Happy Christmas all!

The Christian account of the birth of Jesus, and its celebration at Christmas, has to be one of its greatest contributions to the world.

Rather than being lofty and separate from humanity (or, conversely, so immanent as to be indistinguishable from us), the divine invades/embraces humanity in a historical event. God chains herself to us like a sit-in protester, identifying with us and refusing to let go. God becomes vulnerable, a baby boy born in relative poverty under the nose of a psychopathic autocrat. God transcends and unites class and culture – his arrival is announced to learned academics and blue-collar night shift workers. God sacralises the ornamental and the mundane; gold nestles in a jewelled casket inches from a steaming cowpat. God brings joy, hope, promises of peace and goodwill to all; she inspires gift-giving, well-wishing and inclusivity.

Despite all the degradation of the Christmas event, the core message has enough potency to call us into a season of goodwill; to reconcile, to welcome, to give and receive gifts material and spiritual. It hints at a more glorious possibility, that one day this season of goodwill will become a shared and permanent reality, a fully-orbed union between God and the universe.