Christmas, a holiday that transcends religious boundaries

Passengers arrive at Kisii bus station on Christmas Eve. Transport was paralyzed in most parts of the Country as Kenyans travelled to up country for Christmas. [Sammy Omingo, Standard]

We survived the traffic miasma to get upcountry for the annual Christmas rituals. These past few days, Kenyans have witnessed miles upon miles of stalled motor vehicles on the roads as we careered our way to our rural homes, and to Western Kenya especially.

For hours on end, our vehicles were as idle as painted automotives, upon painted roads, as everyone selfishly tried to beat everyone else on highways creaking under excessive overflow of automobiles.  

There have been stranded families here, stuck ones there, and stalled people everywhere, trying to navigate their way to villages and hamlets they have not been to in ages.

Others have been stranded at bus stations and at railway stations in the locations of origin. It is all a part of our annual end of year rituals, in the season of Christmas.

As part of these festivities, Kenyans strive to get home, where they were born, to celebrate the Christmas feast with the rest of their kinsmen. This is the Kenyan annual nativity.  

We are not alone.

A traditionally Christian festival to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ has morphed into a secular jamboree season that returns people to their native places of origin.

Family fellowships, jamborees of friends, food, drinks, gifts, and even traditional African cultural rituals and rites, are a part of it all.  Such is our nativity, worlds apart from orthodox Christian nativity of old.  

Biblically, nativity is the conflictingly told story of the birth of Jesus Christ. We read about it in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Curiously, the other two Gospels, Mark and John, do not have the Christmas story.

John, however, parabolically talks of Christ as the Word, which in the beginning was with God and was God. And the Word became man and dwelt among men, as the light of the world (John 1: –4).  

Celebrated on 25 December, Christ’s historicity and nativity is taken as a matter of course. Orthodox Christians do not burden themselves with the nuanced inconsistencies and conflicts in the stories that were told by Matthew and Luke in their Gospels about the birth of Christ.

They are satisfied with the Gospel narratives as ultimate truths. They believe that Christ was a real person, contrary to suggestions by some schools of thought that his story is the tale of a Jewish mythical figure, passed on to other civilizations through evangelizing and proselytizing missions, over two millennia.

Beyond that, however, curious seekers of knowledge are aware of what some scholars have called the historical Jesus Christ. This is to say that even in the secular world, respected researchers have –  across the centuries –  used critical study methods outside traditional biblical texts, to confirm that there once lived a person who was called Jesus of Nazareth. His life story was very much in agreement with the stories that are told in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke; and the Theological Gospel of John. The historical Jesus lived and operated in the places and times that are told in the Bible.  

Of course, some of these scholars do not accept the divine character of Christ. They have argued that to exist as a historical figure, and to be the divine son of God, are two different things. So, they will agree that there was Jesus but, beyond that, they will doubt that he was the son of God. They will even doubt that he performed the miracles that are recorded in the gospels. Less contested, however, are his teachings. Despite the controversies, doubts and disbelief, however, Christmas excites humankind everywhere.  

Flu of celebration

But what do we celebrate? Or put differently, why does Christmas excite us so; to include even those who do not belong to the faith? For, when you have caught the rhythm of Christmas, it is the same in all its music.

It is jingle bells here, jingle bells there; jingle bells everywhere. It does not seem to matter that you are Christian, or not. The spirit simply grips and overwhelms humanity like nothing else seems to. The flu of celebration is prodigious.

There is Christmas shopping and chomping. There are travels and carousals. There is abdication of responsibility, and the throwing of all cares to the four winds of free spirit, until January.  

President Museveni dramatically says, “They drink the whole night, dance the whole night, drive and die at 43. The priest comes and says, God has called him.’” What is the excitement and celebration about, even among non-Christians, to the extent that people allow God to call them, in the process?  

The most obvious reason would seem to be that it is the festive season that marks the end of year. People want to cast away the burdens of the ending period, to give themselves a few days of joyous living. They want to loosen up, and have a good time.  They are happy to have come this far.

To have survived. Why not send away the year with viands and libations, whatever your circumstances? Ecstasy is then the spirit of Christmas. In the process, even those who profess Christianity engage in some of the most excessive worldly indulgences that would shock President Museveni and the Pope.

