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17-December-1998 
98391 
 
     WCC Head Issues Christmas Message 
 
    by Konrad Raiser 
    General Secretary, World Council of Churches 
 
GENEVA, Switzerland- Everyone prefers good news to bad.  The year which is 
about to end, however, has brought more bad news than good. 
 
    In Asian countries millions of people have lost their jobs in the wake 
of the financial crisis.  Russians continue to fear for the future of their 
country.  In many parts of the world tens of thousands have lost their 
homes as a consequence of floods and hurricanes.  Throughout the year wars 
have taken their toll of innocent civilians and have added to the 
already-existing ranks of millions of refugees. 
 
    Even when there is good news it is seldom reported, and when it is many 
cannot see that it makes any difference; the bad news heavily outweighs the 
good, or so it seems. 
 
    Is there any reason to hope for better news as we move into the last 
year before the end of the millennium? 
 
    Christmas is the time when the good news of the salvation of the world 
is proclaimed and celebrated.  Those to whom this good news was first 
communicated - the shepherds in the fields - had little for which to hope. 
 
    They were among the excluded of their time.  They lived under the 
occupying force of the Roman Empire.  The shepherds, and all the world at 
that time, experienced the impact of a kind of first century globalization. 
They knew at first hand how imperial decrees promulgated in distant centers 
of power put additional burdens on ordinary people. 
 
    What difference to such a world, then, did the message make which the 
angel addressed to the terrified shepherds?  The angel proclaimed, "Do not 
be afraid, for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the 
people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is 
the Messiah, the Lord" (Luke 2:10-11). 
 
    This good news was not, and is not a message of vague optimism and 
generalized hope.  All news must relate to reality and be verifiable in 
time and place.  News is not fiction but fact; it must be about what has 
actually happened. 
 
    So it was for the shepherds.  They decided to go and see, as they put 
it, "this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us" 
(Luke 2:15).  They went and they did see. What the shepherds had been told 
was correct and they became eyewitnesses to the beginning of a new era -- 
to the new reign of salvation. 
 
    The same good news of Christmas still makes a difference at the end of 
the second millennium after the birth of Jesus. 
 
    A few days ago, the Eighth Assembly of the World Council of Churches 
ended in Harare, Zimbabwe, with a message of joyful expectation and hope, 
"for all the people."  Those people are in Africa and the entire oikoumene, 
the whole inhabited world. 
 
    The Assembly not only celebrated the 50th anniversary, the jubilee of 
the World Council of Churches; it also heard and acclaimed the message of 
God's jubilee which is "good news to the poor," and which proclaims "the 
year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:18-19). 
 
    This good news exists today and is verifiable wherever Christian hope 
is turned into action.  God's jubilee becomes a fact when those in bondage 
are released, when debts are forgiven, wealth is redistributed and where 
the earth is respected and renewed as God's good creation. 
 
    God's jubilee also means we are reconciled to God and each other 
through Jesus Christ who comes to us again this Christmas. 
 
    In a world seemingly intent on tearing itself apart, the Christian Hope 
that God's way of justice, peace and reconciliation is possible, and that 
millions deep down desire this, is the best news anyone could want. 

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