Archbishop Speaks

I received a message from the Diocese today which a Christmas message from Archbishop Rowan Williams. Too good a chance to miss I am blogging it as his words are far finer than mine. Enjoy.

Peace Dave.


December Thoughts: This year for the first time ever I’ve had the opportunity of travelling to Bethlehem for a short visit, just before Christmas. It’s made think me think about the whole business of travelling, travelling towards something as we get ready for Christmas which isn’t something we think about all that often. ‘Christmas is coming’ we say, as if it were moving towards us, but are we moving at all?Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem, a tough journey in bad weather, in the middle of the sort of frustrated impatient crowds who always find when people are being herded together for administrative business. The shepherds travelled from their fields, not a long journey you might think, but these were people regarded as disreputable, one of the lowest sorts of worker in ancient Israel, so they wouldn’t have felt very comfortable asking around in town where the baby was to be found.And of course the wise men travelled from far off trying to work out their journey from the stars, learning to stammer a few phrases in another language, completely out of their depths with the situation they found themselves in the middle of, all the wisdom of their native country counting for nothing. It seems as though when we approach Christmas one of the things the Bible story reminds us of is that we’ve got to get out of our comfort zone if we’re God in all this, it’s as if you have leave behind the sort of people that you’re comfortable with, the picture of yourself that you’re comfortable with, and be ready to find yourself among this strange crowd of folk journeying towards the truth, journeying towards the miracle of God’s love.You’ll meet that love and let it into your life, only when you’ve left behind all that protects you from other people, from the risks and suffering of ordinary life, all that keeps you safe with your own preferences and your own ideas. Christmas is about God overturning all our ideas about ourselves and about him, his love is the most surprising thing there could be, this really is the beginning of a new world, and we need to change if we’re going to take it in, we need to travel.