Christmas 2025

 Wishing all our readers a happy and blessed Christmas season. 

  

Another Christmas

I hope you had a very merry and blessed Christmas and were able to spend time with family and friends.

As I write this, Christmas Day was four days ago, and it's "all over" for another year. It is true the presents have been opened, the festive food and drink consumed, the carols sung, the Christmas servces attended. Soon our focus will move on to the New Year celebrations—always a strong tradition in my native Scotland—and the resolutions and plans for 2025.

Yet the thing is that Christmas cannot simply be "all over" or "put away" like the boxes of decorations until next December.

What we celebrate at Christmastime is that the birth of Jesus made the world different. It could never be the same again. 

If you are Christian, you understand this already. Anyone reading this who is not yet a Christian, I hope one day you will come to understand it soon.

The coming of Jesus to this world really does mean it is like Christmas every day (and not just in the words of a chessy Christmas pop song).

One of the titles given to Jesus is "Immanuel" which as Matthew 1:23 says (quoting from Isaiah 7:14), means "God with us."

His coming was not a temporary visit. He came to be with us and he is still with us now, in our hearts and by the Holy Spirit.

I pray that you will have Immanuel with you and in you, as we head into the new year in a few day's time.

My Top Ten Christmas Carols

I recenly posted a "Top Ten" Christmas carols countdown on my personal Facebook page as a countdown to Christmas and a gentle work of evangelism among my non-Christian friends. Here are my choices along with good performances of each carol.

Number 10 - While shepherds watched their flocks.

 

With ten days to go to Christmas, I thought I'd do a "top ten" Christmas carols counting down from today to Christmas Eve. These are my personal choices. With so many available, narrowing it down to 10 was hard. Your favourites might or might not feature in this list.

 

Coming in in 10th place is "While shepherds watchehd their flocks" (also published as "While humble shepherds watched" in some hymnals, including the ones I grew up with in the Church of Scotland).

 

The words were written by Nahum Tate (1652-1715) and they are a fairly straightforward paraphrase of the nativity story found in Luke's Gospel chapter 2. Tate was born in Dublin and was an Anglican clergyman, who also became Poet Laureate in 1692.

 

Although a number of tunes have been used with these words, the most common tune used in the UK at least is called WINCHESTER OLD which dates at least from the 1630s when it was published though it may predate being written down.

 

Here it is performed by the choir of King's College Cambridge in an arrangement by Sir David Willcocks.

 

Number 9 - It came upon the midnight clear

 

Coming in at 9th place on my top ten carols is "It came upon the midnight clear".

 

This is the first of two American carols in the top 10 and also one of those carols that are best known by different tunes on each side of the Atlantic.

 

The words were written in 1849 by Edmund Sears, who was actually a pastor in the Unitarian church. However, there is nothing in his words that would make them unacceptable to orthodox Trinitarians. 

 

Unlike many of the great carols that focus on the incarnation of the Son of God, Sears' words focus on the message of peace that the angels sang "Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth, good will to men" particularly the idea of "peace on earth" and considers not the events of Bethlehem but the sweep of history and how the world has not accepted the message of peace in "our time" whether that is the 19th century of the author or the 21st century in which we live.

 

In a year that been marked by wars and strife in different parts of the world, the words of the third verse are as poignant as ever:

 

But with the woes of sin and strife

The world has suffered long;

Beneath the angel-strain have rolled

Two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not

The love-song which they bring; –

Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife,

And hear the angels sing!

 

As far as the music goes, as I said, the most common tune in the United States is known simply as CAROL or WILLIS which was written for this hymn by Richard Willis.

 

Personally, I have always found the American tune a bit syrupy. For that reason, I much prefer the tune composed by Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert & Sullivan fame) and usually called NOEL. It is Sullivan's tune which is usually sung in the UK and other Commonwealth countries.

 

In this recording, the carol is performed by the choir of Winchester Cathedral.

 

Number 8 - As with gladness, men of old

 

I suspect this one might not be on everyone's list of favourites, but it has always been one of mine, both for the words and the tune, which is perfect for congregational singing.

 

The words were written by William Chatterton Dix (1837-1898). Unlike most hymn writers in Victorian Britain who were mainly clergymen, Dix was a businessman, and actually worked for a time in Glasgow as manager of a marine insurance company.

 

Many hymns about the visit of the magi focus on the gifts, but Dix's hymn draws a number of parallels between the visit of the wise men (the "men of old") and how we should seek to live as Christians now. In the first three verses there is a recurring pattern: "As they did..."/ "So may we..."

 

In verse 1, as the wise men were guided to Christ by the star, so may we be led to Jesus. In verse 2, as they travelled joyfully to Bethlehem, so may we seek the place of propitiation or "mercy-seat" found at the cross. In verse 3, As they offered gifts, so may we present our best to King Jesus in our lives.

 

The whole hymn is a prayer really and this is most evident in verse 4 which is addressed to Jesus directly:

 

Holy Jesus, every day

keep us in the narrow way;

and, when earthly things are past,

bring our ransomed souls at last

where they need no star to guide,

where no clouds Thy glory hide.

 

Transitioning from the prayer for heaven in verse 4, the hymn ends with a triumphant last verse about heaven and how Christ himself will be everything we need there.

 

Almost the only tune used with this hymn is known as DIX, originally a German tune by Conrad Kocher. Although not written for this hymn specifically, it was later adapted for it by William Monk in the 1861 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern and has been used ever since with this hymn, the tune being re-named after the hymn's author.

 

Here it is, sung by Salisbury Cathedral Choir with a rousing descant in the final verse by Sir David Willcocks.

 

Number 7 - See, amid the winter's snow

 

At number 7 on my list is another Victorian carol, "See, amid the winter's snow" by Edward Caswall first published in 1858. The tune was later written for the words by John Goss in 1871. He called the tune HUMILITY which fits very well with the theme of Caswall's words.

 

Caswall converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism not long before he wrote this carol and the final verse he wrote, which includes a prayer to the Virgin Mary, is dropped from Protestant hymnals. 

 

Also, in some hymn books, the first line is changed to "See in yonder manger low" which I think misses something of the fact that in the UK and much of the northern hemisphere we do contemplate the events of Christmas in the cold and sometimes the snow of wintertime.

 

I chose this one partly because I love the tune with the quieter more reflective verses and the triumphant chorus, and also for the words, especially of two of the verses:

 

Lo, within a manger lies

He who built the starry skies

He who throned in height sublime

Sits amid the cherubim.

 

Sacred infant, all divine,

What a tender love was Thine,

Thus to come from highest bliss

Down to such a world as this.

 

To begin to grasp the truth of who this baby was and why he came into the world is to glimpse at the mystery of the incarnation and the grace of the good news.

 

Each verse sung in unison is followed by the powerful chorus in four-part harmony:

 

Hail, thou ever blessed morn,

Hail redemption's happy dawn,

Sing through all Jerusalem

Christ is born in Bethlehem.

 

Here is the carol performed by the choir of Guildford Cathedral.

 

Number 6 - Silent Night / Still the Night

 

This carol is probably many people's favourite and comes in at number 6 on my list. This is the first of two carols on the list not originally written in the English language.

 

The carol is from Austria and was originally written in German. The story goes that it was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 in a little town called Oberndorf bei Salzburg, with words by Father Joseph Mohr and music by his organist, the local school teacher, Franz Gruber.

 

The English words exist in more than one version. The most commonly sung translation is by John Freeman Young, who was an Episcopal priest in New York City. It reads:

 

Silent night! Holy night!

All is calm, all is bright

Round yon virgin mother and child!

Holy infant, so tender and mild,

Sleep in heavenly peace!

Sleep in heavenly peace!

 

Silent night! Holy night!

Shepherds quake at the sight!

Glories stream from heaven afar,

Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!

Christ the Saviour is born!

Christ the Saviour is born!

 

Silent night! Holy night!

Son of God, love's pure light

Radiant beams from thy holy face

With the dawn of redeeming grace,

Jesus, Lord, at thy birth!

Jesus, Lord, at thy birth!

 

However, anyone familiar with the Church of Scotland hymnary in any of its editions, knows that we usually sing a slightly different version, translated by Stopford Brooke, an Irish-born Anglican cleric who served as a royal chaplain to Queen Victoria. It’s a matter of personal preference, but I like these words a little better:

 

Still the night, holy the night!

Sleeps the world; hid from sight,

Mary and Joseph in stable bare

watch o'er the child belovèd and fair,

sleeping in heavenly rest,

sleeping in heavenly rest.

 

Still the night, holy the night!

Shepherds first saw the light,

heard resounding clear and long,

far and near, the angel-song,

'Christ the Redeemer is here!'

'Christ the Redeemer is here!'

 

Still the night, holy the night!

Son of God, O how bright

love is smiling from thy face!

Strikes for us now the hour of grace,

Saviour, since thou art born!

Saviour, since thou art born!

 

There are few recordings of this alternative version, many of the “Silent Night” version, but here is St Thomas Choir (Thomanerchor) in Leipzig, singing in the original German version and what a pure sound they create.

 

Number 5 – O come, all ye faithful

 

We now enter the top five of my personal selection of top ten Christmas carols. As the lyrics say, this carol is indeed ‘joyful and triumphant’ and ‘O come, all ye faithful’ takes the number five spot.

 

Although one of the best-known carols, the origin of its words and tune are shrouded in mystery. There's even a conspiracy theory that the words are actually a Jacobite coded message!

 

A number of people have been suggested as authors of the words. By the way, this is the second of our carols that were not originally in English, the original language in this case being Latin. The opening words in Latin are Adeste Fidelis. The main candidates for authorship include King John IV of Portugal, a 17th century musician called John Reading, and an 18th century writer called John Francis Wade. Wade is usually considered the most likely writer, but we do not really know. The first published version was by Wade in 1751.

 

The English translation was made by a Catholic priest, Frederick Oakeley in 1841, with additional translations by William Thomas Brooke.

 

The tune, known as ADESTE FIDELIS, is also of uncertain origin with many suggestions over the years including Wade himself, John Reading, King John IV, as well as a number of famous composers such as Handel, Gluck and Thomas Arne.

 

The arrangement by David Willcocks is justly celebrated with its descant on the “Sing choirs of angels” verse and his re-harmonisation of the final “Yea Lord we greet Thee” verse.

 

The words themselves touch on many of the central truths of the incarnation of Christ. The hymn is often used as the penultimate carol at Nine Lessons and Carols services following the reading of the ninth lesson, John 1:1-18. The words in the final verse “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing” are a paraphrase of John 1:14.

 

In normal church Christmas services, the hymn is often used as the opening hymn as God’s people gather to worship.

 

Here is the hymn, in the Willocks arrangement, sung at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College. Cambridge.

 

Number 4 – Once in royal David's city

 

As we reach the top four of my personal choices of Christmas carol, it is very difficult to put these in order.

 

"Once in royal David's city" was written originally as a poem by Cecil Frances Alexander (née Humphreys) and then published in 1848 as one of her "Hymns for Little Children." I think it is important to remember that this is a children's hymn and when you read the words that way it makes a lot of sense.

 

Mrs Alexander was an Anglo-Irish hymn writer born in Dublin and was married to William Alexander in 1850. He was later Bishop of Derry and Archbishop of Armagh in the Church of Ireland. Among her other well-known hymns are "All things bright and beautiful" and "There is a green hill far away".

