Christmas enhances tough times

However different Christmas Day will be for millions of people across the world, the differences between this and other years will make the essence of the day no less authentic. Some Christmas carols and cards — as Adelaide Archbishop Geoffrey Smith, the Anglican Primate of Australia, says in his Christmas message — give the impression that all was peaceful and calm for the birth of Christ. In reality, Archbishop Smith points out, it was the opposite. “We might be conscious we are living in uncertain times, but the context of Jesus’s birth was full of uncertainty. Palestine was oppressed by the occupying Roman empire. Various parties within Judaism were jockeying for influence and enthusiastically trying to recruit people to their cause … Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus was a place of hardship, confusion and tension.’’

The first Christmas was fraught with unexpected difficulties. Mary, due to give birth to Jesus, was on the road from Nazareth with husband Joseph. In response to an edict from the Roman authorities, they were going to Bethlehem to be registered. Unable to find room at any inn, they bedded down in a stable. There the baby was born and placed in an animal feeding trough. It would have been frustrating, lonely and frightening for any couple. Shortly after the birth, Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher notes in his Christmas message, the family fled for their lives. There was a price on the baby’s head. Then, as now, unrest and uncertainty were rife in the world. Three wise men, Matthew’s Gospel relates, followed a dazzling star to find the child and bring him gifts. By coincidence, as we reported on Wednesday, Monday’s solstice brought a rare alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, the closest for centuries. It prompted astronomers to speculate whether it was similar to the “Star of Bethlehem’’.

Even with Sydney’s northern beaches outbreak, Australians are better off than most people in the world this year, especially our friends and family in Britain and Europe. In London, battened down against a more contagious strain of the virus, many will spend the day alone in small flats. Carols played over loudspeakers from closed local churches are the only hint of Christmas. In the winter drizzle, the music draws people out, under umbrellas, to listen and sing behind masks, waving to neighbours from a distance. But many Australians, too, are experiencing loss and dislocation. Unnecessary border closures are denying many the chance to share Christmas with loved ones. Some, especially the elderly for whom online bookings remain problematic, will miss out on church services. Others miss attending carols by candlelight that suit our summer celebrations so well.

But the pandemic has also unleashed some better angels, with neighbours and relative strangers reaching out with surprise invitations, home-cooked meals, visits to nursing homes and extra support for the homeless and the poor. Coronavirus has changed how we live and work; it has also changed the way we prepare for and celebrate Christmas. It has removed some of the trimmings but the essential messages of salvation, generosity and hope are firmly intact. The changes are also a reminder that what many of us took for granted in past years was very special indeed.

While 2020 has been heartbreaking for so many, it has been an “annus horribilis” for some Christian churches — and not only because of COVID-19. Amid China’s aggression, Christians in the East and West are uneasy about the Vatican’s pact with the Chinese government. The only possible justification, protecting the faithful in China, has not materialised. On Wednesday, Dennis Shanahan reported that $2.3bn was transferred by Vatican agencies to as yet unknown parties in Australia in more than 40,000 transactions from 2014 to this year. The revelation is indicative of the depth of corruption that has afflicted the Church’s senior echelons. During the pandemic, as some people turned to their local churches for comfort and guidance, they received mixed responses. Some parishes, including traditional and newer communities, interpreted restrictions with compassion and common sense. They responded warmly to parishioners and strangers, and emerged stronger from the crisis. Others, in contrast, upheld the letter of the law to the last drop of hand sanitiser but were grudging in providing the spiritual care people longed for. But regardless of restrictions, many people are ready for a quiet, peaceful celebration, free of last year’s bushfire menace and enhanced by soaking La Nina rainfall. The Australian wishes readers a happy, safe Christmas.