He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.

To those who did receive him, he gave power to become children of God!

Christmas is sweet and wonderful, but it also powerfully calls us to conversion. A change of mind. Self-examination. A decision. Today people often speak of a stolen Christmas. Who stole Christmas? And the theft of Christmas is indeed always really happening. However, it is not stolen by pomp and empty-headed managers, but by the closing of our eyes and ears to the drama of Christmas. The dramatic character of Christmas reaches its peak in John's sentence (which we read on Christmas Day itself): He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. To those who did receive him, he gave power to become children of God!

Christ is not a fairy tale, nor an idea. He is a person. And personal relationships are always a drama in progress. No personal relationship can ever be at rest. Each one is open to acceptance and rejection, at every moment. And especially the relationship with a person - God. That person is at once the goal and the meaning of my existence. Without Him I remain in meaninglessness. Absurdity. An unreal world. Illusions. Sons of men, how long will your hearts remain hardened? Why do you love vanity, and chase after illusion? The more I love lies, darkness, emptiness, the more I will hide myself from Him who is Truth, Light, Fullness. I hide myself in various ways. Through self-deception. Through self-justification. By creating an unreal world in which I do a great many ''important'' things, so that there is no room for the most important one - Him (for there was no room for them in the inn)? By reducing God to some sort of energy, to something impersonal, less than myself - how mad it is to think that the One who made the eye does not see, and that the One who made the mouth is incapable of speaking?!

To receive Him or not to receive Him - that is the question! To listen to what He tells me, or to close my ears? To acknowledge that I have no love and that I need a Saviour, or not to acknowledge it? To justify myself, or to seek free forgiveness? To seek His help, or not to seek it? To pray, or not to pray? To confess sincerely, or declare that outdated? To acknowledge that a life not directed towards God is absurd, or not to acknowledge it? To remain with the surrogates of God's Love, coasting along as long as it lasts, or to freeze and vomit up the lies hidden behind superficial emotions? To forgive, or to remain with a frozen heart? To love, or to kill? To walk the wide road that most people walk, or the narrow one, after Him?

When He is received, everything changes. Our being finds peace. I become a beloved child of God. If I reject Him, it is quite likely that I will become a child of the devil. A child of the manipulator and murderer. I will not be merciful like my Heavenly Father, but merciless like my father from the underworld. I will not mature, but stunt. I will not grow, but rot. I will not be truthful and authentic, but false and deceitful…

While I celebrate Christmas, sing, eat and drink, I cannot erase from my soul the drama of my relationship to the newborn Child-God-made-man. If I did manage to cast that out, then Christmas would truly be stolen from me. I would not be celebrating the Christian feast at all. It would be a celebration of my own desolation. A great lie. Boredom. Mere pomp. Vanity.