CHRISTMAS EVE REFLECTION 20Z4

By Rev Fei Taule’aIe’ausumai

St Andrew’s on the Terrace

How can this Christmas in 2024 be different from all the other Christmases you have celebrated in throughout your lifetime? Perhaps you are young, and you haven’t got many Christmases to compare with, but I I‹now many of you are my age and older and you have many Christmas stories to share for a lifetime both good and bad, happy and sad. But how can this Christmas be different? I thinI‹ back over the last 6 decades and I’ve had a variety of Christmases. I spent 4 in the

U.K. with friends and new families that I made over there. I’ve had Christmas in Samoa and Australia and 3 here in Wellington. We had our family Christmas in Aucl‹land 2 days ago on Sunday afternoon, my what a wonderful occasion that was with 11 of 13 great nieces and nephews and their parents and my siblings altogether in our family home. Actually, I haven’t had enough so I’m off back to Auckland tamorrDw afternoon to spend a few more days with my family. I thought myself, Fei you are already booked to fly out on Wednesday afternoon you bought your airplane ticket ages ago and then you go and add another trip two days ago only to come back to Wellington again. That’s the life of a single minister whose siblings and families are all in Aucl‹land whom I desperately miss. Of course, I have some family here toD, but I thought I’d give them a break from me and go and annoy the others up north.

Christmas in Vanuatu will be a time of grieving and coming to terms with loss, devastation, sicI‹ness and disease. It is the same for the island of Mayotte in the

French interior that was devastated by Cyclone Chido including Mozambique, Malawi and the Comoros. At the time of writing Cyclone Chido was heading towards Southern Africa.

This whole year since October 7^th 2023 we have watched helplessly the senseless war in the Middle East in Palestine, Gaza, Israel, Iran. We have seen a Dictatorship in Syria defeated by rebels only to unravel the horrific atrocities that have taken place underground, in the darkness, in secret. NOW all coming tD light.

I watched the film “Mary” by DJ Caruso on Netflix (who has seen it?). Some of it is based on scripture but a lot of it is imagined, the screen writer has filled in the gaps about possible scenarios that may have happened and emerged with the impact that a betrothed virgin becDming pregnant and not to her fiancé would have had on her local community. The religious communities in particular the Zealots were in a murderDus rage and seel‹ to find Mary and kill her. Then after the birth of Jesus King HerDd who has heard that there is a now new king, a messiah. No one can outstage King Herod, as far as he is concerned he is the Messiah. So, in his fits of rage and jealousy he commands his soldiers to gD and l‹iII all the newbDrn infants in Bethlehem. In the movie, Mary and Joseph are caught up in this siege but manage a daring escape on horseback through fire back to the temple where Jesus is received by Anna and Simeon. The film Mary gives a realistic view of possible scenarios that could have occurred outside of the biblical narratives and removes the romanticism of the nativity scenes we see on Christmas cards and confronts us with the harsh reality of hatred, violence, jealousy and the place and non-status of women in Middle Eastern cultural society. For me personally, I had to watch the movie in snippets I couldn’t sit

through the whole ordeal in Dne sitting. I encourage you to watch it and see it as fact of perhaps more fiction. SDme reviews hate it and call it right wing funded Netflix biopic. Others say it is fantastic. King Herod’s portrayal by Anthony Hopl‹ins gets a one for realism and accuracy. Some of it also seems a bit far- fetched, but I will leave you be the judge of it for yourselves.

But have you ever wondered to yourself, why did God choose this young woman Mary, who was getting on with her own life, minding her own business? When you thinl‹ about it, it could have been anyone from any context? Is that blasphemous? The term the immaculate is used in the film to suggest that Mary herself was an immaculate conception, a miracle baby. The Roman Catholic church continue to revere her as Mary the immaculate because she was born without original sin. She was different to us because Catholics believe that all humans are born with original sin, but Mary was the exception. Most protestant churches reject the immaculate conception, some Anglicans also accept: it as a pious devotion too. For me, Mary was an ordinary young woman, she wasn’t pious or perfect she was chosen because she represented the innocence and vulnerability of the human race. She was to become the bearer of God incarnate; the word become flesh. The reality is God’s love isn’t just for the pious and the perfect.

God’s grace doesn’t come only in moments of quiet contemplation, when everything else is all wrapped up and all settled down and all put to bed.

God’s love breaks in on us precisely when everything else is going on, precisely when everything else is chaos and commotion, precisely in those days when it is the last time and last place, we would expect God’s love to be:

in the critical care unit, in the homeless shelter, in the women’s refuge. where people’s hearts are breaking, where people are struggling for justice.

in the choice between war and peace, in the decision between generosity and greed.

in the moment of love when everything seems loveless, in the flash of hope when everything seems hopeless,

in the sudden joy that breaks through even the deepest sorrow.

It is precisely into these contrasts and contradictions, the Christmas story tells us, that God’s love comes; it is precisely such contrasts and contradictions that God’s love holds together, just as the ancient story tells us it did in a stable in Bethlehem; and suddenly the world is hushed, and the chaos pauses for a moment, and in the Gospel narratives the angel appears, and the heavenly chorus sings, and the Saviour is here, and new life begins. That is the story of God’s Incarnation; this is the time in which God’s love is embodied for us.

I stand here tonight, conscious that I may not know some of you, and even more conscious that I do not know the particulars of what most if not all of you bring with you to this place, on your heart, in your soul on this night of all nights — your contrasts and contradictions, what joys and what satisfactions, what heartbreaks

and disappointments, what frustrations and what fears, what loves and what hopes, what dreams and what plans are part of you this night.

But whatever you bring, this timeless story of God becoming one with humankind in the most vulnerable manner imaginable — in the contrasts and contradictions of a baby born in poverty in a violent and oppressive society — this timeless story this evening embraces you and embraces me and tells us again — perhaps for the first time — that you and I and all people are held in the heart of God for ever and that this Christmas 2024 can make all the difference.       Amen.

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