Someone is coming

IN my year as Moderator I have found it is easy to lose a sense of time. Each day there is something new in the diary, and every week we travel to diff erent parts of Scotland and beyond.

We wake up wondering where we are, what is on today and sometimes struggle to remember what happened yesterday! My wife, Ruth, has described this year with four words. She says it is a “unique, intense, exhausting privilege” and I think that sums it up well.

However you need markers to keep your focus clear and to remind you of what really matters. Advent is one such season in the year that demands our attention. It stops us in our tracks and asks us to tune into another agenda which matters more than ours.

“Get ready!” it proclaims. “Someone is coming!” it announces. God takes time very seriously and uses it wisely, without rush or haste. God’s preparations for Christmas go back further than we could ever imagine. Slowly, gradually, places people and events were put into place until “when the time had fully come, God sent his Son”. (Galatians 4:4)

I love Advent and I love Christmas, for they remind me that my story only makes sense within the bigger picture of God’s Story. As we look back over the Old Testament, and recall the particular events around Jesus’ conception and birth, the things that matter come into sharper focus. These include surprise at the relentless love of God; wonder at the extraordinary grace he shows to us human beings; and being overwhelmed at the dignity and value he places on individuals who have walk-on parts to the greatest event of all. That event is the day “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”. (John 1:14). All these and more never fail to make me wonder and worship.

One of the saddest aspects of this season is to hear people say that they are going to give Christmas a bye this year. When you push them, they explain that Christmas is for children and there will be no children around their house this year. Or they say that to have a proper Christmas you need food, family, fun and finance and all that is beyond them.

However the heart of Christmas does not depend on that, even if it is our traditional view of Christmas. For Christmas is good news for the poor. It is a message of hope to widows and orphans. It aims to bring comfort to those who weep and hope for those who feel alone.

For at the heart of Christmas is the wonderful news of Emmanuel ‘God is with us.’ We have not been left alone nor are we abandoned. God has come down to our level in Jesus. He made himself vulnerable and helpless so that he could help the vulnerable. He became what we are, in order to help us become what he is. Born in difficult circumstances, he would spend his early years as a refugee and asylum seeker in Egypt. He would learn how to use his hands in a trade. He knew life and all its struggles and temptations. So he is not only with us, but he understands what life is really like. He “gets it.”

And yet he is God with a human face. In seeing him we see the Father. Jesus came to reveal God to us, to keep us company, and help us find forgiveness, strength and direction. That doesn’t seem to me to be a bad set of Christmas presents. “Happy Christmas.” “Enjoy.”

The Rt Rev Colin Sinclair is Moderator of the General Assembly in 2019/20 and is minister at Edinburgh: Palmerston Place.