Revd Helen Writes …

​

  What has changed for you in 2024? Perhaps the biggest thing for you was an occasion for great celebration which you can look back at with enjoyment. Or perhaps this year has brought a devastating and awful change and you look at the beginning of another year with dread and you wonder how you will get through it. Whether your change has been joyful or painful, all our lives will have changed in some ways through the course of a year. One of the few things in life we can be certain of is that, whatever lies ahead, we can’t undo the past and life will never be the same again.

 

2,000 years ago when an angel appeared to a young woman and proclaimed that she would give birth to the Son of God, her future changed for ever. The same was true of those shepherds on the hillside and astrologers from the East following a star. And in those momentous events that happened in their lifetime, there was and always had been plenty of dreaming about the future too. In fact the dreaming had begun hundreds of years before that first Christmas. Old Testament prophets painted pictures of a time yet to come – of peace and justice and of reconciliation. They dreamed of transformation and all things being made new.

 

  And then came the birth of a child, Jesus Christ, ‘Emmanuel’ which means ‘God with us.’

 

 And the dream being realised in that stable in Bethlehem was not of a white Christmas or a Disneyland ‘where dreams come true’; nor was it a consumerist dream of the perfect purchase or a lottery win. Rather the dream coming true was the promise of transformation rooted in forgive– ness and generous love.

 

  The dream which was coming true that first Christmas, and is still coming true, is about Christmas magic giving way to deep divine mystery. Because of Jesus Christ the Son of God born in a stable, life will never be the same again; and in the future there is always some hope even when everything around us today looks awful.

 

  Mary the mother of Jesus knew that. She too had seen the angel and heard the words of promise, and even when pain and tears and suffering came, Mary held fast. When the baby Jesus had grown to be a man and was so brutally crucified, it looked as though dark night had killed that dream of hope proclaimed by angels. Yet three days after Jesus was killed, he came back to life and revealed God’s love as stronger than death itself. Truly life has changed forever.

 

  This Christmas as we look at Jesus not only as a vulnerable baby in a manger, but also as the grown Son of God risen from the dead, we see love which knows of pain, hatred and opposition. Generous love which sees us as we are in all our brokenness and beauty and never gives up. The dream of light stronger than the darkness has come true, and we are invited to join in.

 

  As we look back at all the changes we’ve experienced in 2024 and we look to the future of 2025, we can make a choice to live a generous love which steps into the shoes of others, however uncomfortable; we can choose to be slow to blame and quick to be part of the solution. Let us not only be like the shepherds returning full of joy and hope, giving glory to God; but let us also be like those wise men from the East, returning to the future by a different road, living the dream of generous love and certain hope.

 

  Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who himself experienced the best and worst of life, finished a sermon in Southwark Cathedral a few years ago with these words: “How incredibly wonderful it is that God says to you, to me – ‘There is nothing you can do to make me love you less. I take you very seriously. I take you body and soul, the visible and the invisible you. I love you.“

 

  The best and most peaceful Christmas to you and to all whom you love.

​

Helen Kempster