News Archive
Moderators Christmas Message
By Amanda Anderson / 24th Dec 24
Here’s a nativity scene to make you smile – it’s in Crown Church, Inverness, where Lesley and I worship.
There’s a shepherd, and a wise man, clearly taking their roles seriously. If you look closely, there’s even a little bat, hanging upside down among the lights…
But look at Mary and Joseph.
Their faces are alight with happy astonishment. What you can’t see, but they can, is the angelic presence in the church’s gallery – and it was the angels which brought the song of peace on earth.
Today – Christmas Day – I’ll get an online greeting from my old friend Mykola. Over 20 years ago, we worked together as part of an international organisation. And every year since then his Christmas greeting arrives. Like me, Mykola is now officially retired. So he left his international office in Vienna, and went home. To Ukraine. So, for the last three years, I wake on Christmas day to read a heartfelt greeting of joy and celebration, and a prayer for peace, from inside a war zone. Here’s the one he sent last year:
Mykola is a Christian. His country is at war, he has lost good friends, but he has not lost Christ. And his faithful yearly contact with all his old friends, in turn, lifts our spirits too.
Wherever you are in Clèir Eilean Ì, and wherever your friends and family are today, I want to extend his greeting from last year, with these words: Christ came to us vulnerable, ignorable, and killable. The Word made flesh. In this is the Love that will not let us go. The Prince of Peace. He trusted himself to us, and so we must trust Him.
He also added a prayer: Jesus, born of Mary, loved by Joseph, revealed in glory, worshipped by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed in throughout the world, exalted to the highest heavens, you are ours, and we are yours. Accept our songs of praise, the worship of our hearts, and the gift of our lives this Christmas Day, and forever.
It has been a moving and heartening experience to meet so many of you all around the Presbytery – particularly at services of union, induction, and ordination. So many new beginnings, and signs of living hope among us as living stones… I wish you all a Happy Christmas, and a blessed and fruitful New Year.
PS – here’s one of the angels… 
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