The Christian Aid Carol Service 2024 took place at New Town Church, Edinburgh on Wednesday 11 December. The Rt Rev Dr John Armes, Bishop of Edinburgh, was in attendance. He said: “Global peace was the focus of Christian Aid’s Carol Service, held this year at Edinburgh New Town Church. Led by Siskin Green and the choir of St David’s RC Primary School, we enjoyed the music of Christmas, given poignancy by video messages from Christian Aid partners in South Sudan and Israel/Palestine.
“We listened to Isaiah’s vision of justice and to the radical message of Mary, who saw in her son the realisation of God’s will that the humble should be lifted up. In my opening prayer I asked that we might share Mary’s vision of ‘a world made for justice’ where ‘those who live in darkness may be dazzled by God’s great light and the hungry may be fed with good things.’
“In his powerful address, John Bell made us laugh at ourselves but also take stock of the world we have created. It is not enough, he explained, to lift up the lowly; Mary’s song also describes a world where the powerful are brought down. For it is the powerful and unscrupulous, and the faceless systems they create, that make the victims in the first place. Unless we challenge these systems we are complicit in them.
“It was an honour for me to represent the Scottish Episcopal Church at the service, which was led by The Very Revd Sally Foster-Fulton, Christian Aid UK and Global Church Ambassador. The Very Revd David Arnott, who read the Magnificat for us, represented the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and closing prayers were led by The Revd Ann Inglis of the New Town Church. We were joined by Kirsty McNeill MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who read from Isaiah.”