 

The words are simple enough for a child to understand, yet cover the profound truths of the incarnation, that Jesus was fully God:

 

He came down to earth from heaven

Who is God and Lord of all" (v.2)

 

And at the same time, he was fully human like any one of us:

 

For he is our childhood's pattern;

Day by day like us he grew,

He was little, weak, and helpless,

Tears and smiles like us he knew." (v.4)

 

My favourite verses are the final two (verses 5 and 6) where the writer reflects on the fact that we will one day see Jesus. In verse 5 she explains that it is by Christ himself and his work that we are saved and in verse 6 she points out that when we see him it will not be as a baby in the manger, but as the King of heaven.

 

And our eyes at last shall see him

Through his own redeeming love,

For that Child so dear and gentle,

Is our Lord in heaven above:

And he leads his children on

To the place where he is gone.

 

Not in that poor lowly stable,

With the oxen standing by,

We shall see him: but in heaven,

Set at God's right hand on high,

Where like stars his children crowned,

All in white shall wait around.

 

The hymn was set to music a year after it was written by Henry John Gauntlett. His tune is called IRBY.

The hymn is traditionally the first one sung at many Lessons and Carols services, most famously at King's College Cambridge, with a boy treble singing the opening verse solo and unaccompanied.

 

Here it is in a performance by Trinity College Choir, Cambridge.

 

Number 3 – O little town of Bethlehem

 

Some of the carols we have looked at are shrouded in mystery as to their exact origins, but the very opposite is the case for "O little town of Bethlehem" where we know a great deal about its composition.

This is the second American carol on our list. It was written in 1868 by Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), an Episcopalian clergyman who was rector of Trinity Church in Boston, Massachusetts. He was inspired to write the words after visiting Bethlehem on a tour of the Holy Land.

 

The words reflect on how the most significant event in history, the birth of the Son of God came so quietly that most the world never even knew it happened. Yet for those who "receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in."

 

The final verse is a prayer that Christ would come and make his home in our hearts as we respond to the gospel:

 

We hear the Christmas angels,

the great glad tidings tell;

O come to us, abide with us,

our Lord Emmanuel!

 

As with the other American carol on this list ("It came upon the midnight clear") the carol is usually sung to different tunes in the USA and in the UK.

 

In a way, the American tune is the more "authentic" one. It was written by Brooks's own organist, Lewis Redner, for the hymn and with the author's approval. The tune is known as ST LOUIS.

However, in the UK, we normally sing the hymn to an English folk tune, FOREST GREEN, which was paired with the words by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.

 

It probably depends a lot on what you are used to, but I like both tunes, though I think the American tune is definitely of its time and can sound overly sentimental, which is fine if I'm feeling overly sentimental myself!

 

So we have two renditions to share on this one. First, we have the American tune sung by the Trinity Choir. Second, the choir of Ely Cathedral singing the hymn to FOREST GREEN.

Number 2 – In the bleak mid-winter

 

The second top place goes to "In the bleak mid-winter" and it was a close thing between this and the number one. This carol is simply perfect and makes it feel like Christmas any time I listen to it or sing it.

 

The words were originally written as a poem by the English poet Christina Gabriel Rossetti (1830-1894), though perhaps with prescience she titled the poem "A Christmas Carol" when it was first published in 1872.

 

The original poem has five stanzas. Verse one focuses on the weather around Christmas time, at least in the cold northern hemisphere, and hints at the fact that it was (and is) a harsh world that the Christ child was born into.

 

Then in verse two the focus switches to the incarnation itself with the God who reigns over all becoming a poor baby born in a stable.

 

Verse three (which is omitted in some versions of the sung carol) focuses on the child's human needs ("a breastful of milk and a mangerful of hay") yet even then he received the "worship" of "the ox and ass and camel which adore."

 

The fourth verse imagines the angels and archangels gathering to worship, but Mary worshipping Jesus with a tender kiss.

 

The final verse creates a challenge for the poet and us today. "What can I give Him, poor as I am?" And her answer, which ours should be too, is to give Him our hearts.

 

I have always had a deeply emotional experience when singing these words.

 

And that brings us to the music. It is sad that Rossetti never lived to see her words set to music. She died in 1894. There are two equally good and famous settings of the words to music. The first one was by the English composer Gustav Holst (he of "The Planets" fame) in 1906. He called his hymn tune CRANHAM. This is maybe the best-known version and certainly the one suitable for congregational hymn singing. It is a beautiful tune which matches the mood of the words perfectly.

 

As with many of the carols we have looked at, there is more than one setting of the words. The second tune was written by Harold Darke in 1909. Darke's version is more suited as an anthem for a choir to sing as each verse has a different arrangement, some with solo voices, some unaccompanied. It is also a lovely tune which is well-matched with the text.

 

There are at least five or six other settings with other tunes, but these are the "big two".

 

We present both versions, first the Darke version with the Cambridge Singers, with City of London Sinfonia conducted by John Rutter. Second the Holst setting to the tune Cranham sung by the choir of King's College Cambridge conducted by Stephen Cleobury.

 

Number 1 – Hark! The herald angels sing

 

So we arrive at our number one choice this Christmas Eve and I've chosen "Hark! the herald angels sing" as my favourite Christmas carol of all.

 

The original words were written by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) in 1739, although Wesley's original is a bit different from the version we normally sing today. Wesley's opening words were "Hark! how all the Welkin rings, Glory to the King of Kings" ("Welkin" is an archaic word for "heaven"). The first words were revised by Wesley's colleague, George Whitefield, to "Hark! The herald angels sing, Glory to the new-born King" as well as a few other changes, and more tweaks to the words occurred in later years. Wesley also wrote several more verses than we normally sing today.

 

The great words of this carol really get to the heart of the Christmas message and the Christian gospel.

In verse one the message of the angels in Luke 2 are the focus:

 

Hark! The herald angels sing,

"Glory to the newborn King;

Peace on earth and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled."

 

In verse two, the words reflect on the fact that the baby Jesus is God incarnate, God made flesh:

 

Christ, by highest heaven adored

Christ, the everlasting Lord,

Late in time behold him come

Offspring of a Virgin's womb:

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,

Hail the incarnate Deity,

Please as man with man to dwell,

Jesus, our Emmanuel.

 

The third verse is a great hymn of praise to Christ:

 

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!

Hail the Sun of Righteousness!

Light and life to all He brings

Risen with healing in His wings.

But the verse also comes back to the gospel message of salvation:

Born that man no more may die

Born to raise the sons of earth

Born to give them second birth.

 

Each verse ends with the same refrain as the hymn's opening:

 

Hark! The herald angels sing,

"Glory to the newborn King!"

 

It is hard now to even read the words without also hearing the tune for this carol. Yet the words and music are separated by a century. The tune for this carol is usually kunown as MENDELSSOHN or sometimes as BETHLEHEM. It was written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840 for a completely different piece, a secular cantata called "Festgesang" about the printer Gutenberg. It wasn't until 1855 that William Cummings, organist at Waltham Abbey Church paired Mendelssohn's tune (with slight amendment) with Wesley/Whitefield's words, and the rest is history.

 

Incidentally, before that, Wesley himself in his lifetime, preferred "Hark! The herald" to be sung to the same tune he used for "Christ the Lord is risen today" which is Handel's tune MACCABAEUS usually used today with "Thine be the glory". Confused yet? As with one or two other carols on the list, it is strange to think that Wesley never heard his hymn sung to the tune we can't imagine it without nowadays.

 

The hymn is often sung with a rousing descant and reharmonsiation on the final verse by Sir David Willcocks which was written in 1961.

 

So, here is "Hark! the Herald angels sing" in Willcocks' arrangement. As befitting our number one choice, this version also has a brass fanfare to introduce it. Here it is sung by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge conducted by David Willcocks, with organ and the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble.

What's in a Name? A Christmas Reflection

“She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). (Matthews 1:21-24, ESV)

In Western culture the choice of a baby’s name can be affected by all kinds of factors. Family tradition is one that is important within my own family. I was named after my father, who was named after his uncle. My son has my name as his middle name to carry on the tradition. This results in multiple people within the family having the same first name. For other people, the chosen name reflects the parents’ favourite actors, singers or sports stars. Other people try to choose a name that will make their child stand out from the crowd. Some celebrities take this to extremes and seem to come up with names that try to be as outlandish as possible.

By contrast, in the Bible, the names given to children are often full of meaning, somehow seeming to capture something of the character of the recipient, or at least reflecting something about them or the events surrounding their birth. That goes all the way back to Adam himself (‘adam’ in Hebrew means ‘man of earth’ or ‘earthling’ we might say). Think of Abraham (‘father of many nations’), Isaac (‘laughter’ – remember when Sarah laughed at the idea she would conceive a baby?), Moses (‘to draw out’ as he was taken from the Nile), or David (‘beloved’).

No name in the Bible is more rich with meaning than the name the angel told Joseph to name Mary’s baby boy. ‘You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’ (Matthew 1:23).

The name we read in our bibles as ‘Jesus’ is a Greek form of what was a common name for Hebrew boys at the time, Yeshua or as we normally find it in English, Joshua. It is a meeting with a profound meaning: ‘Yahwah saves’ or ‘Yahweh is salvation.’

Verse 23 explicitly links the reason for his name to his mission to save God’s people. Never was a name more apt. As the angels told the shepherds, ‘For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord’ (Luke 2:11, ESV).

Beyond the fact that Jesus was given his name because he is the Saviour, the name hints at another truth. That he is Yahweh himself—he is God, born in a stable in Bethlehem.

The New Testament as a whole teaches this same truth. Jesus is God and it is only as God become a human being that he can achieve salvation for this people. Another Christmas reading is John 1, where it is made very clear that Jesus (whom John calls ‘the Word’) is God:

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:1, 14, ESV).

This is why Matthew recognised the prophecy in Isaiah 7 referred to the incarnation as well, that Jesus is ‘Immanuel’ which means ‘God with us.’

God is with his people this Christmas and always. The question for each of us is this: are you one of his people? Are you one of those he came to save? The only answer and assurance the Bible gives is this: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved’ (Acts 16:31) and as Jesus himself said, ‘Whoever comes to me I will never cast out’ (John 6.37b, ESV).

May the Christ of the manger, the cross, and the empty tomb be yours this Christmas and forever.

The Season of Waiting

We spend a lot of our lives waiting. We wait in train stations, airports, at bus stops, and in traffic jams. We wait to be seen at the doctor or the dentist. We wait for visitors to arrive and sometimes for visitors to go. We wait for things to arrive in the post or in our computer's inbox.

We spend so much time waiting that the word is an adjective we use to describe various nouns. So we have waiting rooms and waiting areas. We have waiting lists and waiting times.

For me waiting is often a frustration. I see it too often as synonymous with just wasting time.

But waiting is not always a bad thing. It depends how we use the waiting time. Much of the joy in life comes from the pleasure that comes after a period of waiting for something good to happen. I'm thinking of some of life's key moments, like waiting during your engagement for the wedding day and waiting during pregnancy for the child's birth.

For many people, advent is just the boring wait until Christmas, like waiting in a queue before you get in to see an exciting film or show. Necessary but dull.

This advent I'm trying to use the waiting time positively, to consider the state of the world and the state of my own life, and recognise afresh the need for the Saviour, just as much in 21st century Britain as in 1st century Palestine.

God's idea to put the world to rights when all else had failed, by coming to the world himself as a baby to save it, must be the most beautiful, loving and audacious thought ever to have entered the divine mind.

