wfn.org | The Archbishop of Canterbury's Christmas Message

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ACNS 4088     |     LAMBETH	|     15 DECEMBER 2005

The Archbishop of Canterbury's Christmas Message to the Anglican
Communion

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Perhaps the two images most of us will carry away from the last twelve
months are those of the devastation caused by the tsunami just after
last Christmas and by the hurricanes that devastated the southern states
of America in the autumn. The natural world became a place of terror and
disaster.

The question never quite goes away of why God made a world in which such
tragedy is possible. But Christmas reminds us of the one thing we know
for sure - and that is God's way of responding to suffering. He doesn't
wave a magic wand, or descend briefly from the sky to clean things up.
He arrives on earth as a human being who will change things simply by
the completeness of his love. Jesus is dedicated to the will of the one
he calls Father, the divine source of his own divine life. Never for a
moment does he put any obstacle in the way of that ultimate, total
outpouring of love that is the wellspring of his own life. He gives
himself to this transforming purpose in every moment, whatever it costs.
And the world changes - even the physical world: death is overcome and
the material world reveals God's glory in its depths. So we are changed.
New things become possible for us, new levels of loving response and
involvement. As has often been said, the Christian answer to the problem
of suffering is not a theory but the story of a life and a death, Jesus'
life and death. And for that answer to be credible now, that story has
to be visible in our story. We must give an answer to suffering and
tragedy in what we do - because the one thing we know is that this is
what God does. Faith is restored and strengthened not by talking but by
witness in action. And one of the moving things that this year has
brought for me is the awareness of how generously so many have responded
to the desperate needs of the tsunami victims and those who suffered in
New Orleans.

I have had moving letters describing the sacrificial work of Anglicans
in the Province of South-East Asia, and in the diocese of Kurunagula in
Sri Lanka, to name only two instances, clearly witnessing to the
willingness to respond first and ask theoretical questions afterwards.
And only a few days ago, I listened to a woman from Texas speaking of
her work day and night over many weeks in Houston with those who had
been made homeless by Hurricane Katrina. Here are stories of people who
know how to answer the challenges of terrible suffering in God's way -
by obedience and service and love.

There is something about Christianity that always pulls us back from
imagining that everything will be all right if we can find the right
things to say - because for God, the right thing to say at Christmas was
the crying of a small child, beginning a life of risk and suffering. God
shows us how, by his grace and in his Spirit, we can respond to the
tormenting riddles of the world. And, as we agonise over the future of
our beloved church, with all its debates and bitter struggles at the
moment, it does us no harm to remember that God will not solve our
Anglican problems by a plan or a formula, but only by the miracle of his
love in Jesus. If we want to be part of the solution, we must first be
wholly and unconditionally pledged to that love, with all its costs. May
God who works in the weakness and smallness of the Christmas child work
in our weakness and smallness; may he bless and strengthen you all at
this season.

+Rowan Cantuar:

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