Dr. Jerry Pillay, the South African Presbyterian minister who leads the World Council of Churches, has issued a Christmas message, entitled “Holy Family, Holy Faith.”
“Our gauzy picture of the Holy Family and the Lord’s nativity often fails to capture the fraught situation that Luke’s gospel portrays,” he said. “Mary and Joseph’s betrothal was jeopardized by her pregnancy and potential scandal. Her confinement was upended by an imperial edict to traversing a difficult journey to a far-away town.”
“Jesus himself was born on a cold night in a humble stable, and his first days were spent as a refugee fleeing danger from a mad king,” he continued. “In such desperate and unlikely circumstances did the Holy Family begin.”
350 Protestant and Orthodox communities are members of the World Council of Churches, which is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Pope Francis made an ecumenical pilgrimage to Geneva in 2018 for its 70th anniversary.