As one Christmas carol puts it:

Sacred Infant, all divine, 
What a tender love was Thine, 
Thus to come from highest bliss,
Down to such a world as this.

Tender love indeed because he comes not to get anything from us, but to give us everything he has. He loves us and wants us to love him too. That's it. It's all he wants and it's the only thing we could possibly give him. As another carol says:

What can I give Him, poor as I am?

...Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

And waiting to celebrate his birth once again is no waste of time. It is an act of love and an honour.

Festive Illness

I hope you had a great Christmas and I wish you a happy new year for 2017.

As for me, I've been ill since before Christmas with a heavy cold and then a chest infection which has been hard to shift. I'm hoping the second lot of antibiotics will do the trick, but I'm still coughing a lot today and have not yet made it back to work.

It was strange to have to miss going to church right through the festive period. I think I was last at church around 11th December. It's the first year I can remember when I don't think I sang a single Christmas carol or heard a Christmas sermon. And now I've missed the new year sermons as well.

It struck me that my Christmas experience this year was exactly that of most people in Scotland today - a Christmas without so much as "darkening the door" of a church. The big difference being that my absence was forced upon me by illness; most people's is voluntary. Many churches are looking to give a special welcome to visitors at Christmas, but relatively few come, which is sad for everyone.

I also got a glimpse into the lives of people who cannot get to church because of illness. It made me see how important it is to bring church to people who can't come to church. That is something I don't think most churches think about nearly enough.

As we come to Epiphany on 6th January, we continue to remember the message of Christmas, that God became a human being in that baby in the manger is good news for all year round, for all of humanity of every race and nation, and for all eternity.

Merry Christmas

With only a few hours to go before Christmas Day in the UK, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and send you a Christmas blessing:

May the joy of the angels,
the eagerness of the shepherds,
the perseverance of the wise men,
the obedience of Joseph and Mary,
and the peace of the Christ child
be yours this Christmas.

Amen.

Merry Christmas

A very merry Christmas to all my blog readers.

This year the words that have been going through my mind over and over again come from the great prologue to John's Gospel (John 1:1-14). There we read these words from verse 14: "The Word became flesh."

In those four words the true meaning of Christmas is captured. John has already identified the "Word" as God, the God who made the world. And this "Word" is the Lord Jesus Christ. The message of Christmas is that in the birth of a baby boy in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago, the God who made and rules over everything - the God of Israel - took on human flesh and became a human being. This is what theologians call "the incarnation". It is because he came that God's plan of redemption could be accomplished. He came to bring reconcilation between God and humankind and thereby reconcilation between all things in heaven and earth.

This is why Christians celebrate his birth every year. Because "He came down to earth from heaven, who is God and Lord of all, and his shelter was a stable, and his cradle was a stall."

From his birth he was one of us in every respect, identifying completely with the poor, the hungry, the helpless and the needy.

And we need him this Christmas as much as we ever did. My prayer is that you will know Christ this Christmas and always. And may God bless you and all those whom you love now and forevermore.

Go Overboard Celebrating Christmas

I agree with Douglas Wilson's article "Go Overboard Celebrating Christmas" in Christianity Today. You can read it here:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/december-web-only/go-overboard-celebrating-christmas.html?paging=off

I think he makes a number of good points here. While it is true that there is a lot of stuff associated with the secular Christmas that is perhaps more an excuse for sin than a joyful celebration of the birth of Jesus, the temptation for a certain kind of Christian is to throw the baby out with the bathwater, put on sackcloth and ashes (metaphorically anyway) and seek to turn the celebration into no more than a sombre commemoration and a guilt trip about how messed up the world is around us.

I've always felt there's something strange about claiming to have good news for the world while we go out of our way to show the world that we Christians don't really want to enjoy ourselves too much. All pleasure is sinful after all, right?

The message of the Bible could not be further from this. I think Wilson gets it right when he says:

Do not treat this as a time of introspective penitence. To the extent that you must clean up, do it with the attitude of someone showering and changing clothes, getting ready for the best banquet you have ever been to. This does not include three weeks of meditating on how you are not worthy to go to banquets. Of course you are not. Haven't you heard of grace?

Celebrate the stuff. Use fudge and eggnog and wine and roast beef. Use presents and wrapping paper. Embedded in many of the common complaints you hear about the holidays (consumerism, shopping, gluttony, etc.) are false assumptions about the point of the celebration. You do not prepare for a real celebration of the Incarnation through thirty days of Advent Gnosticism.

Yes exactly! As Wilson concludes, grace is what it's all about. And God's grace in Christ was not a stale mince pie and a lukewarm sausage roll in a cold grey room, it was a sumptuous, lavish banquet with Michelin star cooking, champagne, laughter and song. 

That's why 'tis the season to be jolly as the carol says.

Epiphany

Today is widely celebrated in Christianity as "Epiphany" (from the Greek meaning "manifestation" or "sudden appearance") where we reflect on the fact that Jesus came not just for the Jews but for the whole Gentile world also. This was first shown not long after his birth when he was visited by the Magi or wise men in Bethlehem (Matthew 2).

We tend to think of the visit of the wise men as part of the nativity story. But the fact that Jesus was born in a place where animals were kept, but the family were in a house by the time the wise men arrived, strongly suggests that some time had passed between the two events. So perhaps the couple of weeks between Christmas and Epiphany is not so daft.

In the ancient world the division between the science of astronomy and the magical belief of astrology was blurred. The Magi were probably from modern day Iran or Iraq - we don't know if there were three of them - but they must have journeyed a long way and for many months to arrive in Palestine.

The Magi story is one of my favourite passages of Scripture. It tells us so many important things. Most of all it tells us that God's love and God's salvation is for everyone. It's for Gentiles as well as Jews. It's for people whose lifestyle the Scriptures do not approve of (astrology is condemned in the Old Testament as a pagan practice). It's for educated, sophisticated, intellectual people, not just for simple shepherds - the Magi were part of the intellectual elite of Persian culture. And it's for the wealthy as well as the poor - the Magi could afford to present Christ with lavish gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh - very expensive, luxury items of the ancient world.

