Christmas messages 2017: Bishops’ words of wisdom
Church leaders from across the region reflect on 2017.
Churches need to keep their digital doors open
In churches across this land, the Christmas celebration begins in the midst of the night. The Gospel records how Christ was born in the darkest hours coming as the dawning light Isaiah foresaw (cf. Is 9:1).
As the world slept and shepherds kept watch, this was how ‘the kindness and love of God our saviour were revealed’ (Titus 3:4).
And in the silence of those same hours of night, news of great joy broke upon the world: “A joy to be shared by the whole people...that today a saviour is born to you” (Lk. 2:10). It is this good news of a saviour that has shaped our history and continues to inspire what is best in us.
Christmas might be a time for us to consider the news environment that is now shaping our society in the endless flow of words and images of the digital world. The internet, which has a great potential for uniting and informing, can now be a place where people are threatened, exploited, addicted and misled.
Pope Francis has reflected on the darkness found in this digital world that has become a place where fake news and misinformation – contemporary expressions for telling lies – can run unchecked and unchallenged.
Pope Francis notes there is something sinister about fake news which is invariably bad and seeks to set people one against another.
How different is the Good News of Christmas that serves to bring people together and leads us to open our hearts in recognition of the stranger and outsider, forming us to be a people with no ambition ‘except to do good’ (Titus 3:4). As a society we have need to reflect how this digital world can be brought to serve the common good; protect the innocence of children; and fulfil the duty of serving truth and avoiding falsehood in sharing news.
I have been happy to join voices in calling for greater protection for children, and for internet providers to take account of their responsibility to limit the damaging ways in which the internet is used.
However, each of us needs to act, conscious of how the digital media forms part of our daily environment and especially that of the young. We need to take control of the messages and images which flow into our homes. Used well, the internet connects and brings us closer one to another. A striking example is among the increasing number of visitors to Shrewsbury Cathedral – those who now visit the cathedral each night via the internet. People make this journey remotely to Town Walls from across the country and around the globe, to keep watch in prayer or simply to find peace.
Pope Francis has described the digital highway as ‘a street teeming with people who are often hurting, men and women looking for salvation and hope’. Keeping the doors of our churches open also means keeping them open in the digital environment.
Our night-time visitors along the digital highway see only one, bright point of light in the cathedral: The sanctuary lamp pointing to Christ’s presence among us.
Amid the shadows of our time Christmas leads us all back to this Light that can never fade or mislead: “A light which shines in the darkness, a light which darkness cannot overcome” (Jn. 1: 5).
It’s not all about acquiring ‘things’
It was the first week in November when on a train I overheard three young men talking openly.
Their conversation included the comment …Christmas is already in the shops. A day or so later I watched the first of Currys/PC World’s Christmas adverts.
In the advert a mum and dad double act, as a spoof, declare a ‘tech free’ Christmas.
What is on offer instead is an old-fashioned Christmas with carols and singing.
The trio of children are less than impressed. All changes when a new LG OLED 4K ready TV is revealed in the living room.
It is a funny advert. The retailers declared marketing strategy is to help customers ‘get it right’ when making a significant purchase at this season.
That is perfectly understandable.
There is however in this an underlying message.
Getting Christmas right is not about having an old-fashioned Christmas as mentioned by the mum and dad in the advert but about buying the right products.
This raises an interesting question. For many people coming to this season of celebration; what does it mean to get Christmas right?
In Dr Seuss’s book How the Grinch Stole Christmas there is a wonderful quote…“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!”
What all of us know but rarely acknowledge is that ‘things’, however clever, expensive or innovative, can only give a passing pleasure and transient joy. Of course it is good to celebrate Christmas and to give gifts to one another.
The heart of the Christmas story is that God gave us his greatest gift in the birth of Jesus.
The late Steve Jobs, founder of Apple is quoted as saying: “If I had given people what they wanted they would never have got Apple.”
Embodied in the Christmas message is that God gave us not what we wanted but what we need.
The birth of Christ was not glamorous. What the gospels tell us is that God in Christ stepped into the depths of our broken, sad and troubled world to bring us what we need; peace, reconciliation, forgiveness and transformed lives.
It cost him everything. Like all gifts he has to be received. This story is not old fashioned; it is timeless and his transforming presence priceless.
God is with us in all situations
Christmas is good news. It is the good news of “God with us” as God becomes a human being in Jesus.
As the Bible puts it, “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means, “God with us”.
It is “God with us” which is the theme of the Church of England’s campaign this year to encourage attendance at worship.
“The constant refrain of Christmas, in carols and readings, is that God is with us. In whatever situations you find yourself this Christmas, God is with you – you need only turn to him and ask to know his presence.”
Some of the Christmas carols put it well:
He was little, weak and helpless.
Tears and smiles like us he knew.
The familiar words of the carols have it in them to inspire and encourage us.
They take us right to the heart of our faith and I want to encourage you to sing them or listen to them as if you’ve never heard them before; let the words sink in, allow them to deepen your faith and understanding, to renew your confidence in the truth of the gospel and prompt you to commit yourself afresh to the service of Christ, the word made flesh, God with us.
O Holy child of Bethlehem, Descend to us, we pray, Cast out our sin, and enter in, Be born in us today.
Happy Christmas!
Always treat one another with kindness and care
So often in the past year grace and truth seem to have been in short supply in some parts of our public and political life.
The language we use toward one another and about one another has been bitter, vindictive and hurtful. ‘Fake news’ has been promoted, and fake allegations of fake news have been common.
On social media in particular, the cloak of anonymity has meant that people seem to lose all restraint in attacking those with whom they disagree. 2017 has in many ways been the Year Of The Troll.
But at the same time as I have travelled around the Diocese of Lichfield I have come across so many places where people treat one another with kindness and care.
For example, in Wolverhampton alone there are 15 Places of Welcome, where people can drop in to a church or community centre or mosque for a cup of tea and a friendly conversation.
In North Shropshire and beyond, a network of over sixty churches have trained to be ‘dementia friendly’, carefully listening to and caring for those struggling with that debilitating condition.
In Stoke, a partnership of school and church is providing language support, counselling, debt management advice and good food to people struggling with many pressures in their family lives.
We have a choice. We can treat one another as a threat, abuse those who are different from us, misrepresent people’s motives and spread lies about them; or we can follow a better way, reaching out to others with care, attention and service.
If that sounds simple, it is; and it is the simple message at the heart of the Christmas festival.
As a Christian, I believe that God really has come to us, and still comes to us, to share our life and give us a better way of living. The Gospel of John says: ‘Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ’.
May you know that grace and truth this Christmas time.
