Each year as I come away from the last of the multiple Remembrance Services that I attend I think to myself 'and now I've got to think about Christmas!' Christmas Day is more than six weeks away as I write this, but of course magazine deadlines have to be met.

Its not that Remembrance Sunday and Christmas Day don't have their links, because they do. Most obviously, they are both about remembering, they are both anniversaries. Like all anniversaries we observe them so that we shall remember - the end of one horror and a respite in the case of Armistice Day and the beginning of something gloriously new and permanent in the case of Christmas Day. It would be nice to be able to say the same about Armistice Day as about Christmas Day, but alas 20th century history paints a different picture.

Biblical history is all about new beginnings, from the Creation through Noah and the Flood to Abraham and beyond all the way to the birth of Jesus. God never gives up on us! There have been many times in human history when we have seemed far removed from Him. (Some would say that this is true of the present day, although I am not so sure.) In all these times it is possible to see God at work, drawing us back to Himself. The birth, ministry and death of Jesus is a very obvious example of this - perhaps the most obvious. There has never been anybody quite like him, before or since, and Christmas is our chance to remember again and again that amazing time - and to celebrate it.

So what is it that we are remembering and celebrating? In a sentence, God's Love for us. This was a Love so great that He wanted to share our lives, to experience all the best and worst that we experience. To see life as we see it and finally to experience death as we know it and the business of dying in the worst possible way that we can devise. Most spectacularly of all, He wanted to show us through His life and death among us that our horizons are limited and that true life extends well beyond the few decades we spend on earth. Resurrection is more than a simple continuity, it is a complete transformation and a liberation - but that is for an Easter letter!

The celebration of Christmas is all about Emmanuel, "God With Us". In celebrating Christmas day at the winter solstice we have absorbed the old ideas of the victory of light over darkness and we have laid to rest for ever the primitive ideas of 'God Against Us'. On that first Christmas Day - whenever it was - the force of light came to overcome the dark and human life was transformed.
I hope very much that over the Advent and Christmas seasons you will find space to think on these matters, to pray a little and to come and join us for the celebrations in your churches. Advent is a time for preparation, Christmas for celebration and these themes are reflected in the worshipping life of the Church. Do come and ensure that the most important part of your life of all - the Spiritual - is as well fed as the body over these next few weeks.

This letter comes with every good wish and blessing for Christmas and New year 2003 from all the members of the ministry team in our nine parishes.

Chris Walter