As the world celebrates at Christmas, chaplains minister to people in hard places. Prisoners prefer not to see their families because it’s just too hard emotionally. The only joy they get on Christmas day is maybe a chapel service and a bit of a feed up at lunch time before an early lock-in so the officers can have their own celebration. Those who are stuck in hospital are probably still so ill that they just couldn’t care less, even though they know they’d prefer to be well and at home with family.
One Christmas as I was visiting in hospital, I entered Katherine’s room; she was with her three sons and her husband. I introduced myself and Katherine’s husband said, “We’ll leave you alone and you can have a talk with my wife.” In my cynical heart I thought, “Yeah, that’s right. Leave the religious stuff to the women.” I had to rebuke myself later because Katherine was dying and had some very clear questions she wanted some clear answers to, and her husband had seen my arrival as the opportunity for his wife to speak freely about her fears.
Katherine asked me how you can be sure you’ve done enough to please God. I said to her that that’s the one question we can be absolutely sure about the answer. None of us have done enough to please God. And we talked about Jesus and how he has done enough and I encouraged Katherine to put her trust in Jesus. She was glad to do that in her limited understanding amongst the turmoil of what were her last days on earth as she struggled with her grief at the imminent loss, through her own death, of her family and the love they gave her.
There are many Katherines in hard places at Christmas and there are many families like hers who will be grieving as the world celebrates. Our chaplains have the difficult privilege of bringing the good news of Jesus into these hard places. As your family sits down to Christmas dinner there will be a Chaplain in a prison or in a hospital speaking to another Katherine and another family. As you give thanks for Jesus and your Christmas fare pray for the chaplain and for the people in prison and in hospital that they will come to know Jesus at this Christmas time.
