Friday, August 7, 2026

When the Sun Is Veiled: A Christian reflection on wonder, faith, science and care for creation

Viewing a solar eclipse as an Indian Christian in post-secular Britain

“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork.” — Psalm 19:1

A memory carried from India

As a child in India, I do not remember viewing a solar eclipse, though I remember lunar eclipses vividly. Friends and families gathered on a rooftop and watched the night sky together. When darkness deepened, we sang Christian songs, not because our singing could control the heavens, but because singing gave us courage and turned fear into fellowship. The eclipse was never merely astronomical; it arrived wrapped in stories, warnings, wonder and communal memory.

I also remember the claims surrounding an eclipse: pregnant women should not look at it; food prepared during it might become harmful; normal work should cease; and unusual objects might stand upright in water. We even tested one such claim with a grain-pounding stick, and my childhood memory insists that it stood! I smile at that memory now, while recognising something serious beneath it: eclipses expose how scientific explanation, inherited belief, bodily fear, family authority and cultural identity can inhabit the same person.

The Indian Christian dilemma

In Telugu, a solar eclipse is called sūrya grahaṇam. In everyday speech, grahaṇam can also suggest that something has been overshadowed by misfortune. The eclipse may therefore be felt not simply as an alignment of Sun, Moon and Earth, but as an inauspicious interruption. I remember a popular story/myth from my childhood about a solar eclipse. It says that the severed head of an asura pursues and temporarily swallows the Sun or Moon in revenge, causing an eclipse. Because the heavenly light soon reappears, Rahu cannot hold it for long. In popular Christian memory, this complex story is sometimes simplified into the claim that an evil force is swallowing the Sun. Whether told as sacred mythology, cultural memory or fearful warning, the image can make the eclipse feel like a cosmic struggle rather than a predictable astronomical event. Many families therefore avoid cooking, eating, travelling, beginning new work or allowing pregnant women outdoors during the eclipse.

Indian Christians may consequently face a layered dilemma. If we view the eclipse, are we disrespecting the myths or dismissing the anxieties of our families? If we refuse to view it, are we allowing fear to govern our understanding of God’s creation? If the Sun is revered in another religious tradition, does attentive viewing compromise Christian worship? And if churches mock every inherited custom as ‘superstition’, do we reproduce a colonial habit of treating Indian cultures as backward while presenting Western science as culturally neutral?

These questions deserve more than a quick yes or no. I do not want to shame those who feel anxious, especially pregnant women who have received warnings from people they trust. Pastoral care begins by listening. Yet respect for a person is not the same as affirming every claim. A solar eclipse does not emit uniquely harmful rays, poison food or announce divine anger. Its physical cause can be understood and predicted: the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun and temporarily obscures the Sun from our viewpoint.

Why I can view the eclipse as a Christian

I can participate because viewing is not worship. To look at the Sun and Moon with wonder is not to make them divine. Genesis 1:14–18 deliberately presents the heavenly lights as creatures within God’s creation, given to mark days, seasons and years. Psalm 19 declares that the heavens tell God’s glory. Scientific knowledge does not diminish that testimony; it allows me to understand more clearly the ordered relationships through which creation unfolds.

I can also participate because Christian faith need not be organised by fear. An eclipse is not a struggle in which evil temporarily defeats God, nor is it an omen demanding panic. It is a natural event whose predictability is itself a gift of knowledge. Faith asks not that I deny its physical explanation, but that I receive the event with gratitude, humility and responsibility.

At the same time, Christian freedom must be practised with love. I would not ridicule a neighbour who fasts, prays or remains indoors. Nor would I pressure someone to look. I can explain why I am unafraid, listen to the meanings others bring, and invite conversation without turning the gathering into a contest. This is a more faithful witness than either anxious withdrawal or aggressive debunking.

Safe viewing is part of Christian responsibility. We should never look directly at the Sun without certified eclipse viewers, and ordinary sunglasses are not sufficient. Children need careful supervision. Hospitality must never place spectacle above the wellbeing of our neighbours.

An umbraphile and the Christian faith

An umbraphile is literally a ‘lover of shadows’, a person captivated by solar eclipses, sometimes travelling great distances to stand within the Moon’s shadow. I find the word beautiful because it names a desire not for darkness itself, but for the rare wonder revealed when light and shadow meet. A Christian may be an umbraphile without contradiction. Loving the experience of an eclipse is not the same as worshipping the Sun, Moon or shadow; it is a way of attending closely to the beauty, scale and mystery of creation.

