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Celebrate Christmas with peace, love, equality and justice

Message from Pastor Robin Murray, Castlegar United Church
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At Christmastime, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Photo: Birmingham Museums Trust/Unsplash

Submitted by Robin Murray, Castlegar United Church

At Christmastime, we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Whether or not you believe in the Christian claim that he was/is the son of God is up to you, but either way, he is worth celebrating.

The things he stood for as an adult, and his birth, which was at once both ordinary and extraordinary, are worth celebrating.

I say his birth was both ordinary and extraordinary, because he was born in such a humble way.

He was born in a stable and soon afterwards his family became refugees, a scenario that was not and is still not unique.

Millions of poor people birth their children into such situations or worse.

And yet out of such hardship this time, was born an extraordinary man who advocated for love and equality, challenging the authority of both the Roman Empire and his own Jewish religious leaders.

There are two very different accounts of his birth recorded in the Bible, but they are not incompatible.

The account in the book of Matthew focuses on how Jesus fits into the establishment.

It gives his genealogy and talks about ancient prophecies, not Jewish ones, but also includes Zoroastrian scholars who travel from Persia, sometimes called kings, sometimes called wisemen.

It also tells of the local king, Herod, a puppet ruler of the Roman Empire, going on a murderous rampage to try and kill the infant Jesus.

The account in the book of Luke focuses on how Jesus fits into the lives of the poor and oppressed.

We hear how his unwed pregnant teenage mother, Mary, declares her faith that God is turning the power structures of the world upside down and bringing justice to the poor, in the now famous “Mary Magnificat.”

We hear how he is born in a stable and visited by shepherds, among the poorest and lowliest people in society at that time.

Out of all this grows a child and then a man, who would set in motion a movement that changed the world.

Often in history, his movement has been hijacked by the powers of oppression, but the truth of his message of love always manages to resurface again and push us back towards justice.

So we celebrate Christmas and the hope that the way Jesus taught, the way of peace, love, equality and justice will be born once again, in our hearts and in our world.

Merry Christmas to all.

Pastor Robin Murray,

Castlegar United Church