Christmas Message for 2025

THE theologian and World War II martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who lived and witnessed in days as challenging as ours, maintains that the Bible “makes it quite clear that Christ helps us not by virtue of his omnipotence but rather by virtue of his weakness and suffering.”

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This statement bears no real surprise when we consider that Jesus’ life stretches between a borrowed manger and a cruel cross. In Jesus, weakness is not seen as the opposite of strength but as the ground where strength grows.

Encountering Jesus in his mother’s arms safeguards us from the temptation and error of missing to mark his full and true humanity. That temptation runs the risk of turning him into some sort of first century superman, a figure that would be of no relevance to us. In the face of this, it is a joy to turn again to the narratives of Jesus’ birth that we discover in the Scriptures. In doing so we become delighted by God's amazing love for the world. Jesus reveals and discloses to us what can be seen of God in human life.

This challenges any view that God is distant; rather, He is Emmanuel - God with us. The amazing truth of Christmas is that God in all his power, might and splendour chose to reveal himself in the Bethlehem babe. It is an immense paradox, that what is said of God is now manifest in human weakness, vulnerability and limitation. He, the Almighty and all powerful, comes to us in Jesus; now weak, needy and totally dependent on others.