From the National Council of Churches in Australia
The National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA) is often contacted before Christmas by media looking for a religious comment on this high festival.
This year we have gathered together Christmas messages from 7 of Australia’s heads of Churches, and an ecumenical message from the NCCA.
We hope these messages are helpful to the media, and the Australian public, as Christians in Australia and around the world celebrate the birth of Christ.*
Ms Debra Porter
NCCA Communications Officer
(* NB. In the Western Church, Christmas is celebrated on December 25. Most Orthodox Churches will celebrate Christmas on January 7, 2007.)
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Anglican Church of Australia
My prayer for us all this Christmas is that we should know God’s peace.
In 2006 Australians have worked hard to bring peace. Our troops have been deployed in such places as Iraq, Afghanistan, the Solomons, and East Timor, trying to broker peace and then to keep it. We have wept over efforts to find peace in the Middle East. Locally, the Cronulla riots marked a breach of a peace that we in this country can no longer take for granted.
Ironically, many of our images of peace tend to involve guns and tanks and explosions. When we send in ‘peace-keepers’, we equip them with weapons and train them to deal with violence.
God’s Prince of Peace came to us as a new-born baby.
God’s response to violence and to fear is love. It is always love. Celebrating Christmas helps us to remember God’s love.
This Christmas let us allow the story of the baby, of cattle lowing, of worshipping shepherds and magi bearing gifts to remind us to greet our neighbour, to smile at those we meet, to give generously and to receive graciously. Let us all be makers of peace through ordinary, everyday acts of loving kindness.
May the love of God and the gift of God’s son bring peace to your hearts and lives this Christmas.
The Most Revd Dr Phillip Aspinall
Primate, Anglican Church of Australia
Churches of Christ in Australia
The Christmas story has survived the process of time because it is more than a story. Christmas reminds us that God in Christ intervened in the lives of humankind to announce his gift of eternal love to all who would receive it. At a time when the world is preoccupied in all types of conflicts and threatened by natural and human crises we need the Christmas story to remind us there is hope and in this hope there is peace and love.
Mr Richard Menteith
National President, Churches of Christ in Australia
Coptic Orthodox Church, Diocese of Sydney & Affiliated Regions
The Gifts of Christmas
For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:11)
The birth of our Lord Jesus Christ over 2000 years ago brought 3 great gifts to humanity:
Light
He shone upon us who were sitting in darkness. By His light we came to know light. He is the light of the world with His unique example, Holy teachings, and life-giving guidance. Man knew the path of light, and became light. Man’s mind was enlightened, as well as his heart, through his continuous living with the Good Saviour and Beloved Teacher. The Lord left us a living example and a Bible: the example to follow, and the Bible to learn from and be enlightened by its word.
Has not the Lord said to us when He came to our earthly world: “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8:12). “The light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” (John 3:19-21).
Salvation
He is the “Saviour of the World” of the New Testament. Pharaoh gave Joseph the same title, for he saved the people from death by physical hunger resulting from the famine. Likewise, Christ saved us from death by spiritual hunger. He is the “Second Adam” by the First Adam we died, while by the Second Adam we live and are saved. Our salvation was not easy, for it cost Him His precious blood and His broken body.
”For there is a Saviour born to you this day.” (Luke 2:11).
By the birth of Christ, the Saviour was born…
Rather salvation was born…
For there is no salvation without incarnation…
And no redemption without incarnation…
And no incarnation without birth…
”Great is the mystery of godliness: He (God) was manifested in the flesh.” (1 Timothy 3:16). There is a link between human godliness and the manifestation of God in human flesh. It is divine incarnation that enabled our loving God to manifest amongst us so that we can say: “We beheld His glory.” (John 1:14). “Which we have looked upon and our hands have handled.” (1 John 1:1).
To die upon the Cross and to redeem us, offering up His humanity, which is united to His divinity, as a sacrifice in place of us. Then He arose from death into life, that by Him we too might be reborn into a new life.
Peace
The Angels proclaimed, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will towards men.” (Luke 2:14). Christ became man to reconcile us to God the Father and bring peace to a broken and disturbed world. Christ is our peace for He said, “My peace I give. My peace I leave with you.” (John 14:27).
May the Lord Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem, bless our beloved country Australia, its people and Government.
His Grace Bishop Daniel
Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of NSW, QLD & NT
Lutheran Church of Australia
The newborn child bound in swaddling clothes at birth is unbound as a man in his resurrection. The Christmas birth of Christ is not just a matter of life before death, but finally of death before life.
