Who is Christmas for? Happy families? Children? Is Christmas for those who have just lost loved ones in a bus crash? Or for those who lost parents or children in the horror of the Westgate massacre. Does Christmas mean anything to South Sudan as the bullets fly and chaos and fear escalates daily? How can we talk about Christmas when we’re surrounded by that sort of pain and sadness and mayhem? How can Christmas and death fit together? Well if Christmas is all about fun and family and eating and drinking and cute nativity plays then it obviously doesn’t fit with massacres and funerals and pain and suffering. But that’s not the real Christmas. There is NOTHING sweet about the real Christmas. There is NOTHING sentimental or cute about the real Christmas story. Pick up a Bible and read Matthew 2:1-18. That is a dark story isn’t it? There’s the nice bit about the star and the gold, frankincense and myrrh but basically it’s about a mad king hunting down...
Living and preaching at the foot of the Cross