A Fractured World
Amidst so much pain, injury, war and death,
what can we say today about Christmas and its
message of Joy and Peace to a fractured world?
Everywhere we turn, blood is being spilled in the
name of God and Religion. People, including
people of faith, find it difficult to explain the
dark clouds that hover over our horizon. In April
this year, I issued an Easter Message titled, Do
not let our enemies ask, where is your God?
However, although people might claim that
things now are even worse, we know in our
hearts that our hope will not disappoint us.
Struggle for Power
Today, the path to peace is littered with so
much debris of human pain, both here in Nigeria
and abroad. The excesses of Boko Haram still
haunt the landscape. The Chibok girls have still
not been found and we will spend yet another
Christmas without their laughter ringing in our
homes. The engine of political change has still
not gathered the steam we had hoped for.
The political calendar continues to shift as we
witness a domino effect of overturned elections
across the States. All in all, new anxieties, new
battles for power among the elite will likely lead
us to loss of more innocent lives and blood. The
contest for power continues to take its toll and
we continue to yearn for a stable state.
Has Religion Failed Us?
Amidst so much pain, injury, war and death,
Religion is a key player. Some people think that
Religion has failed to bring blessings and is
instead to be blamed for the woes of the world.
While this position may not be correct, we
believers cannot turn our eyes from the fact that
we must take a substantial part of the blame.
For us as Christians, we must ask what has
become of the message of Jesus Christ, Our
Lord and Saviour?
Where is the Laughter, the Joy, the Peace that is
promised in the different Christmas carols we
continue to sing year in and year out? Where is
the light that Jesus brought and entrusted to us
to drive darkness from the world? Today, more
than ever, we Christians must rise up and take
full responsibility for what we have done or not
done. We Catholics confess our sins during the
celebration of the Holy Mass, we accept and
plead with God to forgive us for ''what we have
done and also what we have failed to do''. Often
the sins we commit by omission can be as
serious as the ones we commit by actions. Let
us not be bystanders. Each of us must commit
ourselves to doing good today.
Blame Government but take responsibility
We have learnt to blame the government for
everything as an excuse for our own sins of
omission. But, how, for example, is a
government responsible for parents whose
irresponsible lifestyles lead to their children
being sick or out of school? How is government
responsible for men or women who decide to
marry and bring children into the world when
they have no means of taking care of them?
How is government responsible for domestic
violence?
How is government responsible for the collapse
of family life? How is government responsible
for students who decide to cheat in their
examinations? How is government responsible
for people who choose armed robbery rather
than hard work? How is government responsible
for people who decide to choose a life of
prostitution? Government can and must create
conditions, but we must all become instruments
of change.
Christians, Show the Way and Be like Christ
A poor man kept showing up in the Church but
each time the warders would not let him in
because he oozed some odour and they feared
that his presence could offend some of the big
shots in the Church. He got fed up one day with
trying and, holding the cross in his hands, he
cried to Jesus: Lord, I heard your message and
have tried to enter the Church to worship you,
but the people in the Church will not let me in.
Please, forgive me but kindly accept my prayers
here on the streets where I am. Jesus said to
him: Sorry, my son, my fate is not different from
yours. Even I have tried to enter their Church,
but they have refused to let me in too!
Today, we Africans pride ourselves on our
expansive, expressive, explosive, superfluous and
ubiquitous show of dubious religiosity matched
by a most deplorable lifestyle of deceit, banditry
and criminality. Today, we Christian leaders
have created the conditions for our men and
women in public life to misbehave in the name
of God, and indeed we Christian leaders have
mutilated the message of Jesus Christ.
We Christians all share in the fraud that has
engulfed our nation and we must therefore find
the courage to ask ourselves some very hard
questions while searching our consciences. The
drama and theatre that masquerades as
Christianity should be a cause for concern for all
of us and an invitation to soul searching.
Jesus did not ask us to become famous healers,
wonder workers, miracle hawkers, fortune tellers,
money doublers, stargazers, or prayer warriors
for the rich and the powerful. In His real life, He
chased all of these false prophets out with
whips. The prophetic voice today should
thunderously warn that the mighty could be cast
down from their thrones and the lowly will be
lifted up.
Instead, what we see is an army of obsequious
sycophants, groveling and kowtowing before the
thrones of power. From their Hymn books, they
sing deceitful ululations assuring those who
have stolen wealth and power that it shall be
permanent because it is the Lord who has done
it.
Suddenly, all of us have become princes, and we
have a God who does nothing but butter our
bread. Suddenly, all of us have to be rich, and
none of us can fall sick because sickness is a
curse. We are told that wealth and power are the
signatures of God’s love and blessing and that
everyone outside our small circle of fraud is a
sinner, to be cast out and burnt by Holy Ghost
fire. But did the real Holy Ghost fire not burn
out fear and enable the tongues of the Apostles
to speak the truth?
Jesus called us to be Witnesses. Jesus did not
ask that we should be called His followers;
neither did the early Apostles go about saying
so. Rather, it was unbelievers who saw His
followers withstand torture and humiliation, they
saw His followers literally walking in His
footsteps, it was then that they called them,
Christians (Acts 11:26).
From the first day that Pope Francis was elected
till date, he has shocked the rest of the world,
including my humble self with the way He has
presented Christ. He has released Jesus, the
man from Nazareth and allowed Him to go
about doing good (Acts 10:38). The Pope has
shown this by lifting up the lowly (Lk. 1:52). He
has also shunned the pomp, pageantry and all
the paraphernalia and trappings of power.
The entire world has come to see the Catholic
Church differently through his eyes. Pope
Francis has added a sense of urgency to the
struggle to close the unacceptable gap between
the rich and the poor, insisting that all of us are
created in the image and likeness of God.
Christmas celebration is not meant to be a mere
ritual on the calendar. The idea is for us to
pause and assess where we are in the struggle
to create God’s Kingdom here on earth by being
His witnesses. We must constantly reflect on
why we have chosen to be Christians and how
we are engaged in the collective work of
spreading the Word of God to all the corners of
the earth by our example.
He was born in a manger with animals as his
first neighbours.
He had no house of His own
He had His last supper in a borrowed House
His last journey to Jerusalem was on a
borrowed donkey
Even in death, He was buried in a borrowed
tomb
My dear friends, these are difficult times for us
as human beings, but they are also times of
promise for believers. The Prophet Isaiah
reminds us: Though youths grow weary and
tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly.
Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new
strength; They will mount up with wings like
eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will
walk and not become weary.
Our duty as Christians is to turn to Christ for
answers rather than erect false gods. St. Paul
enjoins us to be in the world but not of the
world. We must point our people to the cross of
Christ, to the values and virtues of Christianity.
Jesus taught us how to love not how to seek
revenge, how to serve not how to oppress
others. It is easier and more profitable to raise
an army of prayer warriors to prophesy about all
our problems.
The grammar of Christian life enjoins us to seek
contentment and joy. Poverty is not a curse and
riches are not necessarily a blessing. We already
know that accumulating resources is no
guarantee of happiness. So, as we celebrate the
Prince of Peace, let us truly beg him to not only
grant us peace, but to make us instruments of
Peace. All of this is within our reach. So, let us
pray:
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where
there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt,
faith; where there is despair, hope; where there
is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled as to console; to be
understood as to understand; to be loved as to
love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in
pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying
that we are born again to eternal life.
I wish each one of you a very blessed and happy
Christmas and a peaceful New Year 2016.
— Matthew Hassan KUKAH, Catholic Bishop of
Sokoto Diocese
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