Do they know its Christmas time at all?

I remember fondly the musical optimism of the mid 1980’s with the two mega singles, “Do they know its Christmas time?” and “We are the world.” Both singles and the ensuing global concert were motivated by a heart response to the crisis of a famine in Ethiopia.

Thirty years on, Bob Geldof pulled musicians together to reprise the song,  in response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Sure efforts like this attract criticism, however, I think there is something to be said for a heart response to suffering.

I am proud of the people in our church who give their time to serve those who are suffering in our city. Most of us avoid engaging with the homeless, the drug addicted, the cold and the hungry. It’s much easier to sit back and point out what wrong than to allow ourselves to have a heart response, even at this time of year.

Around the world this year we have been witness to unimaginable suffering, devastating sickness and incomprehensible violence. Time and again we have been left shaking our heads and even averting our eyes as the unfolding events defy our comprehension.

It’s much easier to avoid thinking about these things than to have a heart response. In fact, sometimes I think that If I was God I would probably start over, declaring the world a hopeless case.

At Christmas time we celebrate that someone like me is not God.

At Christmas time we remember the remarkable truth that God’s response to the suffering, the violence and the horrible disease was to send a helpless baby into the middle of it all.

The baby born in Bethlehem was the ultimate heart response to the brokenness of the world, in bringing hope, healing and peace. His followers are invited to follow His example.

One of my favourite Bible scholars, N.T. Wright, after decades studying the New Testament and its implications for the church wrote that “The Christian vocation is to be in prayer, in the Spirit, at the place where the world is in pain, and as we embrace that vocation, we discover  it to be the way of following Christ, shaped according to his messianic vocation to the cross, with arms outstretched, holding on simultaneously to the pain of the world and to the love of Christ.”

Jesus also promised that if we want to live a self-interested life, we would, in fact, lose the very life we try so hard to hold on to. If, however, we follow His example and are ready to respond with our hearts and not our criticisms, we actually discover that our lives become bigger, richer and much more meaningful.

If you find yourself reeling as you face the suffering of a broken world, perhaps this Christmas might be a good time to reconnect with the Prince of Peace and discover afresh what life is actually about.