I don't know about any of you reading this, but Christmas for me begins around 4.30p.m. on the 24th. of December when I tune into BBC TV to listen to the lessons and Carols from the chapel of Kings College, Cambridge, with a glass of sherry at my elbow. But Christmas for Christians means much than carols and sherry. Instead remember the first 'Homeless Family.' For them there' was no room at the inn.' But they found shelter in a cave in which animals sheltered on a winter's night. And it was here that a young woman, Mary, gave birth to a son. Amazingly, his place of birth had been foretold centuries before, ' But you, Bethlehem though you are small out of you will come for me, one whose origin comes from old and ancient times.'
This was not the only thing foretold about this child. He would be the most despised of men; a man of sorrows; he will be led like a lamb to the slaughter and they would throw dice for his clothes. But all of these terrible predictions about this chid lying in a manager had a purpose : as a man, he would reconcile God and his people. " God and sinners reconciled", as the carol puts it. One last thing about the Bethlehem babe is that he was to divide history to before and after his birth.
It just remains for me to wish you and yours every blessing of Christmas and the happiest New Years. " God bless us everyone."