”While they were there the time came for Mary to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:6-7)

During this last year we have been more conscious than ever of the presence of racism, discrimination and prejudice against minorities within Finnish society. A suppressed sense of fear and suspicion of immigrants has risen to the surface in public discussion, and this has cast our minds back to the discrimination against the Sámi and the Karelians that was rife in past decades.

By and large, Finland has been understood as a highly homogeneous country both ethnically and culturally, but this has often meant that the ethnic, linguistic, cultural and other special features of particular population groups have not received the attention and respect that they have deserved. Now, as we progress at increasing speed towards a multicultural society the deep-seated sense of anxiety and prejudice aroused by people who are different from ourselves has begun to nag away at the minds of some Finnish people.

Jesus Christ teaches us to love God with all our heart and love our neighbours as ourselves (Matt. 22:37,39). Throughout the ages people have always loved one another. Is there anything new in Christ’s command?

At the heart of Christ’s teaching, however, lies the question of the depth of that love. People are not divided into good and bad, superior and inferior, interesting or dull, but each person is a perfect and complete creation of God’s boundless love. God is calling us all to participate in that love and to love each other just as He loves us.

One important characteristic of the Church of Christ is its universality. It cannot be built up upon ethnic or linguistic unity, for the only measure of its unity is a common belief in the one God who is love and unites us all.

The Christmas Gospel tells us that Mary gave birth to the child Jesus in a cattle shed because there was no room anywhere else for her family who had come from Nazareth to stay. They were strangers and outsiders in Bethlehem.

The birth of Christ was an act of the immense love of God. God became human in order to bring us back to His love.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and goodwill among men!

Leo
Archbishop of Karelia and All Finland

OT 14.12.2011