COMMENT | 'Joy to the world' is a hymn that reverberates around the globe during Christmas though it is an everyday song for many.

In a world of gloom and doom, hope brings joy, a different sort of joy, unspeakable not as the world gives. Christmas is the time that reminds us to think of other people. It is the time for giving and sharing.

Someone sent me a video with the look of joy on a young cerebral palsy sufferer's face when he received a present of an electric wheelchair from a stranger. What prevents the government from creating joy for the people who are weighed down with despair?

Money cannot buy everything, especially eternal life. This is the Christmas narrative. They acknowledge God has given us the gift of forgiveness and hope in Jesus - a free gift but given at great cost - the death of his son.

Christmas is the reminder there is God and life after death, and while we pass through here, we are to love one another. Love is the most powerful force and needed everywhere and it is important we love not in word but in deed.

The photo of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad at the funeral of Malaysian second prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein's widow Rahah Mohd Noah is another reminder that death is inevitable and the equaliser. Another much earlier photo of Mahathir visiting Pakatan Harapan Anwar Ibrahim in hospital displays hope that enemies can be friends though their relationship has soured again. Love overcomes all things. It is puerile and destructive to hate anyone.

An anonymous writer, among other things, wrote many years ago – “I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built and all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon the earth as has that one solitary life.”

One incident that has stayed indelible in my mind and which many non-Christians know is the account of Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem. It has an analogy for politics in Malaysia. Jesus drove out the money-lovers that had contaminated a sacred place. It is time to drive out the corrupt in government who have despoiled the public institutions...