A Christmas message to Argus reader from the Bishop of Chichester, the Rt Rev Dr Martin Warner
“You’re a star,” I say, especially to people who work in IT support and make stuff work in a way I still don’t understand.
It’s a throwaway line we don’t think about much.
But at Christmas there are stars everywhere, twinkling in streetlights and in window decorations.
These decorations make a statement about something more than the stardom of celebrity status.
That star can rise and fall spectacularly. It has done for Matt Hancock.
I’ve heard people say they feel sorry for the way he was treated in the jungle: others resent the cash he was paid while still working as an MP.
We find it easier to applaud people whose work we value and depend on. In this category we would generally include nurses, fire fighters, and teachers.
Many of us will be able to describe a particular incident or heroic service that won our respect for these professions.
But aside from stardom attributed to people whose public service we respect, there are also individuals who have star quality because they seem to make the world a better place.
When I worked on a housing estate in inner-city Leicester, Jean was one of those people.
She was proud of her Jamaican heritage, especially the cooking, which non-Jamaicans could never measure up to.
She was also proud of her son, in a demanding, single parent, motherly way. And she was proud of the estate she lived in, its people, its school, and its church.
But this pride was not self-centred. It was the generator of relentless campaigns to improve the quality of life for those who lived around her.
She understood the struggles of bringing up children, of living on benefits, of promises from the council that work would be done, and it wasn’t.
She knew about cockroach infestation, dysfunctional government, trading scams, drugs and prostitution. It was tempting to be afraid of Jean, especially when she had declared “I’m not havin’ it!”.
But she was without doubt a star. Not a gaudy, celebrity star, but a shining light in a gloomy landscape.
Jean worked out of an office that was next to the church centre when I was based. So, when it came to Christmas and we put up the crib in the window on the street, I always thought of her when it came to putting up the star.
The Christian story in the Bible identifies a star shining above the place where Jesus was born as a guiding light for the wise. It steers them to a place where they will learn the truth about authentic power and its use.
A new-born child inspires awe in the heart of any wise person, sensing that life is a sacred gift.
The slaughter of children when Jesus was born is described in the Bible as the policy of an insecure, heartless ruler. This description still brings judgement on those who perpetrate that crime. We see it in Ukraine and in every form of war and conflict.
READ MORE: How can I dispose of my Christmas tree in Brighton?
In the minds of Christian people, Jesus Christ, as a defenceless baby, sits on his mother’s lap as judgement against those who murder the young and innocent. And the Christmas star shines a light on these criminal acts to reveal them for what they are.
The delivery of justice that flows from this wisdom is what inspired Jean in Leicester, as it has inspired others across the two millennia of Christian faith. The Christmas star is an emblem of that justice. It defines the quality of peace in the Kingdom of God which Jesus described and exemplified in his adult life.
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