Identity – the roots
“yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” (John 1:10-11)
Happy New Year! You are warmly welcome to Kakumba Chapel.
Praise be to God who has brought us safely through the year 2013. Many good things worth celebrating have happened – in your life as an individual or as a family, but also as a Church and community – we give thanks to the Lord for all his bounty to us. As a Church, we have made significant strides forward by getting a new gallery completed, widening the Children’s Church programs and provisions, running missions in and outside the University, as many other areas as we shall soon see in the annual report. There have been challenges as well, but through it all, we are safely here, thanks be to God!
Did you come with your Identity Card today? (No worries no one is likely to ask for it here.) It is scandalous to mess up protocol at a national function – to address dignitaries in the wrong order. It is often to rule members out of order in parliamentary or committee debates simple because of protocol. It is a question of identity. It is often a fascinating scene when men in plain clothes flash their identity cards and you discover they are policemen coming to arrest someone near you. Their identity is first concealed, then revealed, sending fright to the suspect.
Apart from that kind of identity, each one of us has roots or an ancestry; this is revealed by names, language, physique, and sometimes character. Today, we baby Jesus being entrenched in his roots by circumcision, naming and presenting him to the Lord (Luke 2:21-22). It was clear he was a Jew, but that was not all: John the Apostle philosophically brings out the greatest scandal of all time as he introduces him as the ‘True Light’ – this VVIP; He came to his own, but there was no clapping, no standing ovation, no clearing of the high table, and no mention of his arrival! We live in a time when we have opportunity to give him the due welcome and praise, a time when his identity is not as concealed as it was then. Let it be our desire to know and honour Him more and more in this year.
Have a Blessed New Year!