Christian umbraphilia, however, should be more than collecting extraordinary experiences. It can become a spiritual discipline of attentiveness. The eclipse reminds me that I am small, dependent and located within a cosmos I neither own nor control, for we dwell under the shadow of the creator God (Psalm 91:1). It invites awe without possession, knowledge without arrogance and delight without idolatry. To stand beneath the eclipse is to receive creation as gift and to allow wonder to enlarge my responsibility towards the Earth and my neighbours.

Faith and science as companions

On 12 August 2026, communities across the United Kingdom will witness a partial solar eclipse, with a particularly deep eclipse visible in parts of the country. As we gather in gardens, observatories and public spaces, science helps us understand what is happening and how to observe it safely. Faith invites us to ask how such knowledge forms us: Can wonder make us less possessive? Can awareness of our creatureliness deepen our care for Earth? Can a shared sky draw strangers into relationship?

Britain already has a striking public tradition of gathering around the movement of the Sun. At the summer solstice, near the longest day of the year, thousands assemble at Stonehenge to watch the sunrise align with the ancient stones. People come for different reasons: some as Druids or Pagans, some as spiritual seekers, some as tourists, and others simply out of historical or scientific curiosity. Their gathering reminds me that post-secular Britain has not ceased to seek meaning in the heavens. Public wonder can carry religious, cultural and scientific meanings at the same time. A Christian can witness such attentiveness respectfully without worshipping the Sun, just as viewing an eclipse need not turn a creature into the Creator.

Human beings do not stand outside nature as detached observers. We belong within a community of creation and depend upon soil, water, air, plants, animals and solar energy. The eclipse is therefore more than a spectacle. It can interrupt our illusion of mastery and renew our commitment to ecological justice, especially for communities already bearing the harshest effects of climate change.

For Christians, stewardship of creation must not mean domination or the management of the Earth as human property. The Earth belongs to God (Psalm 24:1), and humanity is called to serve and preserve the garden (Genesis 2:15). In a climate emergency, this vocation requires repentance and action: reducing waste and carbon-intensive consumption, conserving energy and water, protecting biodiversity, supporting renewable energy, and pressing churches, businesses and governments to pursue a just transition away from fossil fuels. Climate responsibility is also a matter of justice, because those who have contributed least to global heating, particularly poorer, Indigenous, island and Global South communities, often suffer its gravest consequences.

Our eclipse gathering can therefore carry a practical ecological commitment. As we marvel at the Sun’s life-giving energy, we can pledge to use energy responsibly, deepen the environmental commitments of our homes and churches, and stand with communities harmed by climate change. Wonder becomes Christian discipleship when praise of the Creator leads us to protect creation and seek the flourishing of all life.

Darkness, crucifixion and resurrection

The eclipse may evoke the Gospel accounts of darkness at Jesus’ crucifixion, but the two should not be equated. Matthew 27:45 speaks of darkness over the land from noon until three. This is theological testimony rather than a scientific description of a solar eclipse; Passover occurs near a full moon, when the geometry required for a solar eclipse is absent. The Gospel’s darkness signifies grief, imperial violence and humanity’s attempt to extinguish the Light.

The cross is not God’s endorsement of suffering or a victory for darkness. It reveals God’s solidarity with the crucified peoples of history and exposes the powers that wound and kill. This matters whenever we use solar language for Christ. We must not imagine Christian ‘light’ as conquering supposedly dark religions or cultures. Christ (“Sun of Righteousness”)’s light shines from among the wounded and calls the church to stand beside people whose dignity, hope and future are being eclipsed by oppressive power.

Resurrection is the dawn of God’s new creation. Matthew places the women’s visit to the tomb ‘as the first day of the week was dawning’ (Matthew 28:1), while Mark says they came ‘when the sun had risen’ (Mark 16:2). The rising Sun does not cause resurrection; it becomes a fitting sign of life breaking into death’s shadow. Significantly, women are entrusted with the first proclamation. Resurrection light rises from the margins through witnesses whose testimony patriarchal societies often discounted.

