My life is in Christ

MODERATOR

Callum - with the see you Jimmy hat and wig and with me in Slovakia

Andrew on the left and Fraser in the middle.

THE one-time legendary Arsenal FC manager, Arsène Wenger has said the following: ‘All I watch is football. In the morning I watch the games that were on last night.

It’s my passion. When you’re born, your fi rst instinct is to survive. Then you must fi nd the meaning of your life.

My life is football.’ I like football too. Okay, let me be clearer.

I love football! I played football from my youngest years and continued with fi ve-a-side football till more recently. I’ve supported my favourite teams – including Arbroath FC where I presently minister – and I’ve travelled home and away as part of the Tartan Army to cheer on Scotland.

And it’s one of the ways in which I’ve most enjoyed being a dad. Going to football with my three boys, just as I went with my dad. If I live to be a hundred I’m not sure there will be a more special father-sons moment than when we were celebrating together at Hampden after Leigh Griffi ths’s second goal had put Scotland 2-1 against the Auld Enemy! A moment to cherish – especially as Harry Kane equalised for England just a short time later! Yes, all of that. But football is not my life.

I love the Scottish mountains too but mountains are not my life. In fact I’ve got lots of interests and hobbies and passions but none of them defi ne me. I have political and cultural persuasions but neither do these defi ne me.

The meaning of my life – what defi nes me – can be in nothing other than my relationship to Christ. So much else fl ows out of that, of course, but the starting and fi nishing points are in Christ. And with that the fi nal whistle blows.

I guess there’s another way of thinking about this. If Arsène Wenger and I were to have headstones erected after our respective deaths, would he want a picture of a football on his? I’d want a cross on mine.

The apostle Paul is very clear on this throughout his writing. He tells us that in former times he was one thing but now, Christ is all that matters to him – all else being so much refuse. He tells us that he’s a new creation in Christ; that the old has gone and the new has come. And he makes clear that in the fi nal analysis, whether he lives or dies, Christ is his all in all.

This is so very diff erent to that version of Christian faith in which it functions as some kind of bolt-on, or as one of our interests among many. What Paul speaks of is an all-consuming love for Christ and it’s what we’re all called to.

As we navigate our way through what remains of this pandemic and as we continue to think about where we are as a Church, I’d want to argue that the fi rst and most important consideration is the vitality of our life in Christ – individually and collectively.

Whether we focus on back-in-thebuilding worship or online; whether we join forces with the neighbouring presbytery to the north or the one to the south; whether we look to close some of our buildings or raise more money to patch them up – all of that is secondary to who we are in Christ.

I love football.

But my life is in Christ.  The Rt Rev Dr Martin Fair is Moderator of the General Assembly in 2020/2021 and minister at Arbroath: St Andrew’s.

This article appears in the February 2021 Issue of Life and Work

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