Christmas 2025
At this time of the year, we are often used to celebrating through the smoke of bushfire. This year, here in Sydney, we celebrate through the smoke of gunfire. We come to the festival of Christmas chastened by the reality of the hatred and violence we have experienced in the horrendous events perpetrated at Bondi little more than just ten days ago. We cannot but be still deeply affected by those tragic events. Yet, we come to this Christmas also deeply wearied: fatigued by international conflicts for which there seems to be no just end; tired of the confusion created by an international political discourse which is becoming more and more grotesque in its narcissism; worn down by the constancy of the battle not only with the cost of living but also by the haze of a range of social pressures that seem relentless. And here in our own community we are deeply aware this year of a number of us who are struggling with aging and with health. All of it takes a toll which we cannot underestimate. Our celebration of Christmas this year is a sober one, to say the least.
As we absorb the dreadful events of Bondi, we recognise how shock now gives way to anger. Someone must bear the blame: the cries are loud. If not government, then immigration. If not immigration, multiculturalism. If not multiculturalism, gun control or its latitude. We search for the scapegoat. And in the midst of this, those whom society has always scapegoated for its moral failure, our Jewish community, rightfully demand justice, finding a public voice so long denied them. How might this might all play out in the coming year is entirely uncertain. Yet, we can be sure that the discourse will only become increasingly polarised. Our social cohesion will come under particular stress as the weeks and months unfold. Strident voices, for various motivations, will seek to command the situation; discerning between them will be our special responsibility. We have found ourselves in a defining moment of history.
Conscious of how stark is the time in which we live, we come to the scene of the Nativity of Jesus, at once so familiar and at the same time unnervingly unknown. It is familiar because we have come to it so many times in the past; it is unknown because this year we come with our confusion, with our questions, with our weariness, with our trepidation – all of which sheds a different light on what we see.
And what do we see? A situation fraught with fragility. The figures are huddled against enormous uncertainty, their hearts full of questioning. Their trust and fidelity is not the outcome of confidence and certainty. There is nothing grand to embrace them with reassurance. Quite the opposite; the poverty of the situation is unmistakable.
Yet at the heart of the scene is this extraordinary affirmation that in this baby God is with us. God enters our world – complex and confusing as it may be – not victorious, powerful, cataclysmically. He comes as a baby, vulnerable, defenceless.
This disarms us. It stills us, it centres us – as does every newborn baby. Before a baby there is nothing to prove, nothing to compete against, nothing to defend. The gift of a baby is to lead us into a different kind of space – a space in which we can simply be and be assured of the irreducible goodness of life and the promise of life. Yes, life is essentially fragile; it is also unmistakably holy, full of hope, full of possibility. If God has come amongst us as a baby it is forever to teach us this lesson.
This Christmas we enter the stable of our own time, marked as it is by the social, political and personal character we hold as nervously, we keep our gaze on this child in whom the fullness of God dwells. The One upon whom we gaze, through all the shadows of our context pressing upon us, is our anchor. His gaze in return invites us into a unique space in the midst of everything else. We are not given words; we are given the smile of a baby. And that makes all the difference in the world. We will be invited into this stable many times in the time ahead. From this place, above all others, we will know what we need to do. We have no other sure reference. It is why our celebration of Christmas this year is as important as ever.
