There’s a great little book God’s Word produced annually in Australia providing brief reflections on the scriptures for every day of the year. I was asked to write the January reflections for this year, which included today’s Australia Day reflection. I share it below.
I’m a New Zealander living in New Zealand writing an Australia Day reflection. Our two nations are united by generations of friendship through good times and bad. In times of war our families and friends lived and died alongside each other. On the sports field we can bring out the best in each other. Our geographical proximity makes it easy to visit for a long weekend or a relaxing vacation. Together we are growing to appreciate the diversity of the people who make up our nations, immigrants of the last two centuries alongside the first people of our lands who have lived here for many centuries.
While Australia Day celebrates this diversity and potential, as Christians we know that left to ourselves our cultural shadows and fears will overwhelm us. In Jesus Christ the source of all human existence and culture has shone a new light on our land enabling us to together live as citizens not only of an earthly land but of an eternal realm.
Excellent reflection John!
Left to our own devices we are a sorry lot full of family divisions and often bitter enmity towards those we should cherish. No wonder we place the young and the old in harms way by selfless devotion to our own needs, now there’s a classic oxymoron! It is a crying shame that war often unites us in a way that faith doesn’t and how sad it is that so many choose to walk a faithless path. Nevertheless God sent his son to save us from ourselves. Hallelujah!
Happy Australia Day to all my Aussie friends, you are enduring such tough times, God bless you all.
It is sad and unjust the way Australia Day doesn’t honour the Aboriginal people – the first Australians.