OUR VIEW 1915: Christmas is time for honoring message of Christ

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a Daily Republic editorial from Dec. 24, 1915.

The real Christmas is an idea. It is not made up of red bunting, green wreaths, Santa Claus masks or bundles of gifts.

Now, after all the hurry and bustle of Christmas shopping, thoughts of giving and joy in receiving, it is well to consider what is the real message of Christmas.

As the birthday of Jesus, Christmas is distinctive only as commemorating his life. Jesus was born of man and was tempted and suffered as other men. Therefore, his merely human existence was quite without significance. If there had been nothing in his life except ordinary human activities, it would have been speedily forgotten.

It was in his knowledge of the Christ spirit — that and his manifestation of it and his demonstration of its power — that Jesus became distinctive, the way-shower. It was in his realization of the son-ship of man and his realization of God the father that he proved the powerlessness of sin and disease to harm him or those whom he blessed with his understanding of the truth.

In other words, he came among men to give them freedom, to liberate them from bondage and of all sorts of suffering, through his understanding of the spiritual truth.

His first command was to love the Father with all one’s mind and soul. That is, to acknowledge no other god nor other power, but that of the one infinite God.

His second command he described as “like unto” the first — that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. The two are really comprehended in the one, for if we know only the infinite God, and his goodness and love, and if this so fills our consciousness that there remains no room for thoughts of fear or hatred or passion, then we cannot but love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

It is this message from Jesus, the greatest of all liberators, that the Christmas season is to commemorate.

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