During an eclipse, the Sun does not stop shining; our view is briefly obscured. This offers a pastoral and political image. Grief, illness, racism, caste, poverty, war and fear can eclipse hope. Christian faith does not deny such darkness. It confesses that darkness cannot overcome the light revealed in Christ (John 1:5), and it summons us to become signs of dawn by resisting whatever eclipses the lives of others.

Building interfaith bridges beneath one sky

Living in Britain, I find the eclipse an unusual gift for interfaith encounter. Post-secular Britain is neither simply religious nor simply secular. Scientific curiosity, inherited ritual, ecological concern, private spirituality, scepticism and organised faith coexist, sometimes within the same family. A community eclipse gathering can therefore become a generous shared space where no one is required to hide their convictions, and no one is allowed to dominate.

For me, bridge-building begins not by asking, ‘Who has the correct religious explanation?’ but, ‘What does this moment awaken in you?’ A Hindu neighbour may speak of Surya, sacred time or a family practice; a Muslim neighbour may speak of the signs of God and the eclipse prayer; a Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish, humanist, atheist or spiritually unaffiliated neighbour may bring another language of awe, impermanence, creation, ethics or cosmic belonging. I can listen as a Christian without pretending that all traditions are identical and without treating difference as a threat.

A hospitable gathering might include:

· a brief, accessible scientific explanation and a clear demonstration of safe viewing;

· an invitation for people of different beliefs to share a short reflection, memory, poem or prayer, without requiring everyone to participate in worship;

· a moment of silence in which each person may pray, reflect or simply attend to the sky according to conscience;

· conversation about the Sun’s life-giving energy, climate responsibility and practical local commitments to ecological justice;

· space for children and elders to exchange stories, test claims gently, and discover that curiosity can coexist with cultural respect.

Such an encounter avoids two temptations. The first is syncretism understood as flattening every faith into one vague spirituality. The second is competitive apologetics that uses hospitality as a disguise for proving others wrong. Genuine interfaith friendship allows rootedness and openness to meet. I can say, ‘As a Christian, this is how I receive the eclipse,’ and then ask, ‘How do you receive it?’

Conclusion: beneath the one sky we share

That is why I am glad to invite neighbours to view the eclipse together over a barbecue. For me, the garden can become a small public square: a place where an Indian childhood, Christian faith, scientific knowledge and the religious diversity of Britain meet without fear. We can honour the anxieties people carry, challenge harmful claims without humiliation, and let wonder soften the boundaries between us.

The final biblical vision is of a renewed city that needs neither Sun nor Moon because God’s glory is its light and the Lamb is its lamp (Revelation 21:23; 22:5). This vision relativises every created light and directs Christian worship to God alone. Until that fullness, I receive the Sun with gratitude, learn from science, meet my neighbours with humility, and work so that no life is eclipsed by injustice.

When the Sun is veiled, may our fears be unveiled, our wonder renewed, and our neighbours drawn closer beneath the one sky we share.

A prayer at the eclipse

Creator God, maker of Sun, Moon and Earth,
we praise you for the wonder, beauty and order of creation.
As the Moon passes before the Sun, free us from every fear that eclipses truth,
and from every prejudice that prevents us from seeing our neighbours clearly.
Give us humility to learn from science, wisdom to honour the stories people carry,
and courage to challenge beliefs that cause fear or harm.
Gather people of every faith and belief beneath the one sky we share.
May our wonder become friendship, our knowledge become care,
and our faith become solidarity with all whose lives are overshadowed by injustice.
When hope is hidden, lead us in Christ’s light towards justice and peace.

We ask this prayer in the name of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Raj Bharat Patta,

07.08.2026

Thursday, July 30, 2026

De-zionising Peniel: Encountering the face of the divine in an unknown stranger: Reflecting on Genesis 32:22-31

This week’s lectionary, from both Genesis 32:22-31 and Romans 9:1-5, will tempt us to read it in a Zionist way, as in Genesis we see Jacob being renamed ‘Israel’ and in Romans Paul mentions God’s election of ‘Israel.’ As Christians interpreting these texts in the 21st century, we need much caution and care in engaging with them, for the Spirit of God invites us to disassociate Biblical Israel from today’s political Israel, for they are not one and the same. The Spirit invites us to engage in a de-Zionising reading: one that neither erases God’s enduring covenant with the Jewish people nor employs Scripture to justify nationalism, occupation, dispossession or violence against Palestinians. These lectionary texts test our Christian discipleship, calling us to resist every attempt to confine God to one political state, geography, ethnicity or people. The God of the Bible cannot be possessed by any nation; God’s justice, mercy and blessing overflow every human boundary.

