As many a Metro Manila motorist may have muttered between expletives, traffic this holiday has been far worse than usual, even for the end-of-year season. The gridlock will probably be worse today, as millions shop, dine out, deliver gifts, go to mass and noche buena, and rush to other Christmas eve events and chores before midnight.

At least two columnists have railed against the wrong policies, absent infrastructure and automotive overpopulation clogging the capital’s arteries. This article leaves those admonitions alone and dwells instead on the message, if any, that traffic-choked believers may glean from the millennia-old events in Bethlehem. And there is much to muse upon in the Christmas story as amid today’s thoroughfares-turned-parking lots.

First pondering point: Why the heck is one out and about in the first place? How much more relaxing it would be if the Yuletide frenzy could be spread over a week, not packed into one mad rush to beat at 12 midnight on December 25.

And if it’s dumb to join every motorist and his marque on the crawl tonight, what about spending several days on foot or donkey traveling from the comfort of home in Nazareth to Bethlehem 130-kilometer away via Jerusalem or Samaria, with a heavily pregnant woman nearing birth? Not to mention that country roads in those imperial times were not just rough and dusty, but infested with bandits. Better gridlock than goons any day.

Both Metro Manila’s midnight-beaters and the Jewish couple Mary and Joseph were on the road thanks to society’s timetables, of course: a 21st century celebration steeped in custom and commerce, and a first century census enforced by Caesar and centurions. As it was in the beginning, so it is today: humans are creatures of convention and compulsion. Comply or die.

It’s all for order, they say. Funneling buses, jeeps, cars and trucks into the same stretches of tarmac keeps their noise, fumes and tempers in confined spaces. Gathering everyone on the same date leaves the rest of the year for other things, though every preacher likes urging that Christmas joy and generosity be shared all 365 days. A census is good for running and reveling in the empire, but little use for the man and woman on the dirt road.

In fact, when they get where they’re going, Manila’s motorists and Bethlehem’s Holy Family-to-be find no space to park and no room to stay. Never is there enough of anything in life, certainly for the poor and even for the rich. So it is for the cars of Christmas and the pair that started it all in Bethlehem. Scarcity is the human condition, feeding both the drive for profit and the dependence on providence.

Where metro and manger part ways radically is in the hearts of each scene’s players. It’s every motorist for himself or herself in Christmas gridlock, with no inch given and every advantage taken to get ahead and leave the honking horde behind. King Herod would feel quite at home, with his ethic of sparing nothing, not even innocent blood, to stay on top.

In the Nativity scene, by contrast, all is worship, love and peace: the farm beasts unperturbed by strangers in their shelter, shepherds and wise men adoring with angels and stars, and Joseph and Mary marveling at “God with us” in their arms.

Plainly, with everyone trying to get ahead of everyone else, all fall behind, locked in a self-serving scramble. Imagine if shepherds and Magi blocked each other’s way to be first at the manger. Thankfully, their eyes and hearts were fixed upon heavenly glory, sharing it with all. Only in that way can peace reign and every soul reach his or her destined destination.

So it would be if motorists share the road, not fight over it. Remember the five barley loaves and two fish feeding 5,000. The miracle might not have happened if the first people to get food ate it all, thinking there wasn’t enough to share. But thankfully, the multitude broke and shared the bread and fish, allowing each piece to grow as it passed from one hand to another, till all were fed with twelve baskets of morsels left.

Still, the Christmas message is not just that love and the Lord make life more abundant and less burdensome, replacing scrambling hands and angry growls with friendly smiles and caring arms. Rather, with His birthing into this fallen world with its dingy mangers and gridlocked streets, the Creator embraces His creatures’ trials and travails, ennobling and glorifying our pains all the way to the Cross.

Yes, God’s way can turn road rage into shared sojourns. But more than that, by taking upon Himself the unbudging traffic as He did the unwelcoming inn, He turns earthly flaws into heavenly perfection. In embracing all the world’s ugliness, traffic jams and all, His Kingdom comes and His Will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

So next time you feel like muttering “God damn it” one hour into a one-mile drive, offer Him the infuriating trip and say “God bless it.” Then traffic, like the rest of our fallen humanity, is liberated, uplifted and sanctified by the Almighty’s loving touch.

Safe driving, and have a Blessed Christmas and a Joyous New Year!

Ricardo Saludo serves Bahay ng Diyos Foundation for church repair. He heads the Center for Strategy, Enterprise & Intelligence, publisher of The CenSEI Report on national and global issues ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ).