Melville Cooke
THE SEASON of good cheer and hire purchase must be getting to me. Here I am, an avid non-Christian, writing a second consecutive Christmas column. Well, deck the hall with boughs of collie, as the man would say.
At the core of Christmas is, supposedly, the birth of Jesus Christ, son of God, conceived without sex and born in a manger, angels flitting hither and thither and wise men toting along parcels of sweet smelling stuff. As a Christian nation - at least, on the 'bawling out' front - we celebrate the swaddling clothes, the harking to angels singing, the star in the sky. Hey, you could say the modern equivalent to these three things would be designer duds, the pounding of sound systems at Yuletide parties and fireworks blazing into the sky.
VICTORIA JUBILEE
Picture the birth of Jesus in Jamaica. He would probably be born at Victoria Jubilee, to a woman whose husband kicked her out (and over) because she was supposed to be a virgin and was pregnant without his input. Then he would be working in a woodwork shop in downtown Kingston, maybe making those beds that I see along Harbour Street, on the side closer to Coronation Market.
From there, he would declare himself the son of God, putting on a robe, taking rod in hand and chanting judgement in the streets of downtown Kingston. He would generate a curious following, with people telling tales of the miracles the 'healer man' performed, crowds following him down King Street while the press expressed doubt, incredulity, scepticism and ridicule.
As for the disciples, Peter's sword would be a Glock or an Uzi and Judas would be an informer.
The Jamaican Jesus would tackle the system of power directly, demanding of lawyers how they could justify defending extortionists and walking into the Church of the Whatever of Whichever Day and slapping the collection of poor people's money right out of the hands of the ushers.
POLICEMAN'S BULLET
And that Jesus would be killed one more time. Not by crucifixion, of course, but maybe physically by a policeman's bullet.
Whatever the outcome, in this fervently Christian society, if their main guy Jesus came again as he had supposedly come the first time around, he would be killed again.
You see, the Jesus of the Bible that I have read about was not a 'bawling out', praying for everything without action, praising the politicians kind of guy. He was a genuine rebel who took no sponsorship and took up no collection, living a communal, independent lifestyle with his friends. It is important that we remember this, because the Jesus whose birthday is celebrated every December 25 is a different person from the revolutionary figure that I read of in the Bible. The present day character is a mild-mannered affable and absolutely ineffective chap.
In addition, the Jesus of the Bible was a man of action, not a bag a mouth. So when I see various 'bawlings out' and prayer meetings being held to save Jamaica and all the people, dogs and cats therein, I consider it a waste of time and effort.
As Martin Luther King Jr. put it in The Strength To Love, "prayer is a marvellous and necessary supplement of our feeble efforts, but it is a dangerous substitute". We have quite a lot of that substitution happening here; if we are to really save Jamaica from anarchy the Church has to play a role in challenging the entrenched system which has produced our political divisions, our corrupted security forces and value system where money seems to rule supreme.
But what we have is a situation where the modern-day Pharisees and Saducees worship the reformed Jesus, a far cry from the revolutionary that he was in the Bible stories.
So as you Christian folk celebrate the birth of Jesus later this month, I mourn the figurative murder of the real revolutionary for the 1973rd time.
Merry Xmas when it comes.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer
