Just a short post on this Christmas Eve to wish you well over the holidays. In so many ways this will be a traditional Western Christmas for us: we have a tree (of sorts); a turkey; a home-made Christmas pudding; we have presents to open and there will be those who open our presents to them; goodness, we even have deep snow-cover on the ground.

But among the traditional – and yes, pagan – festivities we are sure to make room to reflect on what this season truly means to us. My favourite passage in the Bible is the first two verses in Hebrews where the author reminds us that though God has spoken to humanity in many different ways, he has done so finally in Jesus. That God speaks to us at all is pretty amazing but that he should do so in his own Son is beyond astonishing.

And what does he say through his Son who was born one of us in such ordinariness? To me he says two things: you’re special and I love you. You’re special because God has come into our world as one of us, not just wearing human skin, but has taken our humanity and actually become a human. No matter how much of a mess we make of our lives, no matter how bad things get, God speaks words of affirmation and acceptance in the incarnation.

And secondly he says he loves us; loves us enough to actually come amongst us in order to save us. A love that should we be fully aware of it – and many of us aren’t – our lives would utterly transformed.

I leave you at the end of this year by thanking you for reading, commenting and hopefully being stirred by my blog. You’re a small crowd but I enjoy writing for you. So let me wish you a very Peaceful Christmas and a Happy New Year.