Just over 2,000 years ago God sent His only-begotten Son into this world to redeem humankind from original sin - the sin of pride against the Creator - a redemption which required the sacrifice of none other than God made Man.
The Son of God, or the Christ, the Anointed One, was born in the humblest of circumstances - in a manger, on a straw bed - to humble folk, Mary and her husband Joseph, although the latter knew that he was not the boy's father. The baby born to them, he had been made aware, was conceived through the Holy Spirit, and his mother remained a virgin before, during and after his birth.
The angels announced the birth to a group of shepherds, who were invited to "come and adore" the Holy Infant, born in the village of Bethlehem. A shining star stood over the manger where the Christ was born, and three wise men, from far away, were sufficiently intrigued to set out on a long voyage, guided by that star, to find out why it had stopped there.
Thus the first Christmas. The learned Jewish scholars of the time quickly reported to Herod, the titular king of Judea, that this could be the long-foretold Messiah, who - according to their way of thinking - would sweep away the hated Romans who ruled over their land. But Christ posed no threat to Herod or to any other ruler; his kingdom, as he was to say later in much more trying circumstances, was not of this world. Yet Herod felt sufficiently threatened by this infant that he ordered all male infants under the age of two to be put to the sword, and for the Holy Family of Jesus (for such was the boy's name), Mary and Joseph to flee to Egypt for safety.
Christ's kingdom would be one of peace, of goodwill, and of love, even of one's enemies. This is what he preached in his adult life; such teaching was revolutionary in a world then dominated by greed, raw power, wars, repression, slavery, and the philosophy of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth".
The infant born in Bethlehem had indeed come to change all this, and to change people's lives and hearts in the process. Though he was put to death on the cross, as the prophets had foretold, he actually vanquished death through his glorious Resurrection, and he has continued to be with us through the sacrament of the Eucharist - in which his body is constantly offered as a sacrifice to God - and through the Church he set up with his first apostles to propagate his teachings and his message of love.
That this message of love should be manifest at this time of year, more than at any other time, is understandable. For today we celebrate the birth of him who came to redeem all of mankind, and not just the chosen people. And his act if redemption was the supreme expression of love, the sacrifice of his own life for the whole of humanity.
And it is not just love of family or friends which Christ came to proclaim. For, as he once remarked, even the pagans do this. No, it was love of neighbour (the second great commandment after love of God), even if that neighbour were your own worst enemy.
How relevant that message continues to be, even to this very day! For it is sad to see that some of us are prepared to forgive - even their enemy, perhaps - but nurture a deep hatred for people of other races, for those who end up on our shores through sheer desperation. We refer to these people, strictly speaking, as illegal immigrants, because they have not entered Malta through the proper channels, but this does not mean we should despise them or treat them with hatred, or worse, with violence.
Of course our island is small and our resources are extremely limited so that we cannot possibly absorb an endless stream of immigrants. Government should continue to do its utmost - and it has been partly successful in this - to press other member states of the European Union to share the burden of this huge problem. However, this does not mean that our attitude to these people should be hostile or lacking in elementary Christian charity.
The arrival of these poor, desperate souls from some of the most wretchedly poor nations on earth should, on the other hand, bring out the spirit of solidarity among us, and it has done in quite a few individuals and organisations who voluntarily offer their services to help these people.
The least they should come to expect from a nation calling itself Christian is hostility, hatred, racist rhetoric and violence. Let those who, perhaps out of ignorance, continue to foment such sentiments pause to think, particularly at this time of the year, of the commandment of love which Jesus Christ, born just over 2,000 years ago, came into this world to proclaim.