The birth of Jesus - an eternal hope for a fragile world
Monday, 22 Dec 2008
2008 Christmas message from Dr Philip Freier, Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne
As we head into Christmas 2008 the world is in financial and environmental turmoil.
The commercialisation of Christmas, and the recent encouragement to spend our way out of recession, increases the risk that we will define ourselves solely as consumers, and that the message of Christmas is mostly of consumption and self-interest. And we know that Western Society’s rate of consumption is causing significant damage to our planet.
News headlines also trumpet youth out of control, caught up in binge drinking and street violence. Internationally, disease and starvation ravage the developing world, and wars continue in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Congo and Sudan.
The world is fragile and we feel anxious.
Social researcher Hugh Mackay, at one of a series of public conversations I hosted this year exploring the question ‘What kind of society do we want to be?’ said he is optimistic about the future because he believes this generation of young Australians is intensely connected. Hugh says they’re not going to be alienated from each other, and are working at ways of managing that.
Tony Nicholson, Executive Director of the Brotherhood of St Laurence, is very aware of the isolation and alienation that many people feel. At another conversation he said that one of the innovations the Brotherhood has introduced is social networking among elderly people.
Their observations highlight both the opportunity and risk of our society – to become better connected or drift further into self-centred individualism.
Does Christmas hold any answers?
The message of Christmas is a timeless one - that we were made for relationship, with one another and with God. God revealed himself as a tiny, vulnerable baby in desperately poor circumstances. The great paradox of life is that power and wealth cannot bring us the happiness we crave. Only the infinite love of God can ultimately do that, a love revealed in the birth, life and death of Jesus.
This miraculous story is the heart of the Christian faith. The story of the birth of Jesus offers a radically different solution to the lifestyle of rampant consumerism. There is nothing lavish or wasteful in the story of Christmas except the generosity of God’s love.
I wish you a joyous Christmas filled anew with the hope that is found in Christ Jesus.
Archbishop Freier will be preaching on Christmas Day at 10am in St Paul’s Cathedral. His YouTube Christmas Message can be viewed at www.melbourne.anglican.com.au/media
For further information: Roland Ashby on 9653 4215 or (m) 0418 342 561.