I’m told they have cancelled Christmas in Bethlehem.

But what is being called off in Bethlehem is an experience of Christmas , not the thing itself. The nativity scene we have got used to is the kind of graven image that Moses warned us against when he came down from the mountain , the God he revered could not be painted to adorn a card or sculpted into a nativity crib.

So it is right that Christmas survives the rubble and that the message of hope through love is kept alive despite the desperate circumstances of those in Gaza. I love this nativity for saying that.

Many of the manifestations of Christ, as a complete man suggest an image of wholeness that is at significant variance to those who have been mutilated and maimed by conflict.

Christ lives in the cripple and he lives in women as he lives in men. He is present through what Christians call a “holy spirit” that imbues all things and makes them lovely.

Even the rubble and dust of Gaza can be transformed by love.

Which may sound pretty rich from a 62 year old privilidged male writing from Dorset on a mild December morning on the eve of Christmas. Listening to Jennifer Smith’s sermon from Wesley’s Chapel , I’m pleased that I wasn’t alone in spotting the crib in the  debris.

It is the proper message of Christmas and why Christmas is the same whether you are lucky enough to have a roof over your head or whether you have no home. Whether you have family or no family. Whether you have your health or know that this Christmas may be your last.

For Christmas is a thing of love , a thing of the spirit not just the body of the baby Christ. And it is a merry thing , it is a thing of hope even in the depths of desolation , of the homelessness of the nativity and the horror that we see in Gaza and on the battlegrounds of Ukraine.

So we put aside our personal problems at this time and join hands with all others, in this merry message.

Happy Christmas to you and thank you for reading my blog this year

This silly reindeer is sitting above me as I type this and the holy spirt of Christ’s birth is in his merriness too!