A Different Christmas by Stewart Perry

I wonder what you’re expecting this Christmas to be like? You might be nervous with anticipation that all will be well, go well & end well. You might be looking forward to it with a happy buzz of family, friends & fun. You could be dreading it with loneliness or fragile relationships weighing on your mind. There are so many emotions we carry into this time of year & many of those emotions have very little to do with what this time of year is meant to cause us to reflect on… who Jesus is.

I don’t say that to make you feel guilty or any less holy. It really just is what it is because we are who we are and the level of when, where & how we live. While I’d love to say Jesus dominates this time of year… it’s really our culture that dominates. It’s a time when, if you’re honest, we celebrate that culture is king rather than Jesus is Lord.

So, could you expect Christmas to be different this year?

I don’t mean, that you’ll finally get that dream gift you’ve always wanted… or that the family will be all merry & nice rather than walking on egg shells… or that you’ll find fulfilment being with the people you hope to be near… or that the shopping centres & radio stations will finally find something else to play other than Mariah Carey on repeat… I mean profoundly different. The type of difference that leads to transformation.

This year we come into Christmas with a radical image of hate on our hearts and minds with the tragic events in Bondi. Trying to make sense of it all is impossible… We’ve seen the rush to outrage & blame… but we’ve also seen something very different a rush to be along side others, a rush to show care & compassion & attempts to demonstrate love but that quickly gets overshadowed by the next news headline & we’re back to outrage & blame. 

This year at Robina, throughout the Sundays of Advent we’ve been focusing on being transformed by hope, peace, joy & love… but where that all leads to is that we long for the Gold Coast to be transformed by Jesus.

There is so much loneliness, so much hurt, so much pain & suffering. Much of it is masked by a desire to pretend everything is ok.

The best news the Church has to share is that everything doesn’t have to be OK. Jesus was born into a world where radical hate ruled… where outrage was common place… people groups were marginalised & others were radicalised… into this world he was born & into our world he is born. He is born in & through the Church, through us…

The people of God have never been asked to be something we’re not… Jesus meets us as we are & through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit we are transformed… once we begin the journey of transformation we also realise that things still won’t be OK, there will be tragedy & pain, we will get things wrong & others will do things wrong that impact us. But the grace of God that is the greatest gift we have flows into our lives & it flows out of our lives for the benefit of others. That grace which transforms us has the power to transform others. It even has the power to transform our culture. 

This Christmas will be different if we let the love of Jesus transform us. If we open our hearts wide enough to crowd out the cultural pressures & expectations & let the Holy Spirit do the work the Holy Spirit does… transformation. 

Longing for the Gold Coast to be transformed by the love of Jesus starts with us & it starts this Christmas. 

Could we expect this Christmas to be different because we become the difference? St Paul reminded the Colossians that it is Christ in us that is the hope of glory… could we remind the Gold Coast that it is Christ in us that is our hope & their hope.

Have a very different Christmas & may you, those you love, strangers & neighbours all be transformed by the love of Jesus this Christmas.