It’s the season of peace and goodwill, but you could be forgiven for thinking it’s in short supply. Perhaps it’s that you can get nearly everything on a supermarket shelf, or delivered to your door, but not goodwill.
We’ve had floods, economic turmoil, political upheaval, news of revolution and in Syria, war in Israel / Gaza and Ukraine and trust in our institutions is low. The Church is no exception.
It can be subtle and pernicious and it can shake us, but peace and goodwill are truly gifts that keep on giving. One bit of goodwill or kindness, is good not just for the recipient but the giver and, of course, peace and goodwill are not just for Christmas! Selfless generosity relies on us trusting that someone’s need is genuine and can take us to the point of giving up something that we would rather keep, because we see the need it can meet in someone else.
That generosity is at the heart of the Christmas story in the gift of Jesus to us, as one of us, a human being, but from a heavenly home. That’s a gift of love and trust.
The Christmas story is all about love and trust: it’s about how God puts trust in us, something I still find an amazing truth. Even in just a small part of the Christmas story we see God’s love and trust lived out: God trusted the shepherds on a hillside in Bethlehem to be those to whom the angels appeared, announcing the birth of Jesus. He trusted them? They were uneducated, unkempt, relied on only by their flock, but they saw, they were awed and they told anyone who would listen, the good news of great joy.
An amazing feature of God’s plan is that there is no ‘qualification’ for hearing the news or carrying it to others. So let no one disqualify themselves!
Good news has the capacity to break through misery and turmoil. When it is the greatest news ever reported: the greatest story ever told that has been heard every Christmas in almost every nation and in most quarters of the world, then let us trust this story and allow it to work its power in us. These really are good tidings of great joy.
May I wish you all a Happy Christmas and invite you to come and put your trust in the story of stories this Christmas. Come to a church near you and join in, you’d be very welcome.
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