Dear Friends,

So many people are looking forward to Christmas, especially children and those who love the gathering of families and friends. But sadly so many others are dreading it, for it is a time of reminders. Christmases, birthdays and anniversaries are painful markers which cannot be avoided. Our little baby Edgar made his brief appearance on 18 December. How could we possibly look forward to Christmas?

If Christmas were just about Rudolf, Santa, mince pies and turkey, Christmas trees and robins, then it would be a bleak time indeed. It would be a party where everyone else seemed to be laughing but us. But this isn’t Christmas. Christmas is about our God who in Jesus born in a stable entered into our existence, and lived our life with its joys and problems.

Christmas is to me the reminder that though God is great and awesome and far above us in holiness and majesty, yet he is very near. He is Immanuel, God-with-us.

At this time of the year we read the sublime opening of St. John’s Gospel which tells us that from the very beginning God has been reaching out to us, to share with us his thoughts and plans:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God ... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us ... full of grace and truth.

‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us’. The New Testament tells us two vital things about God. First, that God is with us, as Immanuel, and, second, that God is for us, on our side. When life is rough, it is easy to think that God is against you, but when we see Jesus on the Cross lovingly bearing our sin and guilt for us, we know he is on our side. St. Paul wrote in Romans 8.31:

 What shall we say then to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

No other religion has a God who is of such a nature that he would stoop down to our level to become a human being and live the life we have to live every day with all its problems. When God came to us in Jesus, he was born poor in a stable, and was nearly murdered by Herod. He was brought up like any other boy. He learned his craft, and made his living as a carpenter. He knew success and he knew failure. He experienced love, and he felt a human hate so strong that it took him to the Cross.

There is no experience of ours that he does not know about personally. When the great theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was in prison awaiting execution by the Nazis he wrote: ‘Only the suffering God can help us’. My eyes are always on the Cross.

So, yes, Christmas is a painful time, but it is also a timely reminder that God has entered into our world and into my suffering in Jesus Christ himself. Thus I can say with great confidence, ‘For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me’. He is with us in joy and sorrow as Immanuel.

May you know God’s deep peace and joy this Christmastime.

Very sincerely Yours,