Forbidden pleasures are sampled sumptuously in this season of Christian celebration.  

Far from the practice in the global North to garnish the celebrations with Christmas trees, candles, lights and other celebratory paraphernalia that townsfolk in Africa have embraced,  eating and drinking parties are the hallmarks in rural Kenya, in places like Emanyulia.

The missing Christmas tree is possibly a part of traditional Christian symbolism, whose exact significance may not be so clear. It probably prefigures the cross on which Christ would later be crucified. But then it is a fairly frail tree, mostly the fir, pine, or the spruce.

Or, perhaps, the significance is the evergreen nature of these trees, to symbolize the consistent nature of Christ, about whom it has been written that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8)? 

Traditional brews mingle freely with modern drinks, to wash down red and white meats, served prodigiously among families.

The celebrations here in Emanyulia intersect between the church and the secular world. First, there is the worship in church. T

his is itself also a kind of social occasion. People in fine linen meet to celebrate friends and relatives whom they have not seen for long, and to exchange laughter and sundry niceties. Then the real celebration begins, back at home and in public houses.

Pub rolling, sporting activities and other cultural extravaganza follow, with visits across families in tow for the rest of the season. The curtain comes down dramatically after New Year’s Day. We wake up the  following morning tired, and mostly penniless. We stare grimly at twelve months of uncertainty ahead.  

While the words “Let’s eat, drink and make merry, for tomorrow we die” have been rendered in several places in the Bible to caution against excessive indulgence and sense of hopelessness, the converse has taken over in the emerged secular Christmas.

For, the original Christian festivity that would seem to date back to about the 3rd Century AD, was an exclusively solemn celebration of Christ’s divinity. The date 25 December has, of course, been the subject of unending controversy that is probably not all that important.

For, if both Christian theologians and secular historians agree that Christ lived, the fixing of the date with definitive precision is trite.

Astronomical starry happenings at about the time of birth, as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, as well as civic historical happenings, such as the census that was order by the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar (63 BC–14 AD) in Luke’s Gospel, point to the possibility of the accuracy of the date.  

Yet, the birth of Christ was possibly not observed until after the year 225, when the Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus placed the date to 25 December, through association of the movement of the sun, the stars and other astronomical and civic considerations.

A resultant complication was, of course, the association of determining Christ’s birthday with astronomy, and symbols that were considered pagan.

The Church would in later times have serious and even fatal conflict with astronomers. In the 1500s, for example, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) gained scholarly distinction as an astronomer, mathematician and Catholic cannon.

He is credited with being the first person to propose and demonstrate that the planets orbit around the sun. Yet, years later, some of those who walked in his scientific footsteps, like Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) and Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) would run into serious trouble with the Church, because of adopting and expanding the astronomical ideas of Copernicus.

For supporting the ideas of Copernicus, and demonstrating that the sun, and not the planet Earth, was at the centre of the universe, the Church placed Galileo under house arrest in the year 1616. He remained in confinement for the rest of his life. And earlier, in 1600, Bruno was burnt alive at the Catholic stake, for refusing to recant the statement that the sun was at the centre of the universe.  

This heliocentric theory of the universe, as it was called, was seen to contradict parts of the Bible, which was categorical that the Earth was at the centre of the universe. The importance of all this is that astronomy was key to placing the birth of Christ on 25 December.

 Accordingly, if astronomy should collapse, or be dismissed as pagan, then the 25 December date also collapses with it.

Mercifully, later scientists have been able to validate the heliocentric theory. In 1992, following a 13 yearlong investigation that was commissioned by Pope John Paul II, the  Church regretted the unfair incarceration of Galileo and apologised, 376 years later.

And in 2000, four hundred years after the killing of Bruno, Cardinal Angelo Sardano declared his burning “a sad episode.” The Italian primate, however, defended the inquisition that killed him, saying that it meant well.

Regardless,  the date 25 December, or very close thereabouts, hinges its scientific validity in the work of these people who, regrettably, were incarcerated for the very work that lends credence to the date and biblical happenings that the world celebrates today. It says a lot on the need for science, the arts and divinity to work together for the promotion of the common good. 

