Arran Churches Together’s Christmas message

It’s that time of year again, Christmas. A time for presents and parties, food and drink and, if we must, hearing that old story about Mary and Joseph and the baby. A story set in a far off country more than 2,000 years ago. A story that surely has nothing to say to us today, or does it?

Jesus was born at a time of political upheaval in a country ruled by the iron fist of the hated Romans. Jesus’ parents were poor and at the time of his birth they were homeless. Jesus was born in a cave filled with animals.

The shepherds who came were poor too, poor and smelly, regarded as outcasts by many because their work with the sheep kept them from temple worship. The kings who visited may have been rich but they were foreigners, not the chosen people, not Jews. Jesus’ mother was a young unmarried woman.

Jesus then and Jesus now came for the oppressed, the poor and homeless, for the unloved and unwanted for political prisoners and refugees for women and children, for everyone who needs him.

That long ago story is a here and now story about God’s love made flesh, God’s gift of love to a loveless world.

That age old story speaks loud and clear in a modern world filled with cruelty, hatred, war, discrimination and division. The Christmas story shines a bright light into a very dark world, a light that is needed today as much as it ever was.

“The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” Matthew 4.16

May you have a Blessed Christmas and a Joyful New Year.

Sharon McLeod,

Session clerk of the Isle of Arran Parish Church of Scotland.