As the New Year approaches what is it that we as Christians should be holding on to? 

There are three characteristics that are highlighted in the New Testament as they occur together time and time again. What would you put in your top three?

The Apostle Paul says “and now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Cor 13:13.

Faith looks back to the past looking to what Jesus has done. Love has eyes on the present, our response everyday for what Jesus has done. Hope looks forward.

While love may be the greatest, I wonder if it is hope that we are most in need of being reminded of. It is easy to worn down by the world, discouraged in our faith. We may be worried about uncertainty in our lives. 

Hope is the answer. But not the way our world uses it. Hope is often used today to mean something along the lines of wishful thinking, the kind of characteristic you would find among optimistic people.

But hope is a characteristic for all Christians. Our hope is not in some vague picture of the future, but in the solid truth of the resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection is the first fruits of that day when he will return and raise us upto the new creation – our glorious inheritance. 

So Paul prays: “that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance“  Eph 1:18.

Why is it our hope grows dim?

Perhaps we are captivated simply by the present. Our love is misdirected to the things of this world instead of being captivated by the one to come. 

Perhaps we have stopped looking to the past, where what Jesus has done assures our future. 

Our world wants us to doubt and worry, but hope is the antidote. Don’t let it grow dim, for in Jesus the resurrection has already begun, and so your hope is secure.

–  SIMON CHAPLIN

Angels, stables, donkeys, Mary and Joseph, the star, the shepherds, the wisemen, and of course the baby in a manger.  

People are familiar with this Christmas card scene, but we long for people to look deeper and see not just a baby in a manger but the Immanuel – God with us.  

There is much to surprise people when do – the absence from the accounts of a donkey for a start. The wisemen, who never made it to the birth, but arrived sometime before Jesus was 2. And there’s no mention of how many wisemen there were, whose actual name were the magi, and who may not have been men or wise at all! 

The stable may have been a cave, or the lower story of a guest room – however the manger was there and presumably the animals were too, perhaps even a donkey. But while people in their familiarity may miss these details, it is true that at least they have a picture of Jesus’ birth that night and a chance to find that deeper meaning.

What is more concerning is a generation for which each of these elements is gone altogether.

Jesus is replaced by Santa, the angels by elves, the animals by reindeer, the wisemen and the gifts by a Kmart catalogue. It’s not just that these things have become more important, but that there is no knowledge at all of the nativity events, and no real interest to discover them. 

There are kids today who simply don’t know about the shepherds who watched their flocks, or the star that appeared in the sky, or about the humble birth of our Lord and Saviour. 

Without the nativity we lose more than just Christmas, we lose God with us.

The nativity is not just fun and cute – it’s true and it’s crucial for us and our society that this account is remembered as the heart of Christmas. 

–  SIMON CHAPLIN

Why is it that Christmas seems to bring with it not just joy, but sorrow as well?

On one hand all the joys of the past year are combined and relived on this one great day. And yet, at the same time, your troubled remembrances and sorrows are collected together and brought to mind.

Sorrows are felt in a few ways, always in comparison to the joy we feel.

We feel the absence of a family all the more on this day as we think how much greater the joy would it have been if they were here. In the midst of a joyful gathering, suddenly a broken relationship intrudes on our thoughts.

Of all the days, Christmas is when we want families to be right, and yet they seldom are. The tensions that arise seem out of place on this day and so are even more painful – we are sad that we could even be sad on this day.

The gap between our sorrow and joy is at its greatest, and so we feel them all the more.

What would the day look like if we’d just if we had room only for joy? What place does sorrow have on Christmas?

Without sorrow we would not be reminded of the need to forgive – for it is the hurts of others that are its most common cause. Learning to forgive brings with it a unique joy all of its own, a joy that is right at home at Christmas.

For it is impossible to forgive without first discovering the forgiveness of Christ. And this is the reason Jesus came, this is what Christmas is about – that God would enter our work and bear our sorrows upon himself. 

Even on that very first Christmas, the joy of the Angels was intermingled with sorrow. There was sorrow in the words Simeon prophesied to Mary “and a sword will pierce through your own soul also” Luke 2:35.

I am hoping for the most joyous Christmas – one that reminds me of the birth of our Saviour. But I also know that in the quiet moments when a pang is felt, I am taken closer to the truth of Christmas too.

SIMON CHAPLIN

On Monday 22 October in the House of Representatives, our Prime Minister, the Hon. Scott Morrison MP, delivered an emotional, heart-felt apology on behalf of the Parliament and the Australian people, to the survivors of child sexual abuse, including those in Anglican churches.

That our Church was complicit in any way in these events, by ignoring them, disbelieving the testimony of survivors, or allowing sex offenders to continue their horrendous conduct in what should have been the safety of a church environment, is itself a matter of deep shame.

Let me reiterate my apology to the survivors of child sexual abuse, for our failure to protect them as children, and also to the families of those who have died prematurely due to their abuse.

While we have adopted rigorous processes to ensure the safety of children in the present, I recognise that this will not overcome the trauma that accompanies the sins of the past.

Today is an opportunity for congregations across the diocese to acknowledge the failures of the past and listen with acceptance to those who have been harmed.

My fervent prayer is that this will in some measure provide healing for these wounds, raise our consciousness of the seriousness of child sexual abuse, and enable us as a Church community to play our part in protecting and giving voice to the most vulnerable among us.

I offer this apology confident of the comfort, transforming power and tender love of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

ARCHBISHOP GLENN DAVIES

One friend in ministry commented to me the other day that this fourteen year old girl she is working with doesn’t think that Jesus is real because “so many bad things have happened in her life”.

Often this is a topic that pops up in conversations I too have with Christians and non-Christians alike. The problem of evil seems so hard, and so big, that it makes people ask why God would let such horrendous things happen.

We see this continuously in our news, in troubles within our own families, and even in the places we turn for leisure like Netflix’s documentary series Making a Murder. Everyone’s right, the world does suck!

In those conversations we tend to think about sin and explain why the world is this way. While it is important to do that, and explain that the fall brought sin, death, and suffering into the world (Gen 3); it is also incredibly profound that nearly everyone notices that this is not the way it is supposed to be.

God created a world that was perfect and good (Gen 1). Though humans stuffed it up, it is important to encourage believers and non-believers to think about God’s promise of restoration(1 Peter 5:10; Acts 3:19-21). As Christians, we already have a taste of this restoration as we truly are new creations in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). But a day will come where evil and suffering will pass, for God is just and he will put sin and Satan in their place for good and his people will dwell with him forever (Rev 21:1-5).

So take heart! Though some days the world is grim, there is great hope and comfort found in the person of Jesus who conquers all and promises to come again.

RAYNE ORANGE