A Christmas Message from The Rev'd Canon Dr Peter Thompson to the JHPCU Community

​There are two words which tell us what Christmas is all about, Presents and Presence - or perhaps I should say there are two Christmasses.

The first Christmas is all about presents. That’s what the world shouts at us, from the middle of October. The mid-winter party season is all about presents, about spending money. What matters most is what I give and receive, how many parcels are under the tree and how expensive they are. The food and drink we will consume and the parties we will attend. The cards we exchange and the decorations and lights we deck our houses with. Many drive themselves into debt trying to live the dream, trying to give the most lavish and extravagant presents, trying to host the best parties for family and friends. The credit card will be maxed out, shrugged off as next year’s problem.

The other Christmas is about presence. Immanuel, God with us. That is how the scriptures describe Christmas. There’s not a lot of glamour in a stable, no tinsel or Turkey, no tree or gaudy lights. But in that stable God has reached down from the height of heaven into the mire and filth, walked among us, and walked with us. 

There are gifts, yes, from the wise men from the East. Valuable and disturbing in equal measure, but that’s a later instalment of the story. It begins in poverty and neglect, as it ends in rejection and crucifixion. But at its heart it is presence, the presence of God with us.

St John describes it so beautifully and so gloriously. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... In him was light, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not...” 

The presence of God is light shining in darkness, in the darkness of a borrowed stable, in the darkness of temptation in the wilderness, in the darkness of sickness, illness and death as he touched with hands of healing and resurrection. 

The presence of God is light shining in our lives today. Whenever we find ourselves engulfed by the darkness, by physical ailments and sickness, by the darkness of depression and mental anguish, by the darkness of fear and hatred, by the darkness of spirit which threatens to draw us away from God, we can turn to the light and allow him to shine into the darkness. 

St John says “the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not,” or in the more modern versions the darkness could not overcome it. On the cross we see all the darkness this world has ever known gathered together against the eternal son of God, and we see the light continuing to burn, and burn more brightly as the darkness gathers. St Paul wrote to the Romans that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. When the darkness seems to reach its height, the light of Immanuel burns most brightly. 

My friends, those are the two Christmases, the presents, and the presence. The choice is yours, which will be your Christmas. Only one brings light and peace and true happiness. 

St John leaves us with the decision we must make. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his names, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of Man, but of God.” Since his birth Jesus has divided the world. Some have embraced him and his way, some have rejected and persecuted him. When we embrace him, we are born again into a new life, and the presence becomes the real present of Christmas.