christmas and indeed Christmas Day itself. If you have problems and doubts about what you would be doing a month from today, I suggest you pick up Zelhou Keyho’s book The Night Before Christmas (First Edition 2013, sponsored by the Samrajyam Welfare Society, the design and layout of which was done by Heritage Publishing House, 65 Duncan, near Essar Petrol Pump, Dimapur, Nagaland).This is not a book I would normally review, or even read, but when Reverend Keyho, a dear friend, who is the Academic Dean of the Oriental Theological Seminary (OTS), Bade, Dimapur, asked me to review it, I agreed. I really don’t know why but I’m glad I did because it reinforced my beliefs about what Christmas is all about and helped me re-focus on what it is meant to be.
Times are such today it is easy to get distracted, diverted and digressed and The Night Before Christmas has come at just the right time to remind us that, as Believers, we need to revisit Baby Jesus laying in the manger at a Bethlehem stable, bringing a whole new meaning to the lives of human beings burdened with sin, sorrow and suffering. The Night Before Christmas could have been written and edited better but hey, don’t get sidetracked by the medium, focus on the message. I believe, unwittingly this book also underscores how we have allowed the medium to make us forget the message of Christmas.
Zelhou Keyho, who teaches Old Testament and Biblical Languages at OTS, Bade, writes that Christmas passes by in a blink of the eyes but it doesn’t have to be so, adding “With Christ, it can and should be all year round”. Clearly, this also means that as Believers, we need to be Christians 24X7 and not just on Sundays, Christmases and Easters. The book contains nine chapters, the last being Prayer Time For Family At Christmas, which I believe should help strengthen family bonds, so crucial for our individual and collectives lives.
Keyho writes, “Christmas had a beginning. It started in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve wilfully decided to obey the serpent and disobey God”, in the chapter, Love That Came Down At Christmas. He explains why God had to manifest Himself in human form, thankfully in a very simple manner, not the churchy, sermony way.
“What are you expecting this Christmas? Are you wishing that something different will happen? Are you entering into it differently than you have before? What is your wish?” Keyho asks in the chapter The Heart Of Christmas, which should help you deal with the answers, as he reminds us that “Christmas is also a time for renewal: renewal of friendship, of family relationship but most of all renewal of our relationship with God”. But seeing the way we have adapted to the “done things” like fish to water, we have even managed to totally change the meaning of the word “renewal” and transformed the superfluous into the lait motif of our lives. I agree with him entirely when he writes: “Personally, I feel Christmas back then was more meaningful”.
In the chapter The Couple That Makes Christmas, Keyho writes about the “unfortunate couple” (Mary and Joseph) who could not find a room in the inn at Bethlehem but was used by God to unveil the wonders of Christmas and their joyful and complete submission to His will, while at the same time reminding us of the numerous indifferent religious leaders around King Herod, who knew exactly where the Messiah would be born but though full of religious knowledge they had no personal experience of a relationship with God and had no desire to worship the Messiah. In this chapter, Keyho allows us to get a glimpse of Mary and Joseph’s characters, nature and personalities --- very educative because we hardly ever think about these two major protagonists of the Christmas story.
The chapter Modern Day Narrative of The Night Before Christmas is very absorbing. Keyho uses all his ingenuity and creative talents to bring to us Mary and Joseph as entirely human, just like us, concerned with the mundane of life. Thereby he also creates for us a picture of how society was in their days and how very little has changed today --- as Nagas we would be able to totally relate to the Jewish society because like them we too are focused on our pedigree, our clan, our village, our tribe, our professions, our social status, etc., as well as our bondage to varied forms of tyranny particularly manifesting in the form of corruption, absence of good governance, increasing racism, intolerance, struggle for dominance, turf wars, etc., which at the time of the first Christmas were personified by Kind Herod.
Keyho writes, “He came so that we can become better than we thought we could be”, in the chapter The True Meaning of Christmas, further emphasizing that “in Jesus, the glory of God was restored to humanity”. He further emphasizes that Christmas “can be a time of healing and renewed strength” in the next chapter Christmas With A Brighter Perspective, because Jesus’ story is one of truth, love and hope.
Christmas With A Difference is the chapter I liked most because the good Reverend highlights how we have contextualized and commercialized Christmas away from Baby Jesus laying in a manger in the humble stable at Bethlehem to some ritzy and glitzy place, where there is no place for the Son of God, the Saviour, the Messiah. Indeed, this chapter mirrors the debasement of Christmas across the globe, not least in Nagaland because here we are only too receptive and eager to do the “done things”. But as Keyho writes: “The meaning of the season is the corner stone of our faith, the touch stone of Christian history, which is theologically termed as soteriology (Salvation History). He also writes: “What God did at Christmas is the crowning reason of our Christmas celebration. He did not come to entertain us, to simply make us wonder at the event and to make us busy”. I agree with Keyho that Christmas is not the time for the hula-hoopla but for serious contemplation of God’s love for undeserving sinners like us, a time when we need to humbly re-visit the Son of God at the stable laying in a manger. It is the time to seek God’s grace to bless us with “the spirit of the fist Christmas”.
There are several heart-warming stories in The Night Before Christmas reflecting “the spirit of the first Christmas”, which I suggest you read to help you re-connect with what Christmas is all about. And I am convinced that Prayer Time For Family At Christmas would have special message and meaning for your family. Christmas, after all, is also about the family, the human family and God’s Family.
Keyho writes: “Jesus is the reason for the season” and his book would help you celebrate a Christmas with a difference. Dr. Hukashe A Zhimomi, who wrote the book’s Foreword, is right that Keyho has “brought out a holistic perspective of Christmas” in a simple language to remind us of the Greatest Story Ever Told.
The book, based on Keyho’s unique experiences and personal collection of stories and articles written over the years, contains 106 pages and is priced at Rs. 130/. Do get a copy from the Samrajyam Welfare Society (mobile: 8731988460, 9615851944) or contact at swsvja7@gmail.com.
The Night Before Christmas, would make a very meaningful Christmas gift.