In Genesis 32:22–31, Jacob is returning to meet his brother Esau, whom he has deceived and from whom he has taken the blessing. After sending his household and possessions across the River Jabbok, Jacob remains alone on the other side. There, in the darkness, an unknown stranger wrestles with him until daybreak. Unable to overcome Jacob, the stranger strikes his hip socket, leaving him with a lifelong limp. Following this mysterious encounter, Jacob names the place Peniel, “the face of God,” saying, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”

A Zionist reading may emphasise Jacob being renamed “Israel” because he has “striven with God and with humans” and prevailed. It may then wrongly correlate biblical Israel with the modern State of Israel, portraying its continuing conflict with neighbouring peoples as divinely sanctioned striving and prevailing. Such an interpretation must be contested, particularly when it is used to legitimise nationalism, occupation, dispossession or violence. A de-zionised reading, by contrast, recognises that Jacob does not leave Peniel triumphant and untouched. He leaves wounded, limping and dependent upon the blessing of an unknown stranger. Peniel is therefore not a theology of conquest but an encounter of vulnerability and transformation. Jacob discovers the face of God in the stranger who confronts him, wounds his self-sufficiency and blesses him with a new identity. Such a reading contests both Zionism and xenophobia today by inviting us to recognise the face of the divine in those whom we do not know, fear or regard as “other.”

Allow me to share four signposts from this text, which are relevant to our context today.

1. Peniel comes alive in the unknown stranger:

The text does not initially name Jacob’s opponent as God, an angel or even an enemy. It simply says, “a man wrestled with him until daybreak.” The divine approaches Jacob in disguise without a recognised name, familiar face or authorised religious identity. A colonial imagination often divides the world into the familiar and the foreign, the civilised and the uncivilised, those who belong and those who do not. It then teaches us to fear, control or exclude the unknown stranger. But the beauty of this Biblical text as we notice it at Peniel is that the stranger becomes the bearer of divine presence. Jacob does not first recognise God in a sanctuary, priest or sacred institution. He encounters God in an unfamiliar body beside the river, under the cover of darkness. A decolonial reading therefore asks: What if the stranger whom society fears is carrying an encounter with God? The refugee, migrant, Palestinian, racialised neighbour or person of another faith must not be reduced to a threat. Peniel invites the Church to move beyond xenophobia and recognise that the unknown stranger may reveal the face of God to us. God has been revealing God-self to us in many unknown and unexpected ways; it is we who are missing it day in and day out because of our preconceived and prejudiced notions of the divine.

2. Peniel comes alive in the one wrestling with us:

The stranger does not offer Jacob comfort without confrontation and solace without struggle. He wrestles with him. This bodily struggle forces Jacob to face the tensions he has been avoiding: his deception of Esau, his fear of returning home and the consequences of the blessing he acquired through manipulation. A colonial theology often imagines God as supporting the powerful, guaranteeing victory and silencing resistance. But the God encountered at Peniel does not simply confirm Jacob’s power. God appears in the one who resists him, who wrestles with him. The strength of this text, as I read it, is not that the divine who appears as a stranger overpowers Jacob and wins over him; rather the stranger divine or the divine stranger did not prevail against Jacob; the divine chose not to be a winner in this wrestling. At Peniel, divine power is not demonstrated by defeating or eliminating the other. God enters the struggle, remains in relationship and refuses to turn the encounter into domination. The divine does not win over Jacob but works within the wrestling to transform him.

This offers a powerful de-zionised reading. Jacob’s new name, “Israel,” cannot be used to support a theology of perpetual military victory or political supremacy. His identity arises from a struggle in which even the divine refuses the position of conqueror. Israel is born not through the defeat of the stranger, but through wrestling with the stranger and receiving a blessing from them. Peniel therefore reveals a God who relinquishes domination, a divine stranger who does not need to win to be God. This is divine power expressed through vulnerability, mutuality and transformative relationship.

The person wrestling with us may be exposing the injustice we have normalised. Therefore, Christian discipleship requires us not merely to welcome agreeable strangers but to listen to those who challenge our power, unsettle our theology and demand justice.

