Bishop’s Christmas - Greeting 2023

Christmas-greeting 2023

Bishop Tor B Jørgensen, The Lutheran Church in Great Britain

To all our friends,

I know that my redeemer liveth

Charles Jennens made this confession from Job (19:26) to become the response to the mighty “Hallelujah” chorus in Handel’s oratorio Messiah. This beautiful soprano piece has sounded in my ears and my mind during this last period of advent as the bishop of LCiGB.

Job made his confession in the midst of his painful life experiences. This Christmas we are all exposed to a world filled with pain. It became personalized to me this fall at the LWF general assembly in Krakow, sitting next to the Lutheran bishop Pavlo Shvartz from Ukraine and meeting with bishop emeritus Munib Yunan from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. – They are now both celebrating Christmas with the experience of the most appalling human sufferings created by wars in their own countries.

While in Krakow we all visited the concentration camps in Auschwitz and Birkenau. How was it possible? – And how is it possible today? Two wars! One even directly affecting the birthplace of Messiah, in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.  There will be no lights in

Bethlehem this Christmas. No celebration as we are used to. War creates darkness.

Meeting the two bishops in Krakow, and later bishop Munib both at the ordination service in St Anne’s 3 months ago, and then in Oslo in November, gave me a strange feeling of light in the midst of darkness.

Also, this Christmas our faith tells us that the child who was born under extremely difficult circumstances, where his parents had to flee from their country, became our risen Lord, who showed that love and life are stronger than suffering and death.

Like Jennens and Handel also are reminding us of when they so beautifully connect Job’s confession directly with Paul’s in 1 Cor 15:20, “For now Christ is risen from the dead!” Let this be my last Christmas-message to you all,

By God’s grace, we know that our redeemer liveth!

And let us remember the two bishops and their churches and their peoples in our Christmas prayers.

Bishop emeritus Munib A. Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, photo LWF/Milton Blanco.

Bishop Pavlo Shvarts of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine, photo: LWF/Albin Hillert.