What attracts most people is power, as the world understands it.  We are fascinated by people who are beautiful, handsome, rich, talented, the owners of magnificent houses, cars, boats and sometimes planes.  Many of us are fascinated by possessions, and often try to accumulate them ourselves.  Sadly we are tempted to imagine that the God in whom we believe is powerful in the same way as the world is powerful.  And yet the God who comes to us in Jesus Christ is even more powerful than the world is.  Our God is a God of love who loved us so much that He created the world and each and every one of us, to live lives of love through the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Why did God create us?  We don’t really know except that God loved us.  But what we do know is that God made us to do good in order to change the world for the better in the short time allotted to us.  God came to us not at the head of a magnificent army but as a child in a manger.  He then grew up as a carpenter and died for us on a cross, rejected by his own people and by the majority of His friends and companions.  Yet the birth and death of the Son of God changed the world forever.   As a result because of the Christ Child we live in a new creation, a new world, a new people, which we can identify by opening our eyes.  The power of the Child of Bethlehem and the Carpenter of Nazareth was the power of love.  Each Christmas God reminds us of that reality.  We don’t need to be powerful as the world is powerful but powerful as God understands it, reaching out to others through care, concern, forgiveness, and on a larger scale trying to help the poor through material support that sustains them in the short term, or protects their future in the long term by decisions made at an international level.  Let us understand that like the Christ Child in the manger the only thing that really matters is love.  Each year in the marvellous season of Christmas we can practice love through worship in our Churches, and action in our world.   Sadly, often in our too selfish world the people who suffer most are the little ones, especially children living in the midst of poverty and disease, or even worse in the midst of violence.  People have every right to live in a peace-filled world, especially children.  Each Christmas Christ in the manger of Bethlehem reminds us of God’s love for all people but especially for His little ones who may not be able to enjoy Christmas as we do each year.  This Christmas let us pray that driven by God’s love we may play our own unique role to change the world and make it a place of peace and joy for all, but especially for God’s little ones. 


Archbishop John Bathersby

December 25, 2009