This is advance posted on the basis that Christmas Day will be way too busy!

After a busy Advent at the end of a pretty busy year, it is good to pause, if only for a few moments and remember what it is that motivates us.  The Christmas story, in its Biblical minimalism, or with all its embellishments, draws us to the miracle of new life, the potential that lies untapped and undamaged in each newborn child.  It is a story of hope and a story of love.  It is simultaneously an outrageous story and a tender tale.

In the jaded, world-weariness that threatens to overwhelm us, it is good, if only in our imagination, to glimpse the miracle reborn in each child, and, for those of us have the audacity to believe in an incarnate God to wonder afresh what a ridiculously stupid, wonderful, powerful, vulnerable, redemptive, transformative act that was, and is, and always will be.

Wishing all my readers a very Happy Christmas, and a New Year characterised by peace, hope and love.