Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Official Report
837KB pdf
Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is the Rev Howard Hudson, the minister of Bridgeton, St Francis-in-the-East Church of Scotland.
The Rev Howard Hudson (Bridgeton, St Francis-in-the-East Church of Scotland)
Good afternoon. A week tonight something rather strange will be happening. All over Scotland people will be going to church to celebrate the birth of a baby born over 2,000 years ago—born not here in Scotland but over 2,000 miles away in Bethlehem.
For Christians believe that that wee baby born in Bethlehem was none other than God himself being born as one of us: the creator of the universe becoming as human as you or me, to go through the same kind of things that we go through, feeling them as we do, and even, as the man Jesus, to end up dying, nailed to a wooden cross—and on the third day after that to rise again from the dead, never to die again, to make it possible for us to come into a special relationship with him. No wonder that not only all over Scotland but all over the world people will be celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus. For that tells us that God is not some distant deity with nothing really to do with the likes of us. He cares for us so much that he even became one of us. It tells us that we do not live in a world where everything relies just on us. There is far more to life than just what we can see and hear and touch.
The good news of Christmas is that in that wee baby born in Bethlehem God has come to us to make it possible for us to come into a special relationship with God. If that is true—and I and millions of other people have found that it is—then that is something so amazing that we should not ignore it, but let it affect all we say, think and do, for the glory of God and the good of the people of Scotland and beyond. So please do not just dismiss this as what you would expect from a minister, but take time to reflect on it and find out whether it is true.
Thank you and may you all have a very happy Christmas and a guid new year!