 It is the thirteenth day of Advent
 God is With Us
As Christians, we believe that God lived on earth with us in the 1st century AD as Jesus. But 2000 years later it can be hard to see how God is with us today. Jesus said ‘I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever’ (John 14:16) and ‘I am with you always; yes, to the end of time’ (Matthew 28:20). These are wonderful statements to ponder and hold on to but at times they can seem a little vague.
Jesus did however leave us a more specific way of relating to him which is just as accessible now as it was to the disciples. ‘For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome, lacking clothes and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me.... in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me’ (Matthew 25: 35-36, 40). There is no shortage of hungry, thirsty, lonely, poor, sick and imprisoned people in our own communities and around the world, and our challenge is to see Jesus in all of them. If we succeed then God’s presence is with us constantly, though perhaps we would prefer that it wasn’t.
I doubt any of us would argue that the hungry should be fed and the sick visited, however what images does Jesus’ mention of prisoners raise? Do we think of St Paul and the countless others before and since who are imprisoned for their beliefs? What about people who have been found guilty of crimes of various sorts? Did Jesus mean us to see him in them too? We should remember his warning ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged’ (Matthew 7:1) and his words to the thief crucified with him: ‘Today you will be with me in paradise’. There are over 80,000 people in prison in England and Wales, 70% of whom suffer from two or more mental health disorders and 20-30% of whom have learning difficulties (Prison Reform Trust). While acknowledging the reality of their crimes, how do we relate to prisoners as if they were Jesus?
~Isobel, i-church member~
Somewhere in the Darkness,
from the album "Redemption Songs" by Changing Tunes
This text will be replaced by the flash music player.
Changing Tunes is a charity that aids the rehabilitation
of prisoners and ex-prisoners through music.
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