wfn.org | ACNS3690 Christmas message from the Archbishop of Canterbury

["Anglican Communion News Service" <acnslist@anglicancommunion.org>]

ACNS 3690     |     ANGLICAN COMMUNION	    |	  26 NOVEMBER 2003 

Christmas message from the Archbishop of Canterbury

The carols we sing and the prayers we say around Christmas carry two
important messages which at first sight look a bit contradictory. Jesus
is described as 'the desire of all nations', picking up the words of
Haggai 2.7; he is what everyone has been waiting for, the one that
everybody on earth longs to meet. All human life finds its centre and
its goal in Jesus.

And then we remember that there was 'no room in the inn', and we sing
carols about how 'the busy world' had no space for Christ, and how, from
the very beginning, the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head. No-one
wants to meet him; he is on the edge, not at the centre.

This is not a sign of confusion on the part of Christians. If Jesus is
truly divine as well as truly human, then we always have to face the
fact that he will not fit into our world tidily - even when we want him
to.

God's purposes for the world are likely to be mysterious to our small
minds; and in order to go along with those purposes, we shall have to
change in ways that can frighten and panic us. No wonder that we push
Jesus to the edge and try to avoid the implication of what he says and
does.

Yet we can't get away. God has made us in such a way that we only become
really human when we are in harmony with his life and love. His will,
his presence, his personal being is indeed what we most deeply want.
It's as if we have to make a very long journey to find these deep places
in ourselves, a journey for which we need courage and patience.

So what looks like the edge is really the centre. Jesus is both a
frightening stranger and the one who speaks to us with more intimacy and
immediacy than any other being. Our Christmas stories and songs are
about how long it takes to find ourselves, the selves God made.

T.S. Eliot's poem about the journey of the magi imagines the three wise
men asking 'Were we led all that way for birth or death?' And the answer
is 'both'; so much of what we think we want and what we think will help
us or make us safe has to die; and what comes to birth is the self God
wants, the self that begins to look like Jesus, the true image of God in
humanity.

We're living through a time of great uncertainty and disturbance in our
Church. There is no quick solution to the disputes that divide us, and
we are all, surely, grieved at how these disputes take us away from the
task of sharing the good news. But at Christmas we are reminded of
truths that should unsettle everyone in the Church - not just 'liberals'
or 'conservatives'. We are all brought before the same Christ and told
that he is both the one we most need and long for and the one we shall
find most strange and troubling. We are all urged to begin again the
long journey into our hearts to find the true centre. We shan't emerge
from that journey with better arguments with which to defeat opponents
or better schemes for saving the Church. We emerge with a greater fear
and wonder - like those who in the gospel stories first met the newborn
child; and we turn to get on with the hard business of living in a
divided and imperfect church with just a little more awareness of the
overwhelming mystery with which we deal and the searching questions it
puts to each one of us. Before becoming preoccupied with our neighbour's
failings, we must, in the presence of the Christ child, look first to
our own birth and death; to where we see the centre and the edge; to how
we find God's centre, not just the centre of our own concerns and
anxieties.

'The angel said to them, "Do not be afraid..."'

'The shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see".'

[The Archbishop of Canterbury's Christmas message is also available in
Spanish at:
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/36/75/acns3690es.htm]

ENDS

The Annual Christmas Message from the Archbishop of Canterbury is in
process of being translated into several languages. The English and
Spanish texts are here for your use in magazines, bulletins, newsletters
and programs. We hope the French, Swahili, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and
Portuguese will be soon available on the web site. Best wishes to all
our readers at this wonderful season of Advent.

J M ROSENTHAL
Director of Communications

___________________________________________________________________
ACNSlist, published by Anglican Communion News Service, London, is
distributed to more than 7,500 journalists and other readers around
the world.  For subscription information please go to:
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/acnslist.html