Home » Thoughts for the Week » A saviour has been born to you!

A saviour has been born to you!

“Snow hits UK with -15C recorded overnight”

Thus read the headline on Monday as I sat down to write this week’s thought.

Schools from Cornwall to the Scottish Highlands have closed for the day, more than 100 flights have been cancelled and London Underground lines experienced delays or part closures. Here in the part of Essex where I live, however, there was a light dusting – hardly the perfect Christmas card image!

I wonder what you think constitutes a “white Christmas”. Maybe you think snow must fall on 25^th December and not a day before. Alternatively, you may think if snow remains on the ground on Christmas Day that fulfils the requirements. Maybe the white Christmas you think of are from your favourite Christmas movie , and citing Bing Crosby, ‘where treetops glisten and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow’!

The reality is the conditions required to satisfy the criteria of a white Christmas are far easier to meet. In this country there are a few locations scattered geographically throughout the country where if just one flake of snow is seen to drop from the sky then a white Christmas is declared. If one snowflake lands on the Met Office during the 24 hours of 25^th December then we officially have a “white Christmas”.

We might well say it is illogical to speak of a white Christmas in the north of the EBA if only a single snowflake lands on a building in London but sadly, I don’t think it is not just the definition of a white Christmas that is puzzling but the entire perspective of the Christmas season.

Some openly state they have no belief in God and for them Christmas is not about the baby Jesus but about family, about enjoyment, about eating and drinking and about giving and sharing; you only have to watch the Christmas TV adverts to get that idea (I continue to be a fan of Aldi’s Kevin the Carrott by the way). Many others claim to ‘believe’ (a bit like in Father Christmas) but make very little reference to the birth of Jesus Christ. Jesus is so much on the side lines of everything, so much left out in the rush and bustle, that it is rather like claiming to have a white Christmas without the snow. We cannot have a “Christmas” without Christ.

As we either lead or attend Advent and Christmas services in these next two weeks, we centre on the coming of a Saviour who brings hope and light to a dark work. The one who deserves all the honour and glory for coming to earth to rescue humankind. He is the one who was born to die on the cross so that we might know freedom. The angels declared to the shepherds, “Today in the town of David, a Saviour has been born to you” –  the Saviour of the world who offers forgives, transformation and life in all its fulness. He alone offers eternal life.

So as the countdown continues, as the business of season increases, my prayer for you is that you may discover more of the Saviour who brings hope, light and transformation to all.