Christmas message from the Rt Revd Matthew Parker, Bishop of Stafford
Saydnaya prison was one of first prisons to be liberated by rebels in Syria. Saydnaya was a dreadful place, “a human slaughterhouse”. Thousands of prisoners of the Assad regime were kept there in cramped and windowless cells, many of which were secret and underground. The dictator toppled; anxious relatives searched for their missing loved ones. Doors were forced open and prisoners led blinking into the light not quite believing they were free. For these victims of the regime there will be a long road to recovery, but it is, for all the world, a powerful image of hope and liberation.
As I heard about the horrors of Saydnaya and the setting free its captives, I remembered these verses in Matthew’s gospel, quoting the prophet Isaiah:
‘…. the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.’
In all sorts of ways and all across the world there are people sitting in the dark. In our own country, it may be those who choose between paying the electricity bill and feeding their children. It our own families, it may be those who have just got that frightening diagnosis. In our own lives, we may be sitting in the darkness of loss, addiction, guilt. We may have become residents in the “region and the shadow of death”.
The Christmas story is about “a great light” that begins in a stable in the little town of Bethlehem. “Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” God does not want his children to sit in the dark, fearful and lost. He sent his one and only Son Jesus to be the light of all people, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it”. The child of Bethlehem becomes the man who battles the forces of darkness on a cross and defeats them because the darkness could not overcome the power of God’s love and life. The prison door is flung open, the cell is filled with light. God beckons we who sit in darkness to come out into the light of a new day.
I pray for the future peace and healing of Syria. I pray that you too may know the light of the Christ child this Christmas and that his light will flood your hearts and lives and bring you peace.