Bishop of Plymouth shares Christmas message for 2023
The Rt. Rev’d James Grier speaks of home in his message this year
Last updated 24th Dec 2023
The Bishop of Plymouth speaks of home in his Christmas message this year.
The Rt. Rev’d James Grier reflects on those who may not have a safe place to be.
Bishop Grier says: "Just over a year ago, we moved house - home to Plymouth.
"We hadn’t quite thought about how much stuff we had. This was highlighted when the removal men left at the end of the couple of days of moving and went 'you're not planning on going anywhere else are you? You are staying here for a long time? If you’re not, we don't want to move you again'.
"The other week I was at dinner with somebody I never met before, she's a professor. She moved house about the same time as us - she moved from Kyiv.
"Then a day later, I was listening to the radio and heard a woman talk about the fact that she had moved seven times in the last few months - her home is in Gaza.
"I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to move house that many times, let alone to be moving house, fleeing for your safety, not knowing whether where you are now is safe or not.
"This time of year, Christmas, we think about fun and festivities and home. But what’s Christmas got to do with what I've just been talking about?
"People who are homeless, what hope has Christmas got to offer those for whom home is something they risk losing at the moment; or home is not a safe place to be.
"Well, the whole thing of Christmas is about God himself leaving his heavenly abode and making his home here amongst us and very literally in the place where the violence and most inhumane activities today in the Holy Land, Gaza, that area. God himself, entering into the midst of the struggles, making his home with us in our pain and brokenness.
"It says at the beginning of John's Gospel that the word, meaning Jesus, became flesh and made his dwelling among us. The literal meaning of the word dwelling is he pitched his tent, he made his home.
"God didn't choose a palace, or safety, or security - he moved into a place of oppression and occupied territory, and within years of birth, Jesus became a refugee, fleeing to Egypt with his family to escape the threat of death.
"God knows what it is for home to be a place that is contested, vulnerable or non existent.
"The other thing about Christmas, is God offers to make his home in us. God offers to live in us, to change us from the inside out, to bring hope, no matter what our circumstances, good or bad.
"God offers life in all its fullness. He doesn't promise to change the world around us, but he promises to change us.
"God asks, 'Will you let me make my home in you this Christmas?' He doesn't force himself upon us, he lets us respond as we’re willing, as we're able. But he says, 'I love you, I came to Earth for you, I died for you, you can trust me. Will you let me make my home in you? So you can be at home and safe and secure, wherever you are'."