Dean's Message

A Christmas Message from the Dean

Kia whai korōria te Atua i runga rawa, kia mau te rongo ki runga ki te whenua, me te whakaaro pai ki ngā tāngata!” – Ruka 2:14

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom God favours!”

That is the message of the angels to the shepherds gathered in the hillside outside Bethlehem. That is the message preached by Samuel Marsden and Ruatara at the first recorded church service in Aotearoa in 1814. That is the message which our world still longs to hear.

This year has felt tumultuous, and far from peaceful. Highly charged elections were held in 60 nations; France seeing four different presidents, South Korea (briefly) declaring martial law, massive marches and protests in our own land. War has continued in Ukraine and is expanding in the Middle East. The toppling of Assad’s regime creates a power vacuum with plenty of extremists keen to fill the void. Extreme weather is becoming ever more ’normal’.

It would be easy to say that peace is but a pipe-dream. But then again the story of God’s good purposes have never been clean and painless. The very day after Christmas the church remembers St Stephen the first Christian Matryr and on Saturday we commemorate the Holy Innocents, the children killed by Herod in an attempt to keep a hold of power.

That’s the risk of incarnation. It’s not safe and simple and sanitary. But the only way to salvation is through the muck of real life, so that is what Jesus is birthed into.

There is a risk in our own engagement with faith that we keep it safe and simple and sanitary and shallow. We can ignore our shadow selves and the deep transformation that Jesus invites us into. My prayer for this Christmas is that we take the brave step of letting Jesus be birthed into the muck of our inner life.

The angels promise peace. While it may be a while before we see that peace fully realised, we can make a start in ourselves… “Let every heart prepare Him room”