World Council of Churches - News Release
Contact: + 41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org

For immediate release: 18 December 2009


WCC Christmas video in many languages


This year's Christmas message from the World Council of Churches (WCC) is available in 17 languages reflecting the linguistic diversity of the WCC member churches: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Spanish and Kiswahili.

Video versions in ten of these languages have been made available on the WCC website and on YouTube. Offering this message in a variety of languages is possible thanks to volunteers from within the WCC staff, member churches and sister organizations.

The message speaks of Christmas as a time of renewal and transformation for all creation, even at a time when the earth and its people are under stress and suffering.

Full text of the Christmas message: Light is the radiant image of God’s goodness, in creation and at Christmas. The Creator commands, “Let there be light!”1 – and the universe takes form. At the nativity of Christ, light breaks forth in the midst of darkness – and the darkness can never overcome this glowing testament of the living God.2

Christmas is a season to sing praises,3 yet in our time the reality of environmental destruction undermines the doxology of creation. The singing of the spheres is obscured by pollution and manufactured noise, the rhythms of the sea are disturbed by climate change, the beauty of many manifestations of life is disfigured by abusive practices rooted in greed. And as the earth suffers, so must its inhabitants. Already, the poor and other socially marginalized people find it ever more difficult to lift their voices in song.

In the days of Mary and Joseph, the emperor Augustus believed power rested in his hands alone. He decreed that “all the world” (the biblical word is oikoumene)4 should be taxed, and an obscure couple made their way toward Bethlehem. Yet God had another purpose in history, and now we realize that thrones, dominions, rulers and authorities were acting unwittingly in fulfillment of prophetic imperatives. It is Christ, not the emperor, who is truly “before all things, and in him all things hold together”.5

Biblical scholar Barbara Rossing suggests that the old, imperial oikoumene of Caesar – along with modern economic, military and political empires – is perishing. Yet the prophets and apostles assure us that God’s creation – a true oikoumene comprising the household of God – will be transformed.6

And so we pray for change and offer ourselves as instruments of transformation.7 We live in faith that, in the coming of Jesus Christ, there is a new creation in which the hope of the angels’ song comes to fruition – God, humanity and all of life shall be reconciled.8

Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia
General Secretary
World Council of Churches

Footnotes
1) Genesis 1:3
2) John 1:4-5
3) Luke 2:14
4) Luke 2:1
5) Colossians 1:17; Psalm 2:7-10
6) Isaiah 65:17; Revelation 21-22
7) 2 Corinthians 4:16
8) 2 Corinthians 5:17-20

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.