Christ is for everyone. That's the central message of Epiphany. Isn't that a good reason to celebrate today?

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone. We pray that you will know and experience the blessing of God this Christmas day and always.

I've been struck this year by this verse in Luke's Gospel that I've heard now at 2 or 3 services and bible studies during the last few weeks: "Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord."

Three titles in a single verse, each with something important to teach us about the baby born in Bethlehem whose birth we celebrate today.

Saviour - The name Jesus means "The Lord saves". And Jesus is the Saviour of the world, the one appointed by God to rescue humanity from its wickedness and stupidity. It is only by trusting in him that we can escape the punishment that we all deserve for rejecting God and failing to love either him or our neighbour as we should. The baby born in Bethlehem is therefore of supreme important to the lives of each one of us.

Messiah - The word "Messiah" in Hebrew means "the anointed one". In Greek, the same name is "Christ". This is the title of God's chosen and anointed King, foretold in the Old Testament. He would be a descendant of King David, born in Bethlehem, who would grow up to rule God's people and all the nations of the world. This is a reminder that Christianity is grounded in Jewish history and Old Testament prophecy.

Lord - The "Lord" is also the title accorded a king, but "Lord" (Adonai in Hebrew or Kurios in Greek) is also the way the personal, covenant name of God was normally referred to in Scripture. It is very likely Luke is here telling us that Jesus the Messiah is none other than Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob come to earth as a human being. As another title of Jesus says - he is Immanuel, which means "God is with us".

Putting these three things together, the birth of Jesus is about the promised King of the Jews coming to earth and revealing himself to be God incarnate, God become human flesh and blood, with the purpose of delivering and rescuing sinners, bringing them into God's kingdom, and preparing them to live for all eternity in a relationship of love with God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

No wonder we celebrate his birth with this great Christian festival year after year. No wonder we also sing with the angels:

Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those who have his goodwill (Luke 2:14).

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. May you have a blessed and joyful day as we celebrate the Saviour's birth once again.

Christmas Eve

Having been out for some last minute Christmas shopping last night at Braehead Shopping Centre it struck me how sad it is if the only thing we take away from Christmas is a pile of presents received and an overdraft for the presents given.

Great though the festivities are, they are worthless compared to knowing Jesus Christ.

Christmas Eve is a strange day. The last day of advent. The final day of anticipation. And yet it is strange. Strange to be anticipating the birth of a child that already happened two thousand years ago. Yet in a sense isn't that what we do each year? Really we're only anticipating the day of celebration of it, but as we do that in some way we do go back to Bethlehem and imagine the events we read about every year in the Gospels.

And aren't we filled with that sense of awe and wonder and thankfulness that "He came down to earth from heaven / who is God and Lord of all." What greater love could God show for us? "Sacred infant, all divine / what a tender love was thine / thus to come from highest bliss / down to such a world as this."

Tonight, in the freezing cold and the darkness, all over the country, all over the world, his followers will gather once again to mark the start of his birthday celebrations. If you can manage, why not go along yourself to a church near you and join in later today?

Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my readers. It's been a lovely white Christmas in Glasgow this year. And I've had a great day celebrating with my family. Winding down now and relaxing before another day of family visits tomorrow.

Austerity Christmas

Christmas might still only come ‘but once a year’ but it seems to last longer and longer as shops and other businesses start putting up decorations and Christmas trees around October, some even as early as September! I hear some people put up their Christmas trees so early nowadays that they have to dust them a couple of times before Christmas actually arrives!

The mood seems to be – if my limited perception of the retail market is anything to go by – that people are spending less this year. In the middle of a recession, that’s not surprising. It’s also probably no bad thing. The last thing we need as a society is to plunge ourselves into more unmanageable debt.

I recently heard the phrase ‘austerity gospel’ as a kind of biblical counterpart to the false ‘prosperity gospel’ that goes around. (The prosperity gospel is ‘believe in Jesus and God will bless you with money, possessions, good fortune of every kind’). That got me thinking about the differences between the glitzy Christmas the world pushes more and more each year and the true Christmas – the austerity Christmas of Bethlehem 2000 years ago.

As Christians, we celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas of course with joy and merriment. But that first Christmas was no fairy lights and roast turkey dinner affair. It was as austere as you can get. Strip away the images off the Christmas cards, the idyllic scene of a strangely sanitised warm and welcoming stable, and you are left with raw life.

An unmarried mother forced to make a hazardous journey because of an unpopular poll tax. The birth in a dirty room where animals were housed, with the smell of manure in the air. None of Mary’s female family and friends around to help her. The only people to come and celebrate the birth were shepherds – social outcasts in their society. The wise men (astrologers most likely) come from far distant lands much later to see the child and would have been viewed with deep suspicion by religious Jews. Then the family are forced to become asylum seekers in Egypt, fleeing from the ruthless troops of King Herod. As John wrote in his gospel, ‘He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.’ (John 1:10-11). Those verses are about as austere as anything in the Bible.

The true ‘magic’ of Christmas is that it’s precisely in that way, to that reception, with a mission to save the world that had no time for him, that God’s Son came to earth. And out of those events, Jesus Christ fulfilled his role as God's anointed King and Saviour, all the way to Calvary – to the final rejection and through the mysteries of God's will – to his destiny of victory and triumph, for our good and his Father's glory.

As Paul wrote: ‘For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.’ (2 Corinthians 8:9)

Such is the grace and love of God: he made his own Son nothing that we might have everything.

The Meaning of the Christmas Story

This piece originally appeared as the editorial in our church's parish magazine for December 2007.

