Father, Christmas!

The big guy in red is now safely back home. I would say at the frozen North Pole, but it seems like much of the northern hemisphere is frozen this December anyway. Global freezing, anybody?

Snow, ice. Red noses on humans as much as hardy reindeer. Mysterious visitors at odd hours of the night, arriving in darkness. Calling at houses brightly lit with beautiful, welcoming colours- yet often the cold colours of icicles and clear blue skies. Mince pies and one for the road- or is that sky- for the children's favourite. And not a few adults, too, particularly those of the Coca-Cola Corporation who first fashioned the modern red image of an ancient figure. Santa Claus, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle- or as we Brits have always preferred to call him Father Christmas. Bringer of gifts to little boys and girls who've been good all year.

Not quite. Beautiful, charming and comforting though most of this sentimental yet sacred Saturday will be as it falls this year, the name of the day reveals the real "reason for the season". We've been anything but good 'little' children every other day this year, actually! We've said things we've regretted, hurt those we should love the most, offended those we had no cause to. Or as a service book puts it "in thought, in word and deed. Through Ignorance, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault".

It sounds like judgment has been passed. We don't deserve to see the most lavish gifts piled under a tree, as we become buried beneath a tonne of wrapping paper. We don't deserve even to gather up the crumbs of the last roast potato- possibly a gift from Aunt Bessie to aid a mother pregnant with expectations of family life at it's best. Actually, we're miserable wretches. Once we were called sinners.

Indeed. A strange word, almost as incomprehensible and unacceptable to some as flying livestock and bearded old gentleman popping up and down chimneys. But this is reality. The reality which led to the greatest paradox of all. A gift beyond measure. A treasure wrapped not in brightly coloured paper, but improvised swaddling clothes. There was no brach of Mothercare when the greatest mother of them all delivered her first born.

Tradition tells it was a cold place too, a dark night. You couldn't get a hotel room, even less a journey home, because of the oppressive demands of an occupying empire and their puppet rulers, especially one called Herod. No cosseting from central heating, but instead the smell as well as the warmth of cattle, sheep and donkeys.

The greatest gift of all was packaged not in impossible to open plastic, but in flesh that was to be mercilessly pierced and a body broken just 33 years later. What sort of a life is that? Seems almost like one of those toys that kids will play with briefly, and then gets forgotten.

Hardly. For the life and death of this gift- from a Father who loved his children so much he could not let them suffer the perpetual punishment they deserved- was his own dear son- has had more impact on humanity than anybody else, or any movement, or any ideal, that has ever existed in human history.

The greatest gift of all comes from our Father- God with us, Emmanuel. Not Christmas, but Christ- or Jesus by name. A friend and a brother- not just for Christmas but for life, now and forever. Isn't that worth the biggest "thank you" ever- and good cause to celebrate.

However you're enjoying, or perhaps enduring, this Christmas, I pray it may bring you peace, comfort, hope and love. Merry Christmas! God Bless