Bishop of Argyll and the Isles, Bishop Brian McGee
I have only been to the Holy Land once – about 25 years ago – and had the privilege of staying in Bethlehem for a few nights.
Seeing and praying in the Church of the Nativity, built over the stable where Jesus was born, was a moving experience. So too was visiting the nearby caves where local shepherds sheltered at night.
However, this does not mean that it was purely idyllic. Two thousand years ago the people of the Holy Land knew poverty, divisions and violence. It was into this darkness that the Light of the world, the Prince of Peace was born. He was the Hope of his people. He would fulfil and surpass their yearnings.
None of us are strangers to fear and suffering. Yet we do not need to be
overwhelmed. Christmas celebrates that there is another way, that there is
hope, because God has come to be with us. We are precious. Jesus sets us free
and offers life to the full. This Christmas let us welcome Christ anew. Happy
Christmas!
Reverend Dugald Cameron for Appin and Lismore
The German Lutheran congregation in Bethlehem set their traditional nativity figures; a manger, Mary, Joseph, shepherds and wise men etc, and the Christ-child, within rubble. The rubble of bombed out buildings, and shattered limbs and lives.
That congregation said something powerful about this world and God. Into the midst of human reality God comes, vulnerable. Once he was a baby lying in a manger, now He lies within the rubble of human anger, cruelty, prejudice and ignorance. God is not remote in the sky, or a warm fuzzy feeling you can summon up with smelly
candles. To see Christ is to see God. The thirty year old Christ told of how we encounter God in others who are vulnerable. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”
If we want a positive message for 2024, it will be found in how we as individuals and societies respond to the vulnerable, and the planet counts in this too. For in doing so we will be closer to God, the source of all love. And we all need love, from our very beginning lying in a crib.
The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Rt Reverend Sally Foster-Fulton
“Whether it be here in Scotland or in broken and divided lands across the world, we need more light. We need more light to overcome conflict and to heal ancient wounds.
We need more light to enable us to better feed the hungry and to relieve the suffering of others.
We need more light to enable us to be better stewards of creation and to reap the harvest of life.
We say this in the sure knowledge that, even in the darkest of times, the light of God still shines.
As much as the wise men of ancient times needed light from above to guide them to the place where the Christ-child was born, we need light to guide us today.
The simplicity of the traditional nativity scene, with the star shining above, rather stands in contrast with the hustle and bustle of much of the contemporary festive season as we try to reconcile the many demands placed upon our time.
As we struggle through the gathering gloom of a short December day, the light is short and the night seems long.
It is perhaps especially then that we need light to guide us.
Knowing this to be so, we say again that what we hold together in common is our faith in Jesus Christ, the light of the world.
Knowing this to be so, we invite you to walk in the light of God first revealed in Bethlehem two thousand years ago.
God’s light has surely come into our world.”