How do you celebrate at all, when the hole in your heart is wider than any sink-hole known to man and deeper than the deepest of hell? How do you rejoice, when the only memories you have are the beautiful ones, all warped and misshapen with pain? When you are accused, misunderstood, rejected, cheated, betrayed, lobotomized and abandoned can celebration ever enter a bleeding heart? How can the guitar sing when all its strings are broken? Sona anti beca holo, sona hi hoi (If the gold ornament is bent out of shape, it is still gold - Bengali Proverb). Rejoice, because no matter how broken, badly bruised, crushed beyond recognition or marginalized God still values you.
There was this man who loved God deeply. He wasn't much to look at, his companions looked better. All he ever wanted to do was to share what God did for him. At a town he succeeded in bringing a leading business woman to faith. She got herself baptized along with all those connected to her. It was a remarkable turnaround in this boom-town. She opened her home for hospitality and service to these ragged band of itinerant evangelists and their leader. Things couldn't have been more comfortable for these traveling preachers, to stay in that city and bring more to the faith of their convictions. Things skidded sideways when they did a miracle that was bad for the finances of some folk in the town. So, they were dragged up before the authorities on trumped-up charges without any fair trial. Then stripped in public as the crowd beat them mercilessly with rods. Then whip-lashed until their backs bled in shreds and were thrown into a prison to fester on their wounds.
The story is true in the numerous places across India sweeping like an epidemic, swallowing the true servants of God, in a rage of severe right-wing idealism. But the story I am referring to is found in Acts 16: 11-23. The man is Paul and the city is Philippi. Philippi was a Roman colony and a leading city in the district of Macedonia. This shameful, humiliating and painful experience Paul recounts, to teach forbearance, in 1 Thessalonians 2: 2.
In the very last phases of his ministry Paul is again in prison. But he writes to the Philippians, from the Mamertine prison, built under the city of Rome. During the rains the filth of the city would dredge into these centuries old dungeon. It was a place where important state prisoners were lowered into, often prior to their execution. Consisting of two underground cells, it once held a room under the city sewers in the lower chamber. Historical sources have described it as dank and foreboding and inmates rarely stayed here for long periods of time. In that prison he writes with anguish, "Demas, because he loved the world, has deserted me" (1 Thess 4: 10); "Alexander the metal-worker did me a great deal of harm" (1 Thess 4:14); "At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me" (1 Thess 4: 16). But it was in this very dungeon, full of refuse (Phil 3: 8), against all hope that Paul says, "Rejoice in the Lord and again I say rejoice" (Phil 4: 4). In just four chapters of Philippians "joy" is mentioned 16 times. In that dark, dirty dungeon, with no physical comfort Paul could rejoice. That was his last and lasting testament of faith: he knew that his creator valued him, even if everyone devalued him. What is your testament of faith?
Christmas is here and New Year round the corner and social media is overloaded with wishes for the season. How much of it is true? Do these wishes help the lonely, the broken and the lost? Have our words and actions brought a smile to those in our ambit? How do we celebrate beyond the brokenness within? How do we celebrate in a fashion that heals the broken? What is your testament of faith?
Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.
He will not shout or cry out,
or raise his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
Isaiah 42: 1-3
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