‘Marhaba’: My Awareness Sunday

A personal reflection by Magda Karkosinska-Deneault

Edited by Josie Child

Awareness Sunday 2018 🙏

Father Nadim Nassar gave a moving and passionate sermon in Holy Trinity Sloane Square church, and this is what stuck in my mind:

Marhaba – ‘God is love’

· MARHABA is an old Arabic greeting meaning: 'God is love'. Marhaba comes from an Aramaic origin and was used by the first Christians. Imagine how cool it must be to walk into someone’s house and be welcomed with such words 🙏 The identity of God is love!

· God shows this love for us by embracing our humanity ❤️ He sent His son Jesus Christ to us, and through the crucifixion and resurrection, God now has the humanity of Jesus Christ within the Trinity – forever!

Our identity

· What is our identity as Christians? To embrace Jesus Christ just as he embraced us. But have we really done this? What are we doing today to embrace him?

· Our identity, our true identity, does not depend on how rich we are, how important we are, or who we know. It is not found in our achievements or social status. These things do not make us lovable. Only because God loves us, do we become lovable! ❤️

· Unless you ‘empty’ yourself, you don’t deserve to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Putting our individualism and selfishness aside in order to serve one another - that is the challenge! It is easy to be a Christian in church… but how can we embrace the love and peace of Christ out there in the world?

Dying for their faith

· Young people are actually dying in our times, in the Middle East and around the world, because they say: ‘I am a follower of Jesus’. They are being literally crucified!

· This puts our own context into perspective. We need to re-think, re-evaluate our own humanity. What things are enslaving us in our society, instead of being slaves to Jesus Christ?

· Screens! We have become the slaves of our own making – to digital technology! We connect with technology instead of with each other. Every day and everywhere we are staring at screens! In our hands, on our laps, on our desks, in the living rooms, in the schools, on the streets, on the tube - SCREENS EVERYWHERE! 📱📷

Who am I?

· We need to take a step back and think – who am I? When Jesus asked his disciples ‘who do you say that I am?’ (Mark 8:29) he was mirroring the question back to them – ‘who do you say that YOU are?’

· Who am I? I know who I am! I am a follower of Jesus Christ! And what is the cost of this? To love! ❤️

MARHABA 🙏❤️

Every year, Awareness Sunday is an opportunity for people of faith around the world to recommit themselves to peace and reconciliation in every area of their lives. Please watch the one minute video below for a snapshot of this year's Awareness Sunday: