Press Releases20 Dec 11

Christmas Message 2011 From The Most Revd Richard Clarke, President of the Irish Council of Churches

 Behind the recycled tinsel, the strenuous efforts at blithe joviality and the forced determination to make late December what it has been for so long in this country, lies surely a communal anxiety and apprehensiveness that few of us can recall since the very worst of the violence in Northern Ireland almost a generation ago.  But can our celebration of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ have anything to say of value to this island, and especially to those who, if they are not actively hostile to what they see as the devious pretentiousness of the Church, are passively indifferent to the claims of any religious faith?

The Incarnation – the eternal story of God coming to earth, not disguised as a human being but fully and totally within and inside humankind – can never be other than continually startling, mystifying, and alarmingly subversive of all that the world seems to be. What should make Christmas crucial and constantly demanding for the Christian believer is the realisation that there is nothing and no–one in this world beyond the reach of God.

Inevitably, in the economic quicksand of today, there comes the demand for scapegoats to blame and punish, and for quick and simple solutions to end the misery and hardship. Europe experienced all of this in the last great global recession of the 1930s and with hideous and satanic results, as false gods and demonic ideologies flowered in more than one country.  No one should be under any illusion that history might not repeat itself. Defenceless scapegoats and dehumanising solutions are always in demand in the face of economic and social meltdown. It is for today’s Christians to stand firm (as many did in those days of the 1930s and 1940s, some ultimately at the cost of their lives) in proclaiming that the Word made flesh truly means that no person is beyond the love of God, that no–one is without infinite value as an individual, and that all are redeemable – in this world as in eternity – in the love of God.

Christmas is a time for beauty and for generosity. It is also a time for reflection and for courage.

May God bless all of us in this season as we set before our eyes once again the vision of God’s love for the world shown in the coming into the world of its Saviour, Christ the Lord.
 
Bishop Richard Clarke
President, Irish Council of Churches