ALL OF US experience times in our lives when despite our very best efforts, we find ourselves facing challenges and difficulties – whether they be things that come our way, or perhaps if we’re honest, the reality of our inner lives.
We live in a cultural age that struggles to do mess and vulnerability, pain and darkness.
It’s not ok to not be ok.
And yet all of us know that feeling late at night, when we turn out the light, and come face to face with who we really are and how we really are. It’s scary.
And we wonder, hope – pray even – that something or someone might somehow help us save us from ourselves. But we also fear that there is
no help coming.
Carl Sagan, an American astronomer, writes: “Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves”.
The wonderful truth of Christmas is that God did far more than offer a hint of help.
Christmas is a declaration that God has come to us, in the form of a little baby, to save us from ourselves.
Jesus later declared: “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.”
In Jesus, God opens the door to our world and floods it with light from His.
God comes into our mess to bring hope and healing, peace and joy. Christmas whispers to us that it’s ok not to be ok. That light conquers darkness and God’s love sets us free from pain and fear.
May you find the light of Jesus this Christmas.
Rev Dr Rich Johnson
Vicar of All Saints Worcester
