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What are we really celebrating at Christmas?

Christmas is a wonderful time of year when we gather with friends to sing carols about the birth of Jesus and often indulge in too much food and drink. We get to enjoy our version of Christmas because we are relatively wealthy and live in a country that is peaceful most of the time.

Unfortunately for many millions of people, our sort of Christmas celebration is a fantasy … whether for those struggling through a cold winter in Ukraine without electricity or water, or hungry and famished in East Africa or asylum seekers still living in limbo in Australia and wondering if and when they might be deported or offered a visa.

The Christmas stories that we are given in three of the four Gospels are far more gritty and challenging than we usually imagine. The best known in Luke’s Gospel suggests that Jesus was born on the road to an unwed mother far from home and in the shadow of the oppressive threat of the Roman army. There was no roast dinner or a warm bed to snuggle into.

Matthew illustrates a different danger, this time from King Herod and his violent soldiers on the warpath to remove any perceived threat to Herod’s hold on power. Joseph and Mary and Jesus had to be ready to flee at short notice. Then there is John’s expansive view of events from a heavenly perspective where the Word of God risks taking on human flesh in Jesus and faces rejection from most people, which was also the lived reality for John’s community.

So there is a real cost that underlies the Christmas story – hardship, threat and persecution. The good news is that God considered these challenges worth taking the risk for. And so Jesus was born into a divided and dangerous world, born to an obscure rural couple and whose birth was celebrated only by those at the fringes of society, the shepherds.

Yet these stories also point to God being content to bring hope and favour in the most unpromising situations and to work through unlikely people. The warning to the comfortable and rich like us in these stories is that it is easy for us to miss or reject what God may be doing in our midst. May the Spirit open our eyes to see what is really worth celebrating at Christmas and what the cost might be if we are to fully embrace the story of the one born at Bethlehem.

From the Minister, ,

What love looks like

Love takes many forms. It might be the love of a parent for a child, or the love shared between lifelong friends or it might be love of music or nature. In English, these various forms of love are all described by the single word ‘love’. Unfortunately in our culture – and especially in movies – love is often confused with lust and sex. Perhaps that’s because it’s easier to capture this sort of love on film or in the words of a song. Such erotic love is certainly one type of love, but not the only or most important form of love.

In the New Testament the most commonly used word for love is agape, which is a good translation of the Hebrew hesed, or loving kindness. This type of love is part of God’s character and seen in how God cares for and interacts with humans and the world. Agape love is not selfish but rather cares for the other. It is faithful, committed and prepared to be sacrificial for the sake of another. Such love is described in the famous passage in 1 Corinthians 13 and seen in Christ’s giving up of his life on the cross.

In the Advent story this week from Matthew’s Gospel, love is seen in the attitudes and actions of Joseph towards Mary. When Joseph finds out that Mary, his fiancée, is pregnant but not through his actions, Joseph seeks a practical solution – a quiet divorce – that will hopefully protect Mary from shame or stoning. Later, when Joseph finds out in a dream that Mary is pregnant through God’s Holy Spirit, he decides to go through with the marriage and to adopt the child as his own. This is agape love in action. It may be costly for Joseph but he wants the best outcome for Mary and the child and for himself.

There is a carol entitled Love came down at Christmas. May it point us to the love of God revealed in the birth, life, ministry and death of Jesus, and may we be inspired by Jesus’ example to love others we meet and interact with this week.

From the Minister

Surprised by joy

In our culture, many people seek happiness. Advertisers con us into believing that the secret to happiness is to buy this product or holiday at that destination. Then our life will be happy, our family members will all get on marvellously with each other and life will be full of laughter. We know that advertising works, so many people buy into this shallow understanding of happiness.

The reality, though, learned through experience, is that true and lasting happiness can’t be bought so easily. Even if we do buy the advertised product, our family members won’t necessarily get on and there will still be stresses and anxieties aplenty, especially at this time of year. Happiness is fickle. It depends on how we are feeling on any day, how well we slept last night, what particular circumstances we are facing today and even our brain chemistry.

But joy is different to happiness. Joy is an emotion that comes from a different place to happiness. We can feel joy even if our circumstances are bleak. It’s an emotion that says we’re in the right place and doing the right thing. It often comes from God’s Spirit, which was the case for Mary, the mother of Jesus. Outwardly, her circumstances are not good … she is expecting a child but her husband-to-be, Joseph, is not the father. This will most likely cause her to become a social outcast and the subject of gossip.

Yet God’s promises to her about who this child will become and how God will transform the world through him fill her heart with joy as she sings the song we know as the Magnificat. God is acting to bring change and life and hope and Mary has a significant part to play. So she is filled with joy and sings her subversive song.

May we too find ourselves surprised by joy at what God is doing in our lives and in the world.

From the Minister

Praying for peace

One of the Advent candles that we light each year represents peace, usually lit on the second Sunday of Advent. The radical vision outlined in Isaiah chapter 2 looks forward to a day when people and nations will learn God’s way of peace and will take their weapons of war (swords and spears) and make them into implements for farming (ploughs and pruning shears). All people are encouraged to walk in the light of God’s ways. During Advent, we are also reminded that Jesus came as the Prince of Peace (one of the titles used to describe the Messiah in Isaiah 9:6) and that at his birth, the angels announced glory to God in heaven and peace on earth among those whom God favours (Luke 2:14).

But when we look at the world at the end of 2022, there are many places and many situations that lack peace. One of the most disturbing of these situations is the ongoing war in Ukraine that has displaced millions of people, killed thousands and made life miserable and dangerous for many. Yet equally disturbing is the famine in east Africa where millions of people face starvation and extreme hunger as winter rains fail again, made worse by the effects of climate change.

Closer to home, we are shocked by the latest Closing the Gap reports that highlight the desperation experience by many indigenous communities as children are (still!) being removed from families in large numbers and young people are locked up in prison. The hope of having an indigenous voice to Parliament enshrined in the Constitution is also under attack as a major political party (the Nationals) this week decided to oppose the proposed referendum.

In these and other situations it’s hard to see how peace can come, who will make it happen and how it can be sustained. It has always been thus through human history. Yet Advent also teaches us that nothing is impossible with God. Our role is to bring peace wherever we can but also to keep praying for peace and seeking God’s mercy and grace.

From the Minister