30^th December 2010

THE FEAST OF HUMAN DIGNITY (Sunday 12 December 2010)

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Carols by Candlelight

Is there any chance that the true Christmas can be revived soon?

Consider this typical Letter to the Editor: 'In multicultural Australia Christ's birth has a diminishing relevance to non Christians. An icon like Santa Claus is one of equality, giving and sharing. Unlike Christian traditions, Santa is a neutral symbol of goodwill and kindness.' (MX 29/11/2002, p16)

That is what most Australians think is most important about Christmas.

But Christmas is much more than that. It is, as has been rightly said, the
feast of human dignity.

It is not a celebration of our goodness and charity or our ability to bring peace on earth. In fact, it destroys such naive and dangerous illusions about our own powers. In doing so, however, it restores our human dignity instead of obliterating it.

Many carols use spatial imagery to speak of Jesus 'coming down from heaven to earth'. As many Christian thinkers and hymnists say, God has revealed himself to be a 'condescending God' in Christ. In him God is not remote but has stooped down to us.

This does not sound very promising: 'condescension' now indicates a sense of superiority over those of lesser importance. One 'deigns' to speak to a person of inferior worth. One looks down on others!

Something completely different is meant when Charles Wesley says, 'He deigns in flesh to appear, widest extremes to join.' (AHB 229) Here is the heart of the Christmas message.

As the editor of the Canadian National Post (23/12/2006, A16) notes: 'God took to himself a human nature and dwelt among us as one of us;
(signifying) that the baby born in Bethlehem is true God and true man.
That the omnipotent Creator would condescend to share the nature of His creatures is the astonishing novelty of Christian revelation. The celebration of that makes Christmas the greatest of all Christian festivals, save for the events of Holy Week, when a still further condescension is marked -- the condescension of a God who shares not only a cradle with us, but even a grave.

'The condescension of God . . . is a cause for wonder and gratitude, not because God seeks to elevate Himself, but because in lowering Himself, He lifts us up. In the condescension of God lies the loftiest elevation of humanity. We are made more truly human.

'The Christian doctrine of the incarnation -- that God became human -- opens new horizons for human dignity. At Christmas Christians believe that every human being is in some way united to God by the mystery of what happened at Bethlehem. The whole human race has been ennobled and each member of it is entitled to an estimation of human dignity beyond what merely human arguments can furnish.'

Christmas truly is the feast of human dignity. Each person has value, each person matters. When, in Christ, God 'deigned in flesh to appear, widest extremes to join', our flawed lives and our strife-torn communities are given a dignity which, otherwise, could not have been imagined.

We should remember this at a time when Christ's birth has a 'diminishing relevance to many Australians'. In the celebration of Christmas -- the feast of human dignity -- the Church must not let natural goodwill trump the glory of the incarnation, when God stooped down in love to lift us up.
Otherwise, the full measure of our dignity and the inestimable value of each person will be lost -- with tragic consequences for public life in
Australia.

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Rev Dr Max Champion is minister in the St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is Chair of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.