One Auckland church has taken a modern approach to its Christmas billboard this year, showing Jesus' parents as refugees.
St Luke's in Remuera has chosen a cartoon portraying Mary and Joseph as refugees in a leaky boat being turned away at a barbed-wire border fence with an armed guard saying: "Sorry. There's no room."
The Minister of St Luke's, Reverend Glynn Cardy, says the image was designed to relate the meaning of Christmas to a modern world that is facing a refugee crisis.
"The first Christmas involved people with few resources relying on the hospitality of those with more," he says, referring to the biblical depiction of Jesus and Mary being turned down by many inns on the night of Jesus' birth, resulting in him being born in a manger surrounded by animals.
"Like today's refugees, Mary and Joseph had travelled far from their families. They were vulnerable. They needed someone to make room, to make a room available, in order that Mary could give birth to Jesus."
Rev Cardy says Christmas is not only about being generous and welcoming as individuals, but about making sure "our Government's policies towards refugees are generous and welcoming".
"Rather than being greeted by a gun, a barbed-wire fence and a blunt statement 'Sorry, there's no room', could not we greet refugees with shelter, food, and assistance with work?" he asks.
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