Statue of Christ in Hallgrimskirja, Iceland

Dear members and friends,

The Fulness of Christ

Christmas Message from the Chair

When our Lord Jesus Christ called me in 1987 to offer Sisterdays to Icelandic women in silent retreats with spiritual direction, I went before him to understand why he wanted that. The answer was from Ephesians 4:12-13:

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (King James Version).

We have had many guests on our Sisterdays throughout the years. One of them was Joann Nesser, who founded Christos: Center for Spiritual Formation in 1990. They have a two-year program in spiritual direction. She taught us a song which I have never forgotten:

Sacred is the call, 

awesome indeed, the entrustment, 

tending the holy, 

tending the holy.

Interestingly, many women who have attended Sisterdays, in the almost 40 years they have been offered, have become leaders within the Church of Iceland, taking part in edifying the body of Christ. It has taught me at a very deep level how Christ loves his church and its workers. He wants his servants tended to and yearns for the unity of all Christians. Most of all, he wants us all to know and love him and to keep his word so that God the Father will love us, and they may come to us and make our hearts their home. 

We must decrease so that Christ may increase in us until we reach the fulness of Christ. This divine process is the work of grace through the Holy Trinity, originated in the love of the Father, the sacrifice of the Son, and is perfected through the Holy Spirit - happening through our YES without hesitation. I once met a wise man who said there is no 50/50 God and human being in this process, but 100/100. We must give him all of us; he gives us all of himself. This holy process has been called sanctification and is God’s will for us (1 Thess. 4:3), not only as individuals but for the SD-E community because a community of believers are sanctified by unity with Christ. We in the SDE all have a sacred calling to love God and our fellow human beings and tend to the holy, our directees and each other. This is an awesome entrustment indeed. 

A woman recently asked me what I thought about our dark times. Yes, they are dark, but we must never give up. We must fight the good fight and remember the vision given to us that the time will come when our Lord Jesus Christ destroys all evil (every rule, every authority, and power), and God, who is Love, Light, and Beauty, will be all in all. What an incredible vision for the future. What is so remarkable is that this heavenly sequence of events started with a baby boy born in Bethlehem in a barn and was put in a manger. Now, he is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the beginning and the end. His kingdom is everlasting, unlike earthly kingdoms that rise and fall. He will, therefore, rule forever, and we are his; we belong to him, and he to us. He wants us to abide in him and love all he loves with his love. Let us, therefore, rejoice and be filled with hope for the future, filled with gratitude for God’s unending love and mercy.

Christ was born, Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

Sigríður Halldórsdóttir - HA

Chair SD-E