Christmas Message

The season of Advent is a time for waiting. Waiting is not a very popular attitude. Most people consider it a waste of time. Perhaps this is because we are in a culture that is always in a hurry. Even in our life with God, we don’t find waiting very easy. How often do we find ourselves asking the question, ‘How long; how long before you answer my prayer; how long before you send healing to me; how long before peace comes into my life; how long before I get a job to support my loved ones; how long, O Lord…how long?

In the first four chapters of the gospel according to Luke, there are five outstanding people who wait in a special way: Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary, Simeon and finally Anna. They were people of promise and hope, waiting for the redemption of God’s people. They were a people who were prepared to trust themselves into the awesome presence of God.

So this Christmas, we join them, our forbears, and wait upon the Lord, and say, O come, O come Emmanuel, and claim us as your own.

Now as we reflect on the very first Christmas, we must recall the simplicity and the mystery of the occasion. It was a time when our God and Saviour came to earth. It was the end of us being alone, and the beginning of God with us, Emmanuel. Jesus the Son of God left the tabernacle of Mary’s womb because his delight was to be with human beings created by God.

We experience this every day in our lives. For day after day, Jesus the Christ returns to take his place among us. Jesus leaves the holy tabernacle of heaven, to come to earth, and then he leaves the tabernacle of the altar, to come into our hearts. So every union with Jesus Christ is Christmas all over again.

I am always filled with awe at the thought that God, Creator of the world, actually became a tiny human baby, detaching himself from the rights of his divinity in order to do so. A baby of course arouses immediate sympathy and even delight as we watch the tiny infant, stretching out its little hands, to make contact and share its love. Such was Jesus too, stretching out his infant hands to make contact with us, to invite us into the closest possible intimacy with him throughout our lives, us protecting him, him protecting us. What confidence in him this thought should inspire! So today we pray: Dear Jesus, I give you my heart now, with all its thoughts and desires, and I ask You to make it entirely Yours for ever. Amen.

May God bless us with his everlasting words, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Bert Dellosa

B. Theo - Melbourne College of Divinity/United Faculty of Theology

M.A. (Theol) - Australian Catholic University

Minister

Uniting Church in Australia

Altona-Trinity Congregation