Canon Helen Dearnley rounds out our Advent Faith Journeys with her contribution to this year’s Follow the Star reflections for Christmas and the New Year.

To find out more about The Great Invitation, please see details here: https://www.churchofengland.org/invitation-share-your-churchs-experience.

An Invitation To… See A Great Light.

Where would you like to be this time next year?

I’m guessing your answer to that question isn’t ‘in prison’! However, that is where I hope still to be.

It is an incredible privilege to serve as a Prison Chaplain. Chaplains regularly see the potential for new beginnings for those in our care, and a hope that, though their pasts may have been in darkness, their futures can be so very different.

All of us have aspects of our past that I’m sure we would like to forget. I certainly do! However, simply forgetting that past will not allow for a different future. Understanding our past behaviours and learning from them allows us all an opportunity to change if we wish to.

READ: Matthew 4.13-22

‘The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light…’ As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake – for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

Reflection

To ‘Follow the Star’ this Christmas season we might need to step away from our past behaviours – just as the first disciples do in our reading. To be willing, like them, to take the actions we need to give ourselves the future we hope for.

Following Christ’s call in this way is not necessarily about whole life change – though it could be, if we follow a new career path, or invest more time in family and friends. But it can be much simpler, like choosing not to judge those who have made mistakes that have taken them to prison. Or finding it in our heart to forgive those who have grieved us personally.

To follow Christ is to find true freedom of heart and mind.

INVITATION

I invite you today to look at yourself in a new light, as the person you want to be – free from past mistakes and with a future full of the hope that following Christ brings.

God of hope and new beginnings, show us this day, we pray, the freedom that comes from following your example. Amen.