There can hardly be anybody in the country who doesn’t know the basics of the Christmas story: the donkey, Bethlehem, the inn, the stable, the mother and child, the shepherds, the angels, the star and the wise men. The Christmas story is part of our culture, part of our collective knowledge. Most of us have probably been in a nativity play when we were young at school. Many of us will have heard the story at least once a year at a one church service or carol concert. At some level, most people probably even believe the things in the story are true.

My point is that thinking about the story, knowing the story and even having a vague acceptance of the story is one thing; but it’s understanding the meaning of the Christmas story that matters. It’s when we come to understand what the story is really about that it changes people's lives.

The details of the story are colourful and memorable and many of them add to the meaning of the story, but the two things that are of fundamental importance are: who this baby is and why was he born. They are connected of course – the why he came flows out of who he is. There are two names in particular that the Bible gives to Christ that sum up the essential meaning of Christmas: Immanuel (which is more like a title) and Jesus (his personal first name).

"They shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us)." (Matt 1:23).

"You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." (Matt 1:21).

In other words, the real meaning of Christmas, based on these verses, is that God came to earth as a human being to save his people. Christmas is worth celebrating every year because it marks an incredible event – the God of history entering human history, the Creator’s Son taking on the nature of his highest creature, coming to earth as a man.

He came to follow a path that would take him from the stable to the cross to the empty tomb and back to the throne of heaven as King of kings and Lord of lords. And the point of this divine journey is to save sinners like you and me, to deliver us from all our foolishness, pride, wickedness and selfishness and bring us by his grace to wisdom, humble worship, righteousness and selfless love and service to others. He came to save us from hell. He came to deliver us from death and give us life.

This Immanuel comes to each of us with the message that the God of love is with us. This Jesus comes to each of us with a call to repent and believe in him, to offer us eternal life – life in all its fullness now and life everlasting in the future. This is the Christmas gospel that flows from the events of the Christmas story.

If we can even begin to take in the enormity of this eternal plan, that divine journey, and this gracious offer, how can any of us remain unchanged by it? This gospel changed the world in the past and will go on changing the world until history itself has run its course. So, this Christmas, may we all "Go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which has come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us" (Luke 2:15), giving thanks to God for what he has done for us.

It's the thought that counts

The editorial from our Church's Magazine for December 2006

There's a saying you often hear around Christmas: "It's not the gift, it's the thought that counts." How very true that is. Let’s look at it in two ways to show it’s true! Firstly, we value the time and thought that someone put into a gift, we prize the love behind the gift far more than the gift itself. When I think back to Christmas as a child I received many lovely presents. I remember one year receiving a set of little plastic farm animals and farm equipment and the farmer with a shotgun tucked under his arm. That was what enthralled me then. Now thinking back, I appreciate even more the wooden farm with hills and little loch, the barn and farmhouse my father made himself from wood. It must have taken him a long time to make and paint it. On the other hand it was only plywood, papier-mâché, bits of sponge and paint. It was worth almost nothing. But that’s the gift that came to mind when I sat down to write this. Why should that be? Because the thought behind it revealed how much my father loved me in a very special way.

On the other hand, how do we feel if we know no real thought went into a gift, even if the gift itself is expensive? There’s a scene in the film Dead Poets Society where it’s the birthday of one of the schoolboys and he’s sitting up on the roof looking very depressed. Another boy sees the expensive desk-set his parents gave him as a present and asks what’s wrong. “They gave me exactly the same set last year,” he says. If no thought went into it – if someone gives us clothes in a size that’s obviously too big or small for us, or if someone gives us a box of chocolates and earlier in the year we told them we’re diabetic (I’m not by the way before you ask!), it inevitably creates disappointment in the giver’s lack of thought.

Another aspect of the thought behind the gift is where the person makes a big deal of the “thinking about you”, but the gift never comes through at all! All thought and no gift isn’t really much thought at all is it? I’m not talking about people who cannot afford a gift here. Please don’t think that. I’m talking about people who like to appear generous but in practice are pretty mean. James in his New Testament letter writes about people like that. He writes at one point (James 2:15-16): "If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?" There's something phoney about good wishes that aren't backed up by kind practical actions.

What’s all this got to do with the real meaning of Christmas? Well, the point I wanted to make is that Christmas shows not only God giving us the supremely valuable gift, but it also shows that he gave the gift out of the deepest love, and in doing that he was keeping his promises made in the Old Testament over more than a thousand years. Let’s look briefly at these now, in reverse order.

Unlike people who promise the earth but don’t deliver, God keeps his Word. In the Old Testament he promised to send the Messiah. And he didn’t just leave it as a wonderful idea, a set of fine promises, never followed through and delivered. God is not a politician! When he promises it, he does it. The Scriptures promised many things about him. They tell that he would destroy the devil when he came, that he would be conceived in a virgin, that he would be a descendant of Abraham and King David, that he would be born in Bethlehem, that he would be a Redeemer, a Saviour of his people, and possibly most astounding of all, that it would be through his death that his people will be saved, but that his death will somehow not be the end of his life. Look at Isaiah 53:5, 9-10: “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed…And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.”

The second thing to remember is that in sending us his Son, God sent us a priceless gift, the most valuable and precious thing he had, the thing he loved most. Probably the most famous verse in the Bible says it most clearly: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son so that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). God’s gift is no mere “stocking filler” if I can dare to put it that way. He gave us his beloved Son! From eternity, the holy trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit had existed in a perfect bond of unity and love, knowing and loving each other more deeply that we can ever imagine. And that first Christmas, God the Father sends God the Son down to such a world as this, to save us.

