We often celebrate Christmas in a way that glosses over the parts of the story that are uncomfortable, says Justin Duckworth, the Anglican Bishop of Wellington.
In July, a couple of months before the latest brutal escalation in violence in Israel and Palestine, my wife Jenny and I were in the region on study leave.
Alongside a small group of others, I spent a month on a course there designed to expose us to the complexity of belief that makes up the long history of the world through visiting and meeting people of many faiths.
That history, much of which is rooted in this small patch of the Middle East, is incredibly complex. But for many tourists to that region, it’s easy to end up in a sanitised bubble.
Which is why I was grateful for my experience. Our accommodation in Jerusalem was a five-minute walk from Checkpoint 3000, the major militarised entry route into Bethlehem and the wider West Bank – hardly the spot for a relaxing holiday stay.
At the River Jordan, where Jesus was baptised, I watched as multiple Christians re-affirmed their baptism vows. Over my shoulder were two young, armed female Israeli soldiers – and while I eventually forgot they were there, I did wonder whether at Jesus’ own baptism, representatives of the Roman Empire were there too, observing the ritual unfold.
The reason I mention this is that we often celebrate Christmas in a way that glosses over the parts of the story that are uncomfortable, jarring or inconvenient.
Our rituals and practices of the modern day are long divorced from their original context – even for Christians, who still celebrate this season as the birth of Jesus.
But the reality is that Jesus’ arrival took place in the context of an oppressed and brutalised country.
We sanitise O Little Town of Bethlehem and treat Christmas like a fairy-tale, but the birth of Jesus was full of the reality of mess, just like the entry of every human into the world. It was real life.
That’s a reality true to every human, no matter what side of any situation you find yourself on. That’s why the real story of Christmas remains so relevant.
Christians talk about the “incarnation”, from the Latin root word for “flesh”. It’s the idea that in Jesus, God became one of us – in a real place, in a real body, born into a real time of sorrow and oppression.
In the lead-up to this Christmas, we’ve witnessed world events marching on at what feels like an ever-increasing scale of darkness.
Perhaps this is nowhere better seen than in Bethlehem, the town Jesus was born into that is now part of the occupied West Bank. The local Lutheran church there sets up a nativity scene each Christmas, and this year’s edition features the symbolic baby Jesus amid the rubble of a bombed building.
An installation of a scene of the nativity of Christ with a figure symbolising baby Jesus lying amid the rubble, in reference to Gaza, inside the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Photo / AP
It’s a brutal idea, but aligns with the reality of that first Christmas – a baby born into unsanitised conditions, in occupied territory, surrounded by appalling violence.
Why, then, should this give us hope?
Christians would say it’s because our God is not divorced from our reality - he actually gets it. Encountering this Jesus means acknowledging the mess of this world.
But that’s not enough on its own. Christmas also reminds us we have a God who came to rescue us because he sees our need for light – and even more than that, that we can encounter and partner with that God to see a new and different world birthed.
In a practical sense, one way we can all do this would be to do what we can to help people escape violence, just as the baby Jesus and his family fled to Egypt to escape genocide.
In recent days, various NGO and political bodies have called on our Government to provide mechanisms to help extract those caught in the Gaza conflict who have connections to Aotearoa. If this is something that you support, I encourage you to make your voice heard, especially as we remember the plight of Jesus’ own family at Christmas.
And as the December 25 rolls in, I encourage you to go along to your local church and hear the Christmas story again, or find a Bible (just steal one from a church – you have my permission) and open it to the start of the Gospel of Matthew or Luke.
As you listen or read, pay attention to that real mess of the first Christmas, think about the mess of our world, and bring your own mess too. Allow the reality of a God who gets it to transform your reality, and commit yourself to working to seek an end to all oppression.
Justin Duckworth is the Anglican Bishop of Wellington.