Scientific debates and their confrontations with theology aside, both Christians and non-Christians go on to celebrate the festive season, oblivious of the disputations. Commerce, especially, taps into the spirit of Christmas in a big way. First off the blocks was possibly the United States, in the period 1820. Santa Claus was suddenly everywhere, not just delivering presents to children, but also endorsing commercial goods.  

Tim Herford in “A History of Commercializing Christmas (2000), ”  observes that about this time, Christian puritans were wrestling with cheerful street mobs that just wanted to enjoy a happy-go-lucky time. They wanted to enjoy hilarious outdoors carnivores and carousals, with music, dance and drama. Puritans wanted “a quiet stay-at-home family Christmas, with not a creature stirring, not even a mouse.” 

Of course, this desire has long been defeated. Shopping malls have sprung up everywhere, even in small villages in Africa, where moneymaking enticement is the order of the day in this festive season. Statistics from the US National Retail Federation show that working Americans spend USD 900 (about Sh117,000) on Christmas. Upper middle class Kenyans spend way far above this on transport, food, drinks in the same season. Those taking families and friends to spend the holidays in beach hotels could blow as much as Sh300,000 at the very minimum, depending on the mode of travel, hotel, food and drinks, even for a party comprising only parents and two teenage children.  

This season, accommodation at prestigious beach hotels on the North Coast in Mombasa is costing about Sh60,000 per person per night, all inclusive. Air tickets are anywhere up to Sh45,000 for a round trip, on an economy ticket. Christmas spending can be hell. Little wonder that the month of January itself morphs into another living hell, as reality catches up.  

For ordinary folk going to Emanyulia, bus transport is about Sh4,000 one way. Then there is food and sundry family expectations. The Church, too, is waiting with Christmas envelopes. For a family of four, transport alone will cost you Sh32,000, for a round trip, on the lower side. Factor in other costs, and it becomes a Christmas of tears, regardless that you are a Christian gentleman travelling to worship with our family, or a non-believer just enjoying the end of year season. Young people going home to show off their new cars and partners must equip themselves with even more money, and a generous flow of tears in the aftermath. 

But then there is the non-believer who observes Christmas philosophically and stoically. Consider Bertrand Russell (1872–1970). The British mathematician, philosopher and Nobel Peace laureate ranks eminently among non-believers in recent times.

Russell believed that Christianity, and religion generally, was bad for humanity. He did not believe in the existence of God, resurrection, and immortality, among other doctrines. In a word, he did not believe in religion.

Hope for the world

Yet, Russell would find time, at Christmas, to reflect on Christian principles and to send out Christmas messages. One such (a) message reads, “A Christmas Message: The spirit of brotherhood embodies not only the highest morality, but also the truest wisdom, and the only road by which nations, torn with the wounds which scientific madness has inflicted, can emerge into a life where growth is possible and joy is not banished at the frenzied call of unreal and fictitious duties.” 

Russell signs off this message with the words, “Deeds inspired by hate are not duties, whatever pain and sacrifice they may involve. Life and hope for the world is to be found only in the deeds of love.”   

It is instructive that Russell focuses on life, hope for the world, and love, all of which are focal points in Christianity. Yet, he was not a Christian, or believer in any other religion. There are profound intersections between Christian values and virtues elsewhere, which probably help to explain why Christmas, an essentially Christian feast, elicits excitement among non-Christians.  

In all this, one thing is not in doubt. Over the past two thousand years and going, nothing has had such a profound impact on humankind as the life and ministry of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It is beyond profound, in point of fact, that in this season the whole world comes to a standstill, to variously celebrate, agree and disagree on the birth and divinity of Christ, and to feel the impact of the fact that this person was born, regardless that you consider the birth to have been real or mythical; divine or biological. No war, no innovation, no pestilence – nothing – has ever occupied the human psyche and behaviour as Jesus Christ and Christmas, regardless of where you want to stand on this matter. Righteous or debauched. Sober or dissipated. Rich or poor. Believer or non-believer. The focus is on Christ. For the global Christian family, that alone is more than adequate to define Jesus Christ as God. 

-Dr Muluka is a strategic communication advisor