3. Peniel comes alive in (un)knowing the stranger as divine:

Jacob begins the night wrestling with an unnamed stranger, but he ends it declaring, “I have seen God face to face.” His perception changes through the encounter. The one whom he might initially have regarded as an enemy becomes, in retrospect, the face of God. This recognition does not mean that Jacob possesses or fully understands the stranger. When Jacob asks, “Please tell me your name,” the stranger refuses to be named.

The silence of the divine stranger is one of the most powerful features of this wrestling. When Jacob asks, “Please tell me your name,” the stranger responds, “Why is it that you ask my name?” The divine offers no name and refuses to be defined, possessed or controlled by Jacob.

Jacob, as the heir of Abraham and Isaac’s blessing, may have assumed that he already knew God. He possessed the family story, the covenantal memory and the inherited blessing. Perhaps he thought that the blessing gave him privileged access to the divine. Yet, at Jabbok, God comes to him in an unfamiliar form, as an unknown stranger whom Jacob neither recognises nor controls.

The God who later reveals to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” remains unnamed here. Even that revelation to Moses does not provide a name that human beings can master; it affirms God’s freedom to be who God will be. At Jabbok, the refusal to give a name teaches Jacob that the divine exceeds every inherited description, religious tradition and claim of election. There is also an important reversal. Jacob asks for the stranger’s name, but the stranger asks Jacob, “What is your name?” Jacob cannot name the divine, but he must name himself. He must confess, “Jacob”, a name carrying his history as the heel-grasper, deceiver and taker of his brother’s blessing. The divine remains mysterious while Jacob is brought into truth.

From a decolonial perspective, naming can be an act of power. Colonisers renamed peoples, places and lands to classify, possess and control them. The divine stranger resists this colonial act of naming. God will not become Jacob’s possession, nor will divine mystery be confined within Jacob’s inherited theology. This is also significant for a de-zionised interpretation. Election and blessing do not amount to complete knowledge, exclusive possession or political ownership of God. No people, nation, Church or state can say, “We know God fully; God belongs to us; therefore, God sanctions everything we do.” The unnamed God remains free to appear in the stranger, beyond the boundaries of inherited privilege.

4. Peniel comes alive through the stranger’s blessing:

Jacob enters the story as someone who has stolen a blessing from Esau. At Peniel, however, he cannot seize the blessing through deception. He must ask for it: “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” This is an important transformation. The man who once acquired blessing by manipulation now receives it through vulnerability and dependence upon another. The unknown stranger, whom Jacob might have treated as an adversary, becomes the one capable of blessing him.

Colonial systems imagine blessing as wealth, territory, dominance and victory over others. They turn divine election into entitlement and use blessing to justify possession. A de-zionised reading rejects any theology that interprets another people’s dispossession as evidence of God’s blessing. At Peniel, blessing is not possession of land or victory over an enemy. It is the grace to become different. Jacob receives a new identity, but that identity is accompanied by a wound. True blessing does not authorise domination; it dismantles self-sufficiency and redirects us towards reconciliation. The stranger’s blessing prepares Jacob to meet Esau, not as a triumphant conqueror, but as a limping brother seeking peace.

Conclusion:

Jacob’s transformation is tested immediately afterwards when he meets Esau. Remarkably, Jacob says to his brother, “Truly, to see your face is like seeing the face of God” (Genesis 33:10). The face of God discovered in the unknown stranger at Peniel is recognised again in the face of the brother he has wronged. Therefore, de-zionising Peniel means releasing this story from interpretations that sanctify conquest, territorial entitlement or political domination. Jacob does not cross the Jabbok waving the flag of victory. He crosses it limping.

Peniel teaches us that:

God’s face appears in the unknown stranger.
God confronts us through those who resist injustice.
God refuses to be possessed or confined by our identities.
Blessing is transformation, not domination.
Reconciliation begins with truth-telling.

Jacob sees God’s face beside the river, but he must learn to recognise that same face in Esau. Likewise, our encounters with God cannot be separated from how we receive the stranger, respond to the wounded and seek reconciliation with those who have been wronged. The face of God comes alive not through conquering the other, but through wrestling truthfully, receiving one another’s blessing and crossing together towards justice. In the present context of Israel–Palestine, a de-zionised reading of Peniel contests the use of Jacob’s renaming as “Israel” to justify military supremacy, occupation or territorial entitlement. Peniel therefore calls us to recognise God’s face in the dispossessed Palestinian, without denying the dignity and security of Jewish people, and reminds us that divine election is a responsibility to practise justice, not a licence to dispossess others. True blessing comes not through defeating the stranger but through truth-telling, transformation and a just reconciliation in which both Palestinians and Israelis can live with freedom, dignity and peace.

