It’s a dark and rather driech Guy Fawkes night with mist shrouding Salisbury Crags, but
in the United States people haven’t even noticed the weather as they celebrate the
election of a new young African-American President. There is a palpable sense of hope
and anticipation, not only in America, but across the world.

There is also a sense of anticipation as thoughts turn to Christmas. The sense of hope
and anticipation are, for me, encapsulated in the carol, O little town of Bethlehem,’
In thy dark street shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

Once again hopes are rekindled, rekindled because this is not a one-off historical event
that we recall, but something we can enter into. As David Adam, the poet/theologian put
it, “It is now that our Lord comes, it is now that he is born among us, it is now that he is
seen among us .... Our celebrations tune us into the eternal events, allow us to respond
to them and to carry that response into our daily living.”

But the significance of the season is lost in the clang of cash-registers, the tinsel jangle of
'Jingle Bells' and 'I'm dreaming of a White Christmas' over endless Tannoy systems in
countless stores worldwide. It is lost in crassness as people spill drunkenly out of bars
in Father Christmas hats and into the streets and transport systems of our cities.
Why, as that unique stillness falls upon the earth on Christmas Eve, 'Do they not know
it's Christmas?' (as Bob Geldof puts it.)

Yet in spite of 'all of that', Christmas is Christmas whatever you believe and wherever
you are. To the believer in Christ that unique stillness falls. It is as if the world holds its
breath at what is about to happen. 'Emmanuel, God with us' is coming into our world,
Credit Crunch and all. He's coming into the panic of the falling stock market, into
sub-prime mortgage chaos, into home repossession, unemployment, bankrupt banks and
horrible fear. And what is more, as David Adam reminds us, we can tune into this Christ,
this 'Emmanuel, God with us', today, tomorrow, whenever...

"Fear not," said the Angel of the Lord as the glory of the Lord flashed and shone all
about the shepherds watching over their flocks by night. 'For behold, I bring you good
news of a great joy which will come to all people. For to you is born this day in the
town of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Messiah, the Lord." Glory to God in the
Highest!

With warmest wishes to you all,

Brian Embleton, December 2008