Christmas is advertised as the season of peace and goodwill for all people. You would hardly think it given the number of people who get stressed out because of money worries, or who end up on the pavement intoxicated by drink or drugs. Family arguments and divisions are often made all the more obvious at this time of the year. And yet, in the midst of it all, a child is born and a Saviour is given to us.

Maybe this Christmas season we might reflect on the crib. Why of all the places where Christ could have been born did he choose the manger?

The birth of Christ in the manger speaks of the truth that there is no place on this earth too humble that Christ cannot be found there, even in the surroundings of the manger. So in the midst of the Christmas rush; our financial problems; our family arguments and our personal difficulties which can seem so much greater at times such as Christmas, maybe we could spare a moment, take time to think, and begin to let that truth dawn on us; that in my life, there is nothing I have done or that has been done to me, that makes my heart too humble for the presence of Christ. There is nothing that can separate me from the love of God. Christmas can become a time of realisation for each one of us that God wants to become ever more alive in our hearts.

As we receive Eucharist this Christmas, let those words become a source of hope that will renew our faith, both in ourselves and in the God who loves us; "there is no place too humble on this earth for God to be found."

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