Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel – Isaiah 7:14 NKJV.
The windows are empty frames against the sky. Yet the tree grows on, patient and persistent. The Waverley Abbey yew in Surrey, England stands as an ancient tree, with roots weaving through the stone ruins of the English Heritage site – English Heritage Nov 2022; Barkham Nov 2022.
When the British people named it Tree of the Year, they were voting for something more than timber and leaves. They saw a deeper truth that life endures in the hardest places. Patience and persistence turn ruin into renewed beauty over time.
In Manipur, conflict has destroyed homes and divided local communities. Shared life has given way to loss, fear, and distrust. Children should be learning songs and stories instead of learning the vocabulary of violence. This is the landscape of a people in crisis, where the stones are still falling, and the wounds are still fresh.
Our family home burned to ash, and our family memories vanished in this conflict. Waking at night, hoping for a bad dream, the pain is real. And of course, some people lost their loved ones, who have a much deeper pain. Yet from this real personal story of loss comes a choice: I choose peace, understanding, and dialogue over violence and anger, as it is important to grow our roots in a hard reality, and grow anyway.
The Weight of Winter and Sin
Manipur faces two connected crises. Communal conflict breaks trust and spreads fear. Poppy farming brings quick money but fuels addiction, violence, and land damage. Sadly, these harms point to a deeper source, sin, which drives human brokenness and separation.
The Bible portrays humanity as trapped in sin and unable to break free alone. This view treats human suffering as evidence of a real condition. People often act against what they know is right. They seek peace yet choose conflict. They want freedom yet create bondage. Though made for communion with God and one another, they live in separation and strife.
It is the winter that all humanity faces, not just Manipur: we are broken and cannot fix ourselves. We are guilty and cannot atone for our own wrongs. We are enslaved and cannot break our own chains. We need rescue from outside ourselves. We need redemption.
The True Meaning of Christmas: God’s Rescue Mission
Christmas offers more than human hope or effort. God enters the broken world to do what people fail to do on their own. It is perfect timing that we let Christ rescue us in this mission.
The child born in Bethlehem did more than teach morals. He lived as God incarnate. Emmanuel means God with us. He entered human flesh, suffering, and death. Jesus came on a rescue mission, and the mission began in a manger and ended on a cross.
Salvation from our sin is the heart of the Christmas message. We need Jesus to save us from our sinful debts, break the chains, and reconcile us to God from whom we had wandered. On that wooden cross outside Jerusalem, Jesus took upon himself the full weight of human sin – every act of violence, betrayal, addiction, hatred, selfish choice that has ever torn apart what God meant to be whole. We desperately need mercy, as we deserve the punishment and He has borne for us.
And then, three days later, He rose from the dead. The resurrection declares that sin’s power is broken, that death does not have the final word, that redemption is real and complete. He came to change us from within, give us a new heart, and make us new through His death and resurrection.
This is why the yew tree rising from ruins fits Christmas. As the tree brings life out of ruins around it, Jesus can transform the human heart when one repents in Him. He turns sinners into born-again in Him, the guilty into forgiven people, and the enslaved into the free. The gospel announces redemption already won. Christ has done what we could not do. He has opened the way back to God and offers forgiveness to those who repent.
Redemption Applied: What This Means for Manipur
Now is the perfect time for Jesus to bring redemption to our communities, to those broken hearts torn by conflict. To take part in God’s work in the world, we need to meet the risen Christ by receiving forgiveness and live by the Spirit through repentance. Hearts shaped by the gospel matter most, as Manipur needs more than policy and programs. Forgiveness can transform people who once held hatred, since mercy received from God leads to mercy, and we can forgive others only through the love of Jesus, as human feelings often make it difficult. We can get real freedom from addiction and bondage through Jesus, who can also redirect young people drawn to violence and quick money toward service and a new future. Peacebuilding in Manipur must rest on this foundation. Forgiven Christians create spaces where forgiveness crosses community lines and support at-risk youth through real relationships and lived testimony of change and freedom through Jesus Christ.
As a believer in Christ, we need to reject opium poppy farming by trusting God over fast money. God provides, and we need to trust in Him fully.
Christ, the Source of True Peace
The yew tree in ancient churchyards symbolises resurrection. It regenerates from apparently dead trunks, because its wood endures beyond human lifespans. But the yew only points to what is ultimately true: that Jesus Christ conquered death itself, that He walked out of a stone tomb on the third day, and all those who trust in Him can get eternal life.
Manipur’s conflict feels beyond control as human sin runs deep. Policy, education, and development can limit harm, but they do not change hearts. Manipur, like all people, needs the redemption Jesus Christ gives. Christmas calls us to receive God’s gift, forgiveness, reconciliation, a changed heart, and the Holy Spirit’s power to live differently.
We lost our home and chose to become peacemakers, as Jesus said: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” – Matthew 5:9 NIV. But we must understand what makes peace-making possible. We become peacemakers because we have first received peace with God through Jesus Christ. We can extend forgiveness when we truly know and trust that we have been forgiven. Considering people with God’s love who are against us, whom we tend to consider as enemies, because while we were still God’s enemies, Christ died for us. We work for reconciliation because we have been reconciled.
The Final Word Belongs to the Redeemer
As Christmas lights begin to glow across Manipur’s troubled communities, may they point to the true Light of the World who came to dispel darkness. May they remind people that the child born in Bethlehem went on a mission: to seek and save the lost, to give His life as a ransom for many, to destroy the works of the devil, to reconcile all things to God through His blood shed on the cross.
Families divided by conflict share one need – grace. Faith in Jesus brings people into one family. The message calls young people burdened by fear, those trapped in addiction, and those burdened by guilt to come to Christ for rest, freedom, and forgiveness. In Manipur, the role of a church is big as we are called to shine in darkness, proclaim the gospel, live it out, and carry Christ’s redemption into places of suffering. As life can rise from ruins, Jesus rose from death, victorious over sin and death. Redemption is open to all who receive Him. Christmas points to this hope for Manipur, a path from conflict toward peace, forgiveness, and Christ’s love.
The ruins could not hold the tree. The tomb could not have held Jesus. And sin, violence, and despair cannot hold Manipur when its people turn to the Redeemer who came to save us all.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it
– John 1:5 NIV.
Wishing you all a blessed Christmas and a healthy New Year, filled with God’s love, peace, and joy!
Statement: I do not support illegal poppy cultivation. I support sustainable alternatives that strengthen society and help affected farmers in Manipur. I stand firmly behind the Manipur Government’s “War on Drugs” campaign. As a strong, united community, we must work alongside government agencies that are helping farmers abandon illegal poppy farming. We, the people of Manipur, can eliminate unlawful poppy cultivation through collective effort. I call upon the entire Manipur community to unite as one team in this fight against illegal cultivation of poppy, working together to create sustainable livelihoods and a healthier future for all.
Times. The author is an international development consultant specialising in agriculture, horticulture, trade facilitation, and sustainable development.
janeriameilu@gmail.com)