Beyond the brick and galvanize to hearts
January 3, 2020
Bless and protect the children
January 3, 2020

Once the heart is open, Christ will come

By Lara Pickford-Gordon
Email: snrwriter.camsel@catholictt.org
Twitter:@gordon_lp

 

Our hearts may not be ready to receive Christ but even if things are not pristine, if the heart is open “Christ will come”.

Archbishop Jason Gordon shared this message at the December 20 opening of the Christian Council of Trinidad and Tobago (CCTT) crèche at the Brian Lara Promenade. Services were held December 23, 27 and 30 led by members of the Council—African Methodist Episcopal and Methodist, Anglican and Presbyterian, Ethiopian Orthodox and Salvation Army. The general theme was See, Know and Tell.

The environment was as expected for a Friday with numerous passersby, vendors, and a cacophony of sounds with the CCTT event competing with Soca Parang songs, traffic noise and chatter of many voices.

Pointing to similarities with Bethlehem, Archbishop Gordon said, “That night when the child was born was not different from the hustle and bustle and all the activity that we are experiencing here in that it was so filled they could not find a place for the child to be born—people coming, going, buying, selling”.

He described the manger as a “cow-pen” with all the sights and smells associated with such a place. He said, “That is where God’s child was born, not in St Clair, not in West Shore not even in the general hospital.” It was in a cow pen “in the midst of all the dirt and all the confusion”.

Archbishop Gordon continued, “When we think of God’s son being born and laid in the manger, let me translate that for you –the feeding trough.” Moving close to the nativity scene erected at the Promenade, he said “What we have here is nice, safe and serene compared with how God’s son came into the world.  In this scene what we are depicting here is just a representation of that night in Bethlehem when Jesus Christ was born.”

Archbishop Gordon said if Jesus could be born in a cow-pen He did not need a pristine environment, “because if He needed the pristine and antiseptic, He could not be born in my heart …I don’t know about you all”.

The Archbishop quipped, “Even if the heart is not ready to receive Him because you ain’t put up all the decorations inside, don’t mind how it look and what decorations in or not in—the fact that the heart is open Christ will come.” He will make the heart holy by His presence, he added.