The celebration of the birth of a special child, the event we call Christmas includes the wood of the manger being exchanged for the wood of the crucifixion cross; not much more than thirty years later.
The celebration is for a Saviour. It is a time of hope and meaning in our lives because of what God has done for us, rather than a focus on what we can do for ourselves or for him.
God enters time and our history and offers us life in the Child we know as Jesus. He has taken care of us so that we can spend time caring for others.
The Revd Michael P Semmler
President, Lutheran Church of Australia
Roman Catholic Church in Australia
The face of a mother or father holding a child in their arms reveals the graciousness of God. Christmas recalls these moments for many in the mystery of the birth of Jesus. It reminds us that these experiences can touch our hearts and fill us with happiness and joy and reveal to us the presence of God in our everyday lives. Christmas is a time when we have the chance to stop and reflect on the gifts that children bring to our world. The busy days that lead to the holidays and the celebrations of the day itself can blind us to what moves and inspires the children around us, and their openness to love and acceptance is a challenge that can be missed. In our heart of hearts we recognise that not to respond with open hearts and greater generosity of spirit towards them is to belittle them and sell ourselves short. Those who follow Christ are called to recognise as he did, as Mary his mother did, the presence of God’s love in the faces of those around us. This is a way of discovering meaning and direction in our lives not as a burden but as a response to the graciousness of God. In the bigger picture, the spirit and meaning of Christmas provides us with the opportunity to reassess individual and communal responses to those around us. It is a time to bring to our families, friends and neighbours a spirit of acceptance, understanding, forgiveness…. or “peace and goodwill to all”.
The Most Revd Philip Wilson
President, Australian Catholic Bishops Conference
Syrian Orthodox Patriarchal Vicarate of Australia and New Zealand
"Some two thousand years ago, a young descendant of King David and her honourable husband travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem. This trip was, in all likelihood, a difficult one for Mary as she was in the late stages of pregnancy. However, she bore this burden with joy saying that, "My Soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant." It was in her suffering, that she carried the hopes of the World.
So this Christmas, let us remind ourselves of the simplicity and humility into which Jesus was born: at an inn, in a manger and wrapped in swaddling cloth. At the same time, let us recall the majesty with which he was greeted: a multitude of angels harking "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!", the rich gifts presented to him by foreigners from afar and the worship of him by local shepherds.
Christmas should be a reflection on Christ, his birth, his life and his purpose. Let the celebrations, baubles and presents be a reflection of our joy at being reminded of God's love for us: in that he sent his only Son for us.
His Eminence Archbishop Mor Malatius Malki Malki
Archbishop of the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchal Vicarate of Australia and New Zealand
Uniting Church in Australia
The Christmas event speaks to us more than 2000 years later because it is not just a story about divinity. It is a story which is most deeply about what it means to be human – a story of human vulnerability, of hopes, fears and dreams, family and culture, exclusion and acceptance. And because of this, the meaning of Christmas continues to break into our world and challenge us all, but especially Christians, to live lives that reach out in the world without fear or favour.
My hope this year is that Christmas will remind us that so-called ‘Australian values’ are human values and that the birth of Jesus Christ teaches us that they are part of God’s gift to us, for what kind of world would it be without the gifts that lie within us all - compassion, forgiveness, prayerfulness, justice, inclusion, and the celebration of life.
May this Christmas bring you joy and peace, fresh purpose and new life.
The Revd Gregor Henderson
President, Uniting Church in Australia
National Council of Churches in Australia
“Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place,
which the Lord has made known to us.”
The story of Christmas begins with a divine choice, but it happens in the lives of ordinary human beings. A baby is born, and generations have gone on to call him the Son of God. The event demands a response – is this really God with us, or is Jesus just another human martyr?
Many Australians do not like questions of faith, preferring instead a vaguely agnostic world of privatised religion. It makes sense in a sort of post modern way, but we now know that such a world doesn’t exist. Religion is a very public business. We are more aware than ever of its importance, and the centrality of faith to so much of what we do.
The Christmas holiday is popular, but so far the question of faith isn’t. What is our response to this Christian festival and the story on which it is founded? If this child is the Son of God you can’t just walk away from him. He changes everything.
The Christmas event could have happened to any one of us. It does happen to all who believe that in Jesus God came into the world to live a human life to the full. Christian faith, and Christian living, means living out that belief, day by day, week by week, month by month, among real people, in real places, and at real times in our life.
The Revd John Henderson
General Secretary, National Council of Churches in Australia
