The Real And Unreal Worlds Of Christmas
Newcastle Herald
Monday December 24, 2001
WHICH `world' will you live in this Christmas?
One day last week after I'd finished work, it was time to participate in the annual hunt for gifts.
I never look forward to shopping, but at this time of the year, it's a task I cannot avoid.
I just never seem to be able to find what I really want to buy for people, and there are some people on my list who are just so difficult to buy for.
You know, the type who seem to have everything?
As I walk through the department store, browsing and stopping to make purchases, it all seems so much easier than I'd thought. The cheery shop assistants clad in red and green are extremely helpful; they even offer to wrap my gifts for me!
I'm taken by the beauty of the decorations and lights; the pleasant sound of carols; the smell of foods traditionally associated with the season; the comforting image of the Christmas manger; and the delightful sight of children chatting on Santa's knee.
People are everywhere and there's a great sense of community ? an atmosphere of joy, excitement, anticipation and promise.
A happy time for all prevails.
As I find the last gift on my list, I feel rather proud that I've accomplished the task I set out to do without too much effort.
In fact, to be honest, this sensual journey has filled me with a warm inner glow that I didn't possess when I left work.
But as I leave the shop and head for my car, shopping bags in hand, I am shocked into another reality.
I leave the air-conditioning behind and am hit with the remnants of a hot and humid summer day. I pass a mother who is clearly harassed by the antics of her four young children. She yells at them in a tone that invites an aggressive response.
There's a young man sitting on the ground with a cardboard sign asking passers-by for a donation to pay for his next meal, and as I go by a newspaper stand, the headlines about conflict and violence in the Middle East and Afghanistan glare at me.
I no longer hear the joyful sound of carols or witness the helpfulness and cheer of shop assistants; the comforting image of the Christmas manger has disappeared and the hope of Christmas lights and decorations are dimmed from my memory.
Out here in the street those homely symbols seem so distant.
It feels like I've been transported into another world.
One world surrounds me with a sense of comfort, community, love, hope and peace; the other shrouds me with conflict, pain, fear, isolation, violence and destruction.
I wonder to myself, `Does the season of Christmas speak to the reality in which I'm standing? Which is the real world?'
Then I remember ... when Jesus Christ was born he wasn't born into a `perfect' situation like that portrayed in the department store.
He was born into a rather messy and difficult situation ? into a world of unpredictability, pain, violence and fear.
And the reason he was born was to offer people a way through the maze of hopelessness, conflict and hatred seemingly so characteristic of our world today.
The birth of Jesus offers us real hope, real peace and real love, unlike the superficiality offered by our commercial world.
The real hope, love and peace that Jesus offers should inspire people to change the world in which they live.
But are we inspired to act? And what stops us from being inspired?
While one person cannot change the whole world, one person can make a difference.
It is possible for each of us to change our immediate worlds by being people of hope and striving for peace and love.
This can be as simple as being more loving, understanding and tolerant in our relationships with family and friends or our colleagues in the workplace.
The refrain `think globally, act locally' rings so true!
If I act, if another acts, if a few more act, then we will have given birth to the hope and love promised by Jesus and our world will indeed be changed. The Most Rev Michael Malone is the Catholic Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle.
By BISHOP ROGER HERFT
THE crazy season has hit with sales booming and record consumer spending.
`The economy's in great shape,' drone the spin-doctors.
Yes, there are a few redundancies, a greater demand for Christmas hampers and the usual whinging of the poor ? and God and Christ, well, they have had a real workout.
The Twin Towers tragedy in New York and the War Against Terrorism made God an easy scapegoat for the mess we are in.
It is reported that the Evangelist Billy Graham's daughter was asked on a television show in the United States shortly after September 11, `How could God let something like this happen?'
Ann Graham replied, `I believe that God is deeply saddened by all of this, just as we are.
`But for years we have been telling God to get out of our schools, our homes, our government, to keep out of politics and get out of our lives.
`Being the courteous person God is, I believe that God has calmly backed out. How can we demand that God gives us his blessing and protection, if we ask God to leave us alone?'
Even in far away Australia, a nation that prides itself on its ability to get on without God, and which in the name of multicultural sensitivity seeks to remove Christian festivals from schools, there were murmurings about the need to have us learn something about God ? more specifically the religion of Islam.
This earnest desire for multi-religious studies and cultural sensitivity is to be welcomed.
It raises however, a massive gap in our thinking.
Like any effort at communication or deepening of relationships, one needs to know one's own story.
We must be confident in the sacred text which gives birth to our hopes and be aware of the fire that kindles love and questions hate.
Whatever else may be said of the people of Islam they are not shy or apologetic about their faith in Allah and their understanding of what shapes them as a people.
Granted that religious belief like scientific exploration can be exploited by self-interest and greed.
However, the abyss that exists between such devotion and our `she'll be right, mate; no worries' passivity to religious truth makes the task of communication with people of other religions nigh impossible.
Our gods of consumerism and materialism, whose highs and lows determine our well-being, will prove impotent when dealing with the rich diversity, profound depth and intense volatility of middle eastern religious thought.
The God revealed in the faiths chiselled out in the Fertile Crescent is an all-or-nothing deity.
The challenge for us who live in this lucky country and who claim even a vague allegiance to the Christian faith, is to go beyond the feeding frenzy of Christmas consumerism and seek out in worship, prayer, sacrament and reflection on the Sacred Text of the Bible, the meaning and wonder behind the baby in a manger.
A painting by an Indian artist depicts the manger in its traditional form, except that at the edge of the crib is a ladder that reaches to the ground.
Interesting. Perhaps it is for Baby Jesus to do a stroll down? Looking closer, you discover that at ground zero is a cross.
The child does not stay in the crib forever: the journey of love takes in the mess and mayhem of all loving and hating.
The Cross, that horrific symbol of the massacre of innocence, reveals the true depth of love's endeavour, the wounded soul of God.
Whatever we may learn of other faiths, or even if we decide to live by the ideal of cynical agnosticism, would we dare discard the invitation to journey from Nativity to take up the Cross that transforms?
Remember, there would be no Christmas to celebrate if not that the infant of Bethlehem became the crucified and risen Jesus seen and known by those who were transformed by his presence.
The cross inclined from the crib takes in the poor, the dispossessed and the marginalised, not as fodder for our materialism but as those for whom God has a deep preference.
May our prayer this Christmas be:
O Lord, in company with those earliest visitors to Bethlehem,
Grant that we too may see the ladder of the cross leaning against the stable,
And thankfully incline it towards ourselves.
Leave us not to our godlessness, where mercy is rejected and justice denied.
Come and save us from ourselves that love may be born again. The Rt Rev Roger Herft is the Anglican Bishop of Newcastle.
© 2001 Newcastle Herald
