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Show the world we are Christians

Homily delivered by the Rt Rev Idris Jones, Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway in the Scottish Episcopal Church, at Glasgow Churches Together's Carol Service on Sunday 12 December 2004 in Newton Mearns Parish Church.

“Brothers and Sisters in Christ” – how great it is to be able to use that form of address and to mean it.

The journalist Magnus Linklater said at a dinner I was at that on his return to Scotland he noticed that few people commented on the really good news about the Christian religion, which was how Christians were now routinely working and worshipping together in Scotland ,and how remarkable that fact was when he reflected what the climate used to be like .Tonight we are part of the proof that this is true. A wonderful occasion for all of us – and to come together to celebrate the birth of the one whom we acknowledge as Saviour and Lord is a fulfilment of the Psalmists dream “how joyful and pleasant it is when God’s people come together in unity”.

What is Christmas really about? A friend of mine came to Glasgow to study for his MBA degree. He had been working in London and for the first few weeks he was here, he kept walking along Sauchiehall Street. And no, he wasn’t there for the shopping. He kept on pretending to be lost so that he could go up to complete strangers and ask for directions to a nearby street. He did it because on every single occasion whomever he asked did not just give him directions- they said “Follow me” and took him the way to where he needed to go. That’s Christmass.

God the Father did not , does not , just “tell us the direction to go” ; but in the Son Jesus Christ, comes to us , takes us by the arm, and walks with us along the way, sharing the journey. “He shall be called Emanuel which means God is with us.”

Its sad that for many folk it seems as if Christmas is a time to find a way to escape. Escape from the shortening daylight ; escape and switch off from the pressures of life . I wonder if you experience in your congregation that folk get so worn out at work that they are reluctant to take on much in the church. Life is about survival and if they can get to worship at all , that is a major achievement - because work exhausts them. The pressure is on , and Christmas comes as a relief and a time to chill out by whatever means folk can use.

At the birth of Jesus God does not chill out from the work of creation, but gets so much involved that one Christian thinker has said that the birth of Jesus is God getting his hands dirty. The Creator chooses to come alongside his creation and so to share for example in the worry and the stress and the anxiety, but to say to us all in Jesus “Come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest ; my yoke is easy and my burden light”

When I served my assistant training as curate in Dundee . My supervising minister insisted that once a year the whole ministry team did a tour of the building. We started by going down into the deep basement to check the heating system and that there was no tell-tale damp in the foundations. We walked through the church, the hall and all the property noting the need for a touch of paint here - some repair there. And then we climbed up the steeple to the highest platform to survey the roof with binoculars. The whole thing took three hours or so.

He led the way – because he said it was good for ministers to know as much about buildings as they could: but that isn’t why I am telling you this. Sometimes we used to protest about having to do it at all . His reply was “I will never ask you to do anything that I am not prepared to do myself”. And that is Christmas as well.

God saying, in the birth of Jesus to us “I will never ask of you what I am not prepared to do myself”. So there comes to us through Jesus the pattern of discipleship –“ hands that flung stars into space to cruel nails surrendered”; and our calling to walk the way of Christ is an invitation to share with God, as his friends, in the way of self-sacrificing love.

At Christmas I think it is natural for us to have in mind the place where Jesus was born – the little town of Bethlehem. We hold in mind and in prayer the tragedy of the state that Bethlehem is in today – a reminder of the strife and violence that is an everyday experience for the people of Jesus land; and a reminder too that the longed-for day of peace throughout the world is being betrayed in so many ways and in so many places.

The remembrance of the birth of Jesus calls us not to give up the hope that what God wills for his creation shall come to pass. But it must come in Jesus way- the way of reconciliation; of sacrifice; of costly love and it must come in our lives as a start. As we pray for the needs of God’s world , as we surely must, let us remember that we have to seek God’s peace and wholeness in our own hearts; in our families and in our own communities- in our nation; and in our churches. A Christmas without barriers.

God comes alongside us to take us by the arm and lead us to where we need to go : What a difference it can make when we willingly move at God’s urging towards that better world.

And how important it is that we who are Christians don’t resist that gentle guidance –for our world needs the message and the life of Jesus more now than perhaps ever before.

And old prayer gives us the words to ask God , that in return for the great gift of Jesus, born in Bethlehem “we show forth our praise not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service and walking your way all the days of our life”.

May our joy at this season be the means for us to deepen our devotion and strengthen our commitment , to show the world we are Christians by our love – by our love.