With Christmas approaching and the world celebrating Jesus’ birth, our nation’s Christian heritage, enshrined in the Ekalesia as one of our three tama Ua pillars, cannot be ignored or overestimated in its impact on our lives as Cook Islanders, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.

If we believe we are a Christian nation then we also cannot ignore the profound message of Jesus, born a Jew and an Israelite of the tribe of Judah, in the town of Bethlehem. His message of the Kingdom of God to come, and of finally peace on Earth, redemption, repentance and belonging to the children of Abraham, remains a cornerstone of our faith.

And yet it is the death of Jesus that demonstrates to us more than his life, that life is cruel and unjust, that innocents are killed in the name of those in power and privilege, and that when a narrative of peace is larger than the narrative of war, the messenger must be killed to try to kill the message. Mercy, peace and the future for all of humanity will come at a price, and sometimes death is the measure meted out, the price demanded and the penalty exacted for that peace.

I have never been so confronted and challenged about my faith, my ideas of peace, its cost, the price of others and the death and murder of the innocent, as we have seen it displayed with the murder of innocents currently in Gaza.

Needless to say, the unfolding events of the past three months have driven many of us back to our Bibles, back to our history books, to kitchen tables, work tables and finally the reflection back of ourselves in mirrors of conscience and consciousness, asking God for wisdom, clarity, justice and understanding as this murderous tragedy has unfolded.

So what did Jesus say about how we treat others?

When Jesus was confronted by the religious zealot leaders of his day who asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment, he answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’.

To demonstrate justice, he told the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate what it meant to love our neighbour: on a personal level, sacrificially, if necessary, to act for the good of others – that he said, was what justice looked like.

Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan shows that love should expand over cultural boundaries and ethnic lines, as the Samaritan and not the Priest or the Levite, was the one who stopped to help the man beaten and left on the side of the road.

At the time, Jews and Samaritans clashed mainly over religious differences, but also cultural differences, which produced hatred among many inside both groups.

And yet it was the Samaritan who put aside any negative judgments about the man on the side of the road and put the man before himself, demonstrating Jesus’s command to love him as a neighbour.

Clearly, our neighbours are not just those who simply look, act worship and think like each of us. They are also those who are different, speak another language worship another God and who strongly disagree.

My own views have settled when I consider the words of Jesus, and for me any democracy, world power or organisation that treats civilians like grass that should be mown, or queues for gas chambers, beasts in a field, slaves as chattel, terra nullius or invisible, persona non grata, or unwelcome, is not on the side of history or our faith, or holding to Jesus definition of neighbour and in that, does not hold, obey or understand the second commandment – to love your neighbour as yourself.

I for one need to do this better.