Dear Friends,

A very Happy Christmas to you !  Having said that, I wonder what I mean by it…  A warm feeling inside, brought on by good food and drink, having friends and family around, not having to work, hearing from old friends…  Delete some, or all, of those, and what are you left with ?  The birth of a baby.  Those of you who have experienced the birth of a baby this year (not your own, necessarily, but to someone close perhaps) will know the hopes and fears, the joy and just inchoate emotion that goes with this momentous event. So, yes - a birth.

But it struck me the other day that, for a Christian, it is Easter that is actually about a new birth - a whole new start - while Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, is not so much a new start as the epiphany (the becoming visible, the making clear) of what already is.  God had always been in the world - how could he not be ? - but that first Christmas he became `a man`, not just `in men`.  This was no new creation (again, that came at Easter, at the Resurrection), but the concentration, the distillation, of God in the existing creation.

Each time a new baby is born they arrive with some of the characteristics of each of their parents, and of certain of their less immediate forbears too.  Each of us has a rich, and unique, biological inheritance.  Some are born with tragic weaknesses.  Some are blessed.  For most, it is a mixture.  Christmas is not about Jesus' biological inheritance - he was simply `a man`, born of Mary - so much as it is about his spiritual inheritance: he was uniquely blessed with closeness to God - to all that is of God, and therefore of good, in this world - we would say "with the Spirit of God".  Jesus did not have to look for God, as we do; he simply knew him. 

The good news of Christmas is not just that Jesus was born, that he was supremely, completely, `in tune` with God (the `Son of God`), but that this should remind us of - and guarantee for us - the knowledge that we are all, however imperfectly, a part of that same inheritance.  The good news of Christmas - may it help you find happiness - is that Jesus is one of us, and we can aspire afresh to be like him.  We cannot change our  biological inheritance, but we can be restored to our spiritual inheritance.  Why not celebrate that in church with others this Christmas ?

William Lang.

And in the New Year…  may I invite you to three things:

'Peter Pan' - a parish pantomime by young people, in the St. James' School at Elstead on Sunday 1st & Monday 2nd January, 3 pm & 7 pm.  Tickets from me @ £3 /children £2

A 'Taizé' style service for Christian Unity Week, on Sunday 22nd January, 6.30 pm in the United Reformed Church, Milford Road, Elstead.

The first (I hope) of a new series of opportunities for Christian Fellowship within our local churches, to be held at Elstead URC on Wednesday 25^th January, starting at 7.30 pm with a supper, followed by a speaker and discussion [further details next month].