Moderator’s Christmas Message – December 2024

A Christmas message from the Moderator of the Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of Western Australia, Rev Dr Ian Tozer.

Every Christmas is different.

We are a year older having lived through changes: family moves, in our work or leisure, or at Church. We may have welcomed new, or said farewell to, family and friends.

Some changes feel natural, are celebrated and easily managed; others are challenging, whether in our personal circumstances or for those close to us or world events.

Every Christmas is different. Our world is different. How is Christmas different for you this year?

Most of us who see Christmas enacted in school pageants or nativity plays, are familiar with Luke 2. We know about the Roman imperial decree requiring travel to their home-town, the journey of Mary and Joseph (with details added, like a donkey), and the newborn Jesus placed in a manger, because there was no room for them (at the inn). Often added are grumpy innkeepers, knocking at multiple doors, animals, and a stable. We often don’t notice these added elements because they are so familiar. For example, it is common to forget that the star is from Matthew’s account.

Luke 2 is often seen as a comforting story, suitable for children.

Matthew 2, however, tells of uproar in Jerusalem when strangers from the east came to pay homage to the new king. King Herod was a vicious tyrant who hated rivals, so he orders the indiscriminate slaughter of the innocent little boys of Bethlehem. Herod’s murderous rage is not thought of as suitable for children and quite a downer in the Christmas story, not to be included in
nativity plays.

Yet reminders that arbitrary power is often in the wrong hands, exercised with excessive force, malice aforethought and disregard for innocence are all too familiar.

Mary and Joseph fleeing as refugees and Jesus as a displaced person has echoes today. It is as if Jesus’ death on the cross is foreshowed from the beginning.

For Australians, financial pressure, housing stress and cost constraints have bitten hard. There is so much darkness in the world: people experiencing devastating violence, climate catastrophes, children losing their lives, and displaced people can be found in many places. As I think of the Holy Land, Matthew’s account resonates.

As we come to this Christmas with our individual, Church, and world changes, what does it mean to speak of hope?

For me, Matthew, speaks louder than Luke.

Matthew emphasises that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. Even in darkness, Emmanuel; even in the uncertainty, Emmanuel; even in trouble, violence, war, refugee, fleeing trouble, Emmanuel. It is a reminder challenges to faith and testing times are sometimes where we meet God. Paul said that God is with us in the worst we experience.

In all changes God remains very close, particularly if the changes have been disturbing or disconcerting. God is with us.

However, for people to know this, it needs others to show up and be with them. The followers of Jesus are called not only to celebrate the Christ, who is Emmanuel, but also to reveal Christ in acts of care and kindness, offering support, practical aid and financial help.

40 years ago, Live Aid gathered many celebrity musicians at a concert to raise funds to alleviate famine in Africa. They sang, “Do they know it’s Christmas?” The song asked people to throw their arms of love around the world. It spoke of looking beyond our own circumstances and thinking of others. We might think of those living in devastated war-zones, refugees, the hungry, homeless or suffering abuse. The song repeated: feed the world, heal the world, let them know it’s Christmas time again.

So here’s the call: to tell one person of the hope in us; to reach out in friendship to someone; to share as we are able, our financial resources.

Here’s how the hope will grow: if we make ourselves signs that God is with us, that God is with the whole world – because when God’s people reveal and reinforce that in such sharing, friendships and acts of care – we will show the world the meaning of Christmas inspired with the hopeful message that God is with us; that we are never alone; and nothing can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rev Dr Ian Tozer
Moderator, Uniting Church WA

These words were also shared in the Moderator’s column for our December 2024 edition of Revive magazine. You can read this and more in the December Revive here.