We celebrate Christmas by exchanging gifts with colleagues and with our loved ones. We also give presents to our own children because it is believed that Christmas is a children?s festival. We even wish ?Merry Christmas? to neighbours, colleagues, our family and relatives. We organise lunches, dinners, parties or we are invited to social gatherings to celebrate Christmas.

Depending on our social status, we?ll enjoy ourselves thoroughly at our grand or less expensive celebrations. But, behind all these outward rejoicings, the inner man is an empty shell. Food and drink cannot quench that living and burning pain that we feel in our soul. This emptiness, this void in the soul affects equally the wealthy and the poor.

Only when we close the door of our homes at night, in the privacy of our rooms, do we lift the mask of pretence to show our real self in the mirror. We are no longer the arrogant boss, unpleasant colleague, rude conductor, domineering parent or nasty adolescent. We?re just miserable. In fact we?re seeking true happiness, genuine relationships with members of our family, fidelity in friendship and marriage and a healthy relationship among colleagues.

But it doesn?t exist in this world. Jesus Christ came for this purpose. The real Christmas is about the birth of the Son of God to save people, men and women, old and young alike, those who are helpless and wish for true happiness. Christ didn?t remain a babe in a manger. He grew up. In his thirties, he started a three-year ministry teaching his 12 disciples about salvation in Him, about His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension.

Sceptics and atheists consider the virgin birth mere sham and Christianity stupidity because modern man doesn?t need God. He is master of his destiny. He can do what he wishes. But we, as human beings, are selfish. We wish the best for ourselves. We don?t care about the welfare of our fellow beings. If ever there is a caring man, he likes it when man applauds his good deeds and rewards him for them. If we examine our very self, we?ll notice our tendency to work at pampering our ego, always blaming others.

Jesus Christ through His crucifixion has transformed the lives of many men and women throughout history. He still does and will do so in the future. The blood He shed because of the six-feet nails pierced in his hands and feet, the thorny crowned forced down on his head, the cruel lashes on his bloody back, the flesh still hanging out and the bones bare.

As a new year dawns, He is calling out the most miserable people: daddies having incestuous relations with their kids, paedophiles, prostitutes, lesbians and homosexuals, thieves and murderers, even religious people who cannot get rid of their lust for pornography. The freedom which Christ gives is wonderful and to worship at His feet is magnificent!

Brinda RUNGHSAWMEE