What does Christmas Mean to us?
I LOVE Christmas! I love the way it connects me with happy memories of family times.
I remember waking up at the crack of dawn on my mattress on the floor of my grandfather's study and being so excited that Father Christmas had brought me a stocking full of presents.
My grandfather had 1000s of books but they were all very complicated and so every year I would read the only easy one in the whole room until the grown-ups woke up: Alice in Wonderland.
Christmas connects us with many things, but if we are to find the real meaning of Christmas we also need to separate out some of those connections.
The timing of the festival connects us with our pagan ancestors who celebrated the rebirth of the sun at the very darkest time of year, the winter solstice.
Similarly, the Jewish and Hindu festivals of Chanukah and Diwali remind believers of the hope of light in darkness. Christianity took over the ancient festival and made it our own.
Many of the traditional customs connect us with our Victorian ancestors. It is thanks to them that we send cards, decorate trees, sing carols by candle-light, and eat turkey dinners.
Like me, family gatherings, or the memories of them, connect us through the years with those we love and with those we still love but see no more. Sometimes people say to me 'Christmas is for family' or even, 'Christmas is for the children'.
The real meaning and significance of Christmas, however, lies much deeper than all of these: it is that God, who is almighty, immortal, invisible, and beyond time and space took on human flesh and, without at any point stopping being fully God, became fully human. This is what Christians celebrate at Christmas.
It is a huge statement which for some will prove impossible to take in, and for others will seem blasphemous - that the eternal God could become mortal.
It is, for Christians, one of the central mysteries of faith, and in a time when many people do not know even the simplest stories of our faith, we bury it under layers of custom and tradition at our peril.
The almightiness of God is impossible for us fully to understand in this life because we are mortal creatures living within time and space. But when Christ became human he SHOWED us what almighty God is like.
Because Christ became human we do not need only to understand a concept in order to follow our faith; we see the person of Christ, we listen and hear and respond to his teaching, we make a relationship with the person of Christ. One can fall in love with a person but few people fall in love with a religious idea.
When we look at the face of Christ - as a baby in the manger, as a 12 year old in the temple, as a travelling teacher, a suffering servant, a dying man, and a resurrected cosmic Saviour - we see the face of God.
In among the Christmas specials on the TV, the rush to the shops, the office parties, and the decorated trees there is a deeper and more challenging mystery to be found if only we will stop and seek it.
How could it be that angels would sing to shepherds in the dark of night? How could it be that the 'face' of Almighty God is seen in the face of a human baby?
How could it be that the all-powerful God could be birthed to an unmarried teenage mother and a family of refugees?
How could it be that the heavens should appoint a star to lead travelling foreigners to a forgotten corner of the Roman empire?
Again and again, the Christmas narrative invites us to think more deeply about the sort of God Christians follow. This must be a God who holds the poor close to his heart, a God to whom self sacrifice is the way 'he' works, whose power is present in humility and seeming weakness, and who changes things by working from below.
This baby will grow up to teach, heal, attract crowds, comfort, and disturb. His goodness and love will be so great that humanity will put him to death.
Only then will the humility and seeming weakness of his birth at Christmas be fully vindicated: the baby who was born to die is the one who has gained for us biggest Christmas present ever. He brings us love, forgiveness, and life everlasting.
This Christmas come and worship Him with us. You will be very welcome.