That leads us to consider the thought in the Father’s mind behind the gift of his Son Jesus Christ. The “thought that counts” most supremely of all at Christmas is the Father’s strongest and deepest saving love for his chosen people. A lot of people treat God’s election of his people as the dirty secret of Christian doctrine, something we should hide or be embarrassed about. Well we shouldn’t be and I’m not. I rejoice in it and I don’t care who knows it. From before the beginning of the world he knew and loved us. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 1:9 that God “saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.” Or as he put it in Ephesians 1:4 “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world.”

How can we begin to conceive of such a love as this? A love that has been working since before time, and all through human history, to order all things for our good (Romans 8:28) and to save us through Jesus Christ (Romans 8:30).

If John 3:16 is the best known verse in the Bible, it should be joined by Romans 5:8, where Paul writes: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While all the wonderful verses about predestination fill all who believe in Jesus Christ with joy, those who don’t yet know Christ may feel excluded, wondering if God didn’t choose them. But that’s where verses like this are so important. It was while we were sinners, Christ died for us. If you are not a Christian, you don’t need to worry about whether God chose. God is calling you to come to Christ and believe in him. It’s that choice, whether to accept God’s gift or not, that should concern you. There is no qualification required to come to Christ other than to accept you are a sinner in need of a Saviour, because it was for sinners like you and me that Christ died to save.

This Christmas may we all see that in Christ both the gift and the thought count. And may we never despise or reject either.

Christ is for Life, Not Just for Christmas

This is my editorial from our parish magazine for December

I thought it would be a real challenge to write something for the magazine that comes out in December without using the "C" word. After all (I told myself) this magazine takes us right through to the end of February. Who wants it all to be about you know what once we get into the new year? But then I realised what a foolish train of thought that is. If I took that approach I realised I would be guilty of following the mindset that produces the rampant commercialism we see at this time of year: pile them high, sell them dear, get it by and forget about it as quickly as possible. No sooner will the great day arrive than they'll start trying to sell us more stuff in the sales and then there will be the holiday offers, and then the DIY stuff, and then gardening equipment, and then...you know how it is...on and on until they start again in September for next December 25th!

But why should we, who know what it's really about, want to get it over with and then move on? I want to savour every bit of it and rejoice, taking in all it means.

So I changed my mind and decided to write about Christmas after all, because the truth is this: Christmas is for life, not just for Christmas. Doesn't matter if we think about it in February, or July, or October. Of course I don't mean the false, worldly, pagan Christmas. That really has no meaning. I mean the real Christmas: the birth of Jesus Christ. Its meaning is for all year round because Christ is for life, not just for Christmas!

As the angels sang, His birth really is "good tidings of great joy" (Luke 2:10). The fact that God came down to earth in the Lord Jesus Christ changed everything forever. That's why Jesus is also known as "Immanuel," because He is "God with us" (Matthew 1:23). It shows that rather than being a distant maker who now has little or nothing to do with ordinary people like us and cares nothing for all the ups and downs of our lives, our God is right there with us through it all. He identifies with His people so completely that even though He is eternally "Spirit" (John 4:24), He was willing to be "manifested in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16) and "became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14) so that He can "sympathise with our weaknesses" (Hebrews 4:15) in the person of His Son.

But even great news though that is, it doesn't even begin to exhaust the riches of God's grace to us in sending Jesus to be born in Bethlehem that first Christmas. The wonderful "glad tidings" -- the Christian gospel -- is that Jesus came not just to sympathise with us but to save us.

He came to save us from all our selfishness, all our pride, all our pettiness, all our prejudices and hatreds, all our failures, and all our wickedness. The only to adequately explain why it took God Himself to come to earth to rescue us is first to acknowledge that we were in need of being rescued! And then to recognise we needed to be rescued by God Himself because our situation was so bad that no one else could do it.

The reason for stressing the seriousness of sin is not to drive us to despair or depression, but to drive us into the saving arms of God! The Bible goes on about sin so you can see the dangerous spiritual position you are in if you are not in Christ; it stresses the sinner's helplessness so that you will abandon any attempt to rescue yourself. We just can't do it: "There is none righteous, no, not one." (Romans 3:10). "No one is justified by the law in the sight of God" (Galatians 3:11). In other words, we can never please God by trying to be "good enough" or "do enough good".

But the glad tidings of Christmas is that salvation is by God's grace, not by our works. We are saved by what Jesus has done for us. Trying to do enough good to earn our way to heaven is impossible, but the hope of Christmas is that by instead trusting only in the Lord Jesus we shall be saved (Acts 16:31). Through His work -- in His coming as God and Man, living a perfect life, obeying all God's laws, bearing the punishment for our sins on the cross, and showing His victory over death by His resurrection -- Christ has done it all for us. Even his very name tells us this. Before He was born the angel said to Joseph: "You shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins." (Matthew 1:21)

So what do you have to do? Actually you don't have to do anything. You just need to rely on God and His promises. You just need to believe Christ can and will save you. Trust in Him and acknowledge that He is Lord: the master and guide of your life. That's all. For it is through faith, through reliance and trust, in Him that Christ's saving work of taking our sins away and giving us His perfect righteousness will change from just being true in the pages of Scripture, or being true for someone else, to being true for you.

Paul wrote: "I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith." (Philippians 3:8-9).

This Christmas God is calling those of us who already know His saving love and grace in Christ to celebrate and give thanks for all the blessings He has lavished on us. But God is also calling everyone who has not yet turned away from their sins and embraced Christ as their Lord and Saviour to do so now. God Himself is calling you: "Look unto Me, and be saved," He says (Isaiah 45:22). What better invitation could there be than the call of Almighty God Himself? What better promise could there be than that made by God to all who respond: "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Romans 10:13).

No wonder the writer of Hebrews asks: "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" (Heb 2:3).

Will you, from this Christmas on, know the real joy of Christmas for the rest of your days, or will you let another year pass by, knowing only the outward show?

I'm praying that if haven't already done so, this Christmas you will make the right choice, because "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3:18).