Writing to encourage Christians to remember the poor, the Apostle Paul wrote about the generosity of Jesus who became poor to make us humans rich. This is the key to understanding the meaning of Christmas. Our traditional readings and carols proclaim that God lovingly and willingly became a vulnerable human being for us. He gave up his heavenly riches and glory and became poor. Not only without wealth, as the manger story dramatically illustrates, but vulnerable to pain, sickness, sorrow and death. He was born in a borrowed stable and a borrowed feed trough was his bassinet. He was an asylum seeker who sought refuge in another country because his birth posed a threat to national security. He never owned any real estate. He died in naked poverty as his last possessions were raffled. He was executed as a common criminal and buried in a borrowed grave. Christians believe that in his essential being Jesus was all that God is and yet he voluntarily became poor by taking our human nature and humbled himself to die for us. Christmas is about God impoverishing himself because he loved humans so much.

It is not the gift of economic wealth which displays God's love. Christmas is about God becoming poor to deal with poverty of spirit. A London Times journalist once ended an article with a question "What's wrong with the world?" G.K.Chesteron, the influential early 20th century writer, wrote a famous pithy reply which simply stated, "I am". He was absolutely right. The problems our world faces will not be solved by money, education, technology, science or harsher laws, but by changes in people. It's people who control all these.

We humans do not love God wholeheartedly. Only sporadically do we really love our neighbours as ourselves. When taken to its extreme this apparently innocuous self-centredness leads to the egotism of the Lindt gunman. All such actions are not madness, but in God's view they are badness and deserve punishment. The Christian message is that God still loves us fallible creatures and offers forgiveness if we're not too self-sufficient to want it. Jesus Christ came to make us rich in peace and pardon. He also came to give us rich inner resources to live better right now. It is Christian teaching which has indelibly inspired our culture towards love, goodness, justice and mercy. No, we don't always live up to these ideals, Christians no more than others, but Christ showed us the way. His human poverty and his spiritual self-sacrifice set a high bar, but it is one which all Australians honour when they seek kindness, harmony and care. The sad thing is that often we try and go it alone, without the spiritual resources given by the one for whom Christmas is named.

At Christmas God deliberately became poor to offer us indescribable riches in the things which really matter. It is good news of great joy that Christ deals with our past, transforms our present and guarantees our future.

There is a beautiful Christmas carol written in 1934 in the aftermath of the savage martyrdom of two missionaries beheaded by bandits. Violent events were answered with a hymn focusing on the self-giving love of God. The second verse describes the true significance of Christmas:

Thou who art God beyond all praising,

All for love's sake becamest man;

Stooping so low, but sinners raising

Heavenwards by thine eternal plan.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,

All for love's sake becamest man.

May all the riches of Christ be yours in this holy season.

Our guest editorial writer is the Right Reverend Trevor Edwards, Vicar General and Assistant Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn.