"I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man, I will not… if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he needs a mirror,” said Julia Gillard in the speech that won her worldwide attention. I wonder what children make of our leaders and politics in general when they spend so much air time attacking each other. Is politics something children need to think about? Surely politics has no place near the Christmas roast nor the Santa sacks?
You may be surprised to hear that Christmas really is the greatest political moment of all time. Politics is all about representation. One person representing lots of others. A political role is someone standing in your place for your benefit. When Jesus was born, he came to represent every human being that ever was, is and is to come. Who’s for you? A: Jesus. Jesus came to stand in your shoes and represent you before God.
Christmas is the moment when God became man and stood in our shoes in order to fully bear up our cause. As the book of Hebrews says, God’s Son became like us in every way so that he could be a merciful high priest for us. This includes him becoming helpless and vulnerable like us in birth, dependent like us in childhood, learning self-control like us in adolescence and facing the challenges of adulthood like us.
When we come to teach children about Christmas we might not first think about politics and leadership. However, children are surrounded by politics and leadership every day. First, they pick up things from their parents or the TV news headlines about leaders and the playground brawls they have in parliament. Every couple of years they will go along with mum or dad to vote at the voting booths. But children will also experience leadership and politics at a much closer level. The captain of their favourite sporting team has a representative role. Someone represents the team and makes decisions on behalf of the team for the benefit, hopefully of the whole of the team. When children step into the classroom or even the school grounds they experienced politics as well. They submit themselves to the leadership of the principal and the school teacher who has rules and makes decisions for their benefit. Their class teacher advocates on their behalf for the educational needs and resources the school may need to purchase for their benefit. Finally when children go home they experienced politics and leadership at a much more intimate level, through their parents. Parents are constantly faced with decisions and challenges as how to best represent the interests of their kids. Will they let them use Face book? Should they have a mobile phone? Can they go to sleep over parties? When parents punish their children they pronounce judgement on past acts, defining what is acceptable and what is not in the family. Consequently the idea of representation fulfilled by human leadership is not a foreign concept but one that is a very familiar one. Therefore if we are teaching children about Christmas and the importance of the event for their lives , all we need to do is join the dots, there are many examples of representation they can relate to.
The exciting thing about Christmas is that God sent his son to represent us and bless us, should we pledge our allegiance to His Son. Christmas is about God's eternal leadership being re-stamped upon the world. God’s Son becomes like one of us, all the way down to being a dependent, vulnerable baby in a manger. He did this to be our leader, to represent us. So that by his actions he would be able to rescue us. In his body would be our body, punished at Easter for our wrong, only to be resurrected three days later so that we can all enjoy eternal life.
Who’s for you? Who has your best interest at heart? Who will serve you and not exploit you? Who will represent you before God? Who will take upon themselves your wrong and shame? Who will remove death, disease and sorrow? Who will make eternal life possible? Jesus, that’s who.
This Christmas Anton's Antics will be performing a special live show that focuses on the political importance of Jesus’ birth. The story follows Augustus Caesar's edict in Luke chapter 2 which forces Mary and Joseph to return to Bethlehem where baby Jesus is forced to be born in a manger. We’ve also published a new sticker story for kids to do at Christmas that’s about Jesus being our great leader called ‘Who’s For You?’ More details in Anton’s shop http://antonsantics.com/shop/
