A celebration of Jesus' birth? 

A time for family and friends? 

A midwinter festival? 

A celebration that God, who made the universe, has lived a human life? 

Which is it?
 

A celebration of Jesus' birth

Matthew's Gospel contains the story of the announcement of Jesus' birth to Joseph, a one-line mention of Jesus' birth to Mary in Bethlehem, a visit by magi - astrologers -from the East, the escape of Joseph, Mary and Joseph into Egypt, and King Herod's slaughter of infants in Bethlehem. 

Luke's Gospel tells of Joseph and Mary's journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, Jesus' birth, possibly in a stable, and a visit by some shepherds.

This is no cosy nativity play. This is a story of migration, slaughter, and refugees. 

A time for family and friends

Christmas is a time for holidays, meeting, eating, drinking, greeting, and gift-giving.

It is a time for hard work, deeper loneliness, and deeper poverty, and a time for charitable efforts to mitigate them.

A midwinter festival

Christmas is the last Christian festival to have been established, centuries after Easter became a regular celebration of Jesus' resurrection. It was located where it is in the year to displace a pagan midwinter festival to mark the rebirth of the sun as days started to lengthen. 

Which is this festival? A Christian one, or a pagan one? And does it matter?

A celebration that God, who made the universe, has lived a human life.

In John's Gospel we hear of the Word of God who is with God and who is God, and that 'the Word became flesh and lived among us'. 

If the God who is the source of all that is has lived a human life in Jesus of Nazareth, then can anything be more important than that?

CHRISTMAS

A celebration of Jesus' birth? 

A time for family and friends? 

A midwinter festival? 

A celebration that God, who made the universe, has lived a human life? 

Which is it?