One year at Christmas time I visited a family in Stanmore which is a largely Jewish neighbourhood. The lady told me how that morning she was loudly awakened by a dustbin man who was looking for his Christmas gift. When she gave the man 50 pence he complained that it wasn’t very much considering all the extra work he had to do at Christmas. The lady was rather taken aback and sharply replied that there was practically no extra work since she was the one single Christian living in the entire street.

The only other people who seemed to be celebrating Christmas were the Hindu family next door who had a small tree in their window. So the dustbin man went off with a flea in his ear.

I tell you this story not because those Jewish families in Stanmore weren’t celebrating Christmas but because the Hindu family next door was. And actually it is quite remarkable that all over the world you can find Christmas being celebrated in one form or another. Perhaps not in strongly Muslim countries, but certainly in places like India and Japan which have only small Christian populations.

Christmas has become a universal feast for all mankind because it celebrates a birth; not just the birth of an ordinary child but the birth of the Son of God. He came into this world to proclaim a Gospel of peace and love and forgiveness. He came, of course, not just to preach, but to live out the full meaning of these things. This led, as we know to his death on the Cross of Calvary. But never was that peace, love and forgiveness made more present that at the moment of his death when Christ’s sacrifice became the very means by which mankind was forgiven his transgressions and the way to eternal life opened up for us.

Let us rejoice in this Christmas season and once again resolve to live our lives by his Gospel.