CHRISTMAS 2025

After a year of death, cruelty, and ongoing hatred, we’re about to observe a longstanding tradition.  We’ll step back, smile, and sing about peace on earth.  Then, after a few days, it will be back to business as usual.

For the last three years, I’ve penned an imaginary letter from Jesus, telling us what he sees happening here on earth.  This year won’t be any exception.

You can believe what you want or don’t believe what you want.  But here’s what I think Jesus would be telling us.

Hello again, everyone.  Yes, it’s me.  Another trip around the sun, when you arbitrarily declare a “new” year, and of course, do this birthday celebration thing.

I really don’t get it, and I’m not sure I ever will.  I didn’t ask for anyone to celebrate my birth any more than I wanted to start a new religion and have my name stapled to it.

Instead, what I talked about was peace and loving your neighbor.  Helping the poor, and caring for the sick and dispossessed.  Somehow that still gets lost in all the religious hoopla, doesn’t it?      

Oh, you still have that money thing going, don’t you?  Now it’s not just gold, silver and dollars.  It’s crypto, oil, and real estate.  Anything to make the rich richer.

Don’t you think there’s more than enough suffering to go around?  Sudanese are starving, Palestinians have had their Gaza homes blown to pieces and are being murdered in the West Bank, Jews are being killed in Australia, Ukrainians are still caught in a Russian death trap, Haitians are being slaughtered, and Uyghurs disappearing. 

And in America?  You’re abandoning anyone who’s hungry, dispossessed, and poor, no matter what they’ve done for you.  Just throwing them out of the country, sometimes to a certain death.  And you’re the ones who claim to be a “Christian” nation.

It makes me think of what that writer of yours, Mark Twain, supposedly said.  “If Christ were here today, there’s one thing he wouldn’t be—a Christian.”  Or that Indian guy, Ghandi.  “I like your Christ,” he said.  “I just don’t like your Christians.  Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Anyone who’s actually studied my teachings knows that I didn’t have much use for the rich and powerful.  I once said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  I told another rich man that if he wanted to follow me, he should sell everything he had and give it to the poor.

Spoiler alert.  He didn’t do it.  You might pass that along to your billionaire friends.

Don’t think I’m being serious?  Look, I’m the one who drove the money-changers and the wheeler-dealers out of the temple, remember?  And those guys weren’t even trying to sell crypto.

Sorry if I’m upsetting anyone, but don’t you get it?  If you’re going to start a religion and slap my name on it, couldn’t you at least try to follow just a few of my teachings?

And this isn’t just pointing a finger at Christians.  I was Jewish after all.  And Muslims call me ‘Isa and consider me a prophet.  Other faiths also recognize my teachings.

That’s all well and good, but I just wish more of you would actually do some of the things I taught.  You quote me a lot, but usually it’s completely out of context.

Speaking of out of context, what’s the story on this Peter Thiel guy, anyway?  He’s going around spending a small fortune lecturing about “the anti-Christ.”

Huh?  A selfish racist talking about an anti-Christ?  If the guy doesn’t have a clue about me, how’s he supposed to know anything about the anti-me?

Frankly, I don’t think he could recognize an anti-Christ if one slapped him up side of the head with a pitchfork.

But it’s the week of Christmas, and I don’t want to take up too much of your time.  You’ve got meals to prepare, gifts to wrap, plans to make.  Relax by the fire, and maybe take a sip or two. 

And some of you will go to one of those fancy buildings with those pointy things sticking up out of the top.  You’ll sing, listen to sermons, and pray. 

Fine.  But here’s all I ask.  Just do something for someone else.  Someone you don’t know.  Someone who can do absolutely nothing for you in return.  Someone who’s sick, or poor, or lonely, or suffering.  Someone who’s afraid.  That’s where I’ll be.

I’ll be somewhere in Gaza, with a family trying to find shelter because their home has been destroyed.  I’ll be with a family in the West Bank being threatened with death by Israeli settlers.

I’ll be shivering with Syrian refugees in Europe as they ponder whether to try to stay, or make the perilous trip home to a nation still in turmoil.

I’ll be with a mother in the Ukraine praying that her son makes it home from the war.  I’ll be with a wife in Russia who’s just learned her husband’s been killed in a suicide charge ordered by a greedy madman.

I’ll be with a terrified Rohingya girl caught somewhere between Myanmar and Bangladesh.   

I’ll be with a Uygur boy crying in China because he hasn’t heard from his father in months.

I’ll be with hungry Afghan women who have nowhere to turn for their daughters’ education and safety.  I’ll be with an Afghani refugee family in America praying that won’t be sent back to suffer at the hands of the Taliban.

I’ll be with Jewish families in Australia and elsewhere hoping a wave of antisemitism doesn’t destroy their children.

I’ll be with Muslim families in America praying that the tide of antiislamism won’t take away any of their loved ones.

I’ll be with a Pacific Island family whose home is slowly vanishing from rising sea levels.

I’ll be with an African family whose babies are dying because American Aid has been abruptly halted to provide tax breaks for billionaires.   

I’ll be sweltering in a crowded building in Cite Soleil with a Haitian family, trying to not even whisper while men with machetes run past.

I’ll be with immigrant families throughout the United States, afraid to stray from home because of some politician’s vicious lies.

I’ll be with thousands of others on either side of the Mexican border, uncertain of what the coming days will bring.

I’ll be with a father who’s just lost a daughter to an overdose.  A Mother who’s lost a son to suicide.  A family on verge of losing their health insurance.

I’ll be with that trans kid who’s been humiliated and threatened.  I’ll be with the girl who’s just found out she’s pregnant, and has nowhere to turn.

I’ll be with thousands of families who’ve lost loved ones to a gun.

I’ll be with an exhausted young single Mother, crying at the kitchen table because her job as a waitress didn’t bring in enough tips on Christmas Eve to pay for her child’s present.

But I’ll tell you where I won’t be.  I won’t be with Peter, Jeff, Mark, JD, Elon or any of the other tech-bros.  I won’t be with the crypto-daddies or the other billionaires.  I won’t be with the Proud Boys, the racists, the misogynists, or the haters.

Instead, I’ll be with people like me.

So think about this stuff between now and Christmas.  And maybe throughout the coming year, too.

Oh, and if you happen to bump into that Trump guy?  Tell him the next time he tries to use the bible as a prop for one of his speeches, at least have the decency to hold it right side up.  Thanks.

See you down the road.

Jesus