A Message From Rev Wayne McHugh

What’s all the fuss about Christmas?  We see our city dotted with Christmas lights each December, pointing to some great thing, and the Christian belief is that great thing is Jesus.  Christmas is the annual celebration of the birth of Jesus, some 2,000 years ago in the tiny town of Bethlehem.

Christian tradition approaches Christmas with four great themes – hope, peace, joy and love – four things greatly needed.

Hope is that we are not consigned to a random life of trouble followed by oblivion, but that God is real, and that God’s promise of salvation would be fulfilled.  And it was, in Jesus.

Peace is between us and God.  How we wish it was the cessation of war, all the way from global conflicts to our homes.  But this peace which Jesus brings is between us and God.  If we could all grasp that, perhaps the other wars would cease.

Joy is not the fleeting happiness we pursue, but the deep abiding thing that rises within us because we know that God really is with us, even in the darkest of times.

Love is the sacrificial love of God, and this is the love that Jesus brought, demonstrated, and ultimately enacted as he was crucified on a Roman cross.

Christian belief is that Jesus was (and is) the Son of God, who came among us to reunite us with God.  Hence his birth is something truly worth celebrating.

Blessings to you this Christmas, whatever your circumstance may be.

• Rev Wayne McHugh of Northside Worship Centre

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