Therefore, in the current climate of xenophobia, we the Church are called to:

challenge language that portrays migrants and refugees as threats;
create sanctuaries of welcome and belonging;
listen to strangers rather than speaking about them;
receive their leadership, gifts and blessings;
confront racism within the Church and society;
advocate for humane immigration and asylum policies; and
recognise the image and presence of God across every border.

Peniel proclaims that the stranger is not a problem to be solved, a threat to be defeated or an outsider to be controlled. The stranger can become the place where God’s face comes alive. We overcome xenophobia not by winning over strangers but by encountering them, wrestling honestly with our fears and allowing ourselves to be blessed and transformed by them. May the God of Peniel help us to overcome our fears and transform us as sanctuaries of grace and love to all. Amen.

@rajpatta,

30.07.2026

Pic courtesy: Grace Bomer https://gracebomer.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/jacob-wrestles-with-god/

Friday, December 12, 2025

‘Put the Christ back into Christmas’: Which ‘Christ?’

Far-right leader and one of the loudest anti-migrant voices in the UK, Tommy Robinson, has urged his “Unite the Kingdom” movement supporters to join a Christmas carol concert on the 13th of December 2025 in London to “put the Christ back into Christmas.’ He wants a large-scale Christmas event as a show of national pride, saying, ‘This event is not about politics…it is about Jesus Christ – fully and completely.’ This nationalist agenda is immensely hostile to people seeking asylum and Muslims, and is rooted in xenophobia and Islamophobia.

The Joint Public Issues team in the UK, a partnership between the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, is offering ‘rapid resources’[1] to churches in resisting the co-option of Christian symbols for a nationalist agenda, including Christmas. Their posters ‘Christ has always been in Christmas’ and ‘outsiders are welcome’ challenge the anti-migrant campaign of the far-right during this Christmas.

There are twin dangers to our context today, particularly in relation to Christmas. One is the growing secularism, in which Christmas is interpreted as a ‘winter festival,’ and where market and consumerism have taken over our public sphere. The other is growing far-right extremism, where they hijack Christianity by spreading hatred in the name of faith against the other, particularly people who are seeking asylum and against Muslims, with a claim of ‘winning back Britain to Christ.’ In the present climate, we must critically examine what it means to “put the Christ back into Christmas.” Which “Christ” is being invoked in such appeals? It is certainly not a Christ in whose name hatred is legitimized, nor one whose symbols are appropriated for nationalist projects, nor one evoked merely through perfunctory declarations that “Christ is born today.” The other slogan that I hear during this season is “Jesus is the reason for this season.” But again, we haven’t reasoned out how Jesus is the reason for this season?

The reading from Matthew 11:2-10, which is the lectionary reading for the third Sunday in Advent 2025, is a helpful hermeneutical aid in our discussion here. John, when he was imprisoned by Herod, heard about Jesus, the Messiah’s deeds, and sent his disciples to enquire whether Jesus Christ is the one who is to come or whether they should wait for another one. Jesus could have answered a yes or a no, rather he invites John’s disciples to go and tell what they hear and see, the kind of transformation Jesus, the Messiah was offering to the people in the communities: the bling receiving their sight, the lame walking, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hearing, the dead are raising and the poor have good news brought to them. Jesus Christ’s identity is interwoven with people’s experience of transformation.

Jesus further says that blessed is anyone who takes no offence at him. To put this in other words, blessed is anyone who is not offended in the name of Jesus Christ.

Jesus could have proved his messiahship by explaining the fulfilments of the prophecies in his life, but rather, Jesus Christ’s identity is known by the deeds he does in the community, by the transformation happening in the community and by offering goodness in his name.

So, drawing on Jesus’ own self-accounting of his identity for his Messiahship based on his deeds of transformation is of great significance for us today in our discussion to ‘put the Christ back into Christmas.’ Which ‘Christ’ are we putting back into Christmas? It is this ‘Christ’ who self-identified himself through the liberative works of Jesus that we put back into Christmas.

Christ, who offers sight to the blind by opening new paths