Darkness at Bondi

Last night at Bondi Beach, fifteen people celebrating Hanukkah were murdered in a terrorist attack that has left many more critically injured and all of us reeling in shock.

Many of us have Jewish friends, neighbours, or family. To them, we are so deeply sorry. We grieve with you. We cannot fathom the weight you are carrying: the fear, the anger, the exhaustion of being hated without end. An old friend of ours, whom we reached out to, said that she told her son, fresh from his Bar Mitzvah, to hide his Star of David today. The Jewish community is terrified, and they have every reason to be.

What happened at Bondi was an act of evil. It was an expression of hatred that has wounded communities for generations. How can we adequately respond? The most faithful thing we can do is to stay present in the grief, to let our hearts break, and to resist the urge to move on too quickly.

If prayer feels impossible right now, if believing in anything good seems out of reach, God is large enough to hold that doubt.

At Christmas, we remember that God refused to stay at a safe distance. Jesus entered a world already soaked in violence. His people lived under constant threat, feared for their children, and wondered if peace was even possible.

Jesus was Jewish. He lived, prayed, and hoped as a Jew. Any form of Christian faith that tolerates antisemitism has abandoned its own foundation. When Jewish people suffer today, it strikes at the centre of everything we claim to believe.

Christmas tells us that God does not ignore our grief. Emmanuel means "God with us." With the heartbroken, with the terrified, with those whose joy has been shattered by violence. God is in the hospital waiting room with families. He is in the shock and the silence. He is with those who “flood their bed with weeping and their couch with tears” (Psalm 6:6).

So how can we respond? 

Permit yourself to grieve. You don't have to be strong or certain or hopeful right now. Let yourself feel what you feel. Jesus wept, and so can we.

Contact your Jewish neighbour. Listen more than you speak. Be present. Ask what they need. Stand against antisemitism whenever and wherever you encounter it.

Become a bearer of light. Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of light that refused to go out. Advent echoes this same stubborn hope. Small acts of kindness, courage, and presence matter more than we know.

Come along to our Blue Christmas service on Tuesday night, 6pm at Fairfield. Worship and grieve in community. 

We believe love will outlast hate, even though we know what that costs. We trust that death doesn't get the final word, even as we feel the full weight of every loss without pretending it's less than it is. We believe God meets us in our worst moments: not to take away the pain, but to make sure we don't face it alone.

As we move toward Christmas, we do so gently with tears and questions. 

Heavenly Father,

Teach us to grieve honestly and love courageously. Help us honour those who were killed, injured and terrorised by refusing to go numb. You chose weakness over power. Bring peace in our broken world. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.