Our Christian label

The Rt Rev Dr Shaw Paterson asks readers to keep faith visible.

I AM sure we are all enjoying the presents we received at Christmas! By now, what didn’t fit has been exchanged; and what does fit, well, with all those extra chocolates and sweeties, we just hope it will still fit in the first few weeks of 2025. Last year I was fortunate to receive a designer shirt.

I wore it on New Year’s Day for the annual gathering at my brother’s home and was met with cries of ‘you’ve still got the labels on’. I know, I replied, because I want you to know that I am wearing ‘designer’.

We’ve celebrated the birth of Jesus, the visit of the shepherds and the Wise Men, our decorations are packed away for another year, and lo and behold Jesus is 30 years old when we turn the page of our Bible. Jesus is being baptised, calling his disciples to follow him, performing miracles and teaching large (and small) crowds. People are assigning him labels. Some say he is John the Baptist, others thought Elijah, while others said Jeremiah or some other prophet. [see Matthew 16: 13-16.]

At one of our lunchtime sessions, when we open the church hall to pupils from the secondary school for hot chocolate and toasties, I was speaking to a teenager who mentioned something about science and what subjects she was going to pick. I suggested biology (my first academic discipline). ‘But what do you know about biology?’ was the response. She was quite surprised that I had done anything other than study the Bible, and couldn’t quite accept that I lived in the same world she did. Being a minister, she had assigned me a label. Rightly or wrongly, she had formed a view of who I was simply based on the job I do.

“ We must always remember that as Christians we have a designer ’s mark on us – that mark, that label, was put there by Christ…

Returning to Matthew 16, Jesus follows up his initial question about who do people say he is with a direct question to the disciples, ‘Who do you say I am?’ There was no hiding behind the responses of others. Simon Peter claimed him to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God, and is congratulated for his answer. Jesus asks you and I the same question. It is one thing to respond in the same way, but the proof of what we say is evidenced not just by a label but by the way we live our life.

The labels we wear are important, and I’m not talking about our outward appearance. We must always remember that as Christians we have a designer’s mark on us – that mark, that label, was put there by Christ – it is the kind of designer’s label that remains hidden unless people can recognise it through the way we live our faith in Christ, the Son of the living God.

My plea to us all is that we have our Christian label (our faith) visible for all to see. 

The Rt Rev Dr Shaw Paterson is Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2024/25 and minister at Strathaven: Trinity.