Be assured I am with you always

God has not simply wound up the universe and gone away says the Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries in his Christmas message

One of the insights of our time is that God has given the world a real independence. Indeed, this is what it means to be created, to have a life of our own. This applies to nature. As has been said, God doesn't just make the world he does something much more wonderful, he makes the world make itself. Above all it applies to us, in whom this independence becomes conscious.

The trouble with this insight is that it can lead to the idea that God has simply thrown everything in the arena to slug it out, whilst he himself stands back. Certainly during the last century and even now in our own time, the terrible evils which we human beings have perpetrated can make us feel that God has simply wound the universe up and then gone away. But as Christians we proclaim another insight of even greater importance.

In the book of Isaiah there is a mysterious sentence 'Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: the young woman is with child, and she will bear a son, and will call him Immanuel' (Isaiah 7, 15). This verse is quoted by St Matthew as an angel foretells the birth of Jesus 'And he shall be called Emmanuel', a name which means 'God is with us' (Matthew 1, 23). This theme of God being with us is very important to the writer of that gospel. It ends with the risen Christ saying to his disciples 'And be assured, I am with you always, to the end of time' (Matthew 28, 20).

Furthermore the God who is with us is the God who has made himself accessible in human terms, in the heart and mind of Jesus. He is with us as one who understands us and stands alongside us in all our doubts and difficulties. Indeed, he is not only with us but he is for us. And as St Paul said, if God is for us then everything that seems to be against us, death for example, is seen in a totally new light (Romans 8, 31-39).

In Jesus God is with us and for us. May that truth give us all a truly blessed Christmas.