Thought for the week - 28 December 2025

Are you hoping that they will come, or are you hoping that they will go or are you just waiting for the next lot to come around New Year? Have you had enough of your family yet, not enough or does it not matter very much but you could do with some help eating the ham? At this time of the year when some families move heaven and earth to be together for a few days and some do quite the opposite, it’s appropriate that the Church presents us with the image of the Holy Family.

It may seem an artificial image, a concoction of the nice bits from all the gospels mixed with the Victorian stereotypes of father as provider, mother as homemaker, and a child who seems to be a cross between Little Lord Fauntleroy and Aristotle, but this is not the truth which is presented to us, and we are not living in a fairytale.

In the gospels we catch glimpses of Jesus’s family which reflect the difficulties we all face in our own families. The Holy Family doesn’t get off to an auspicious start. Joseph and Mary were engaged and he found out that his fiancée was pregnant and not by him, and the Holy Family would not have existed without faith, hope and love, especially in hard times – as well as an honesty about those hard times.

Matthew points out that Jesus’s birth is the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah which says a child is to be born whose name will be Emmanuel which means God-with-us, not ‘God doing everything for us’ but God-with-us, so we take heart that beyond the headlines and the guns and the human suffering, but also with the headline and the guns and the suffering – there is the very God that we seek.

Matthew’s story of the birth of Jesus begins with an angel telling Joseph that Mary will bear a son, who shall be called Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Jesus actually means ‘Saviour’. He continues:

All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, which means, God-with-us.

The rest of the gospel is an explanation of what it means to have God dwelling with us. Matthew depicts Mary and Joseph living a normal life in rural Bethlehem when they learn that they are to be the instrument of God’s living with humanity. I’m sure Matthew envisages them expecting great changes for the better. After all, the Old Testament prophecies state that the lion will lie down with the lamb, swords will be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. Peace is to mark the coming of the Messiah. All over the world ploughshares are being beaten into swords. Violence is escalating, from knife crime to war. Traditionally we remember today all those suffering persecutions for their faith. There is the massive persecution of Christians, but believers of all faiths are being killed, often by members of other faiths. We see again the ugly rise of anti-Semitism. Many of our Jewish brothers and sisters no longer feel safe.

But God’s grace is unimaginably fertile. The gospel tells of a young virgin and a barren old woman who bear children. God is the source of unquenchable newness even when everything looks hopeless. Gabriel said to Mary, ‘With God, nothing is impossible.’

But the change is not what Mary and Joseph expect and the effect on Bethlehem is catastrophic. The secular powers, represented by King Herod, immediately bring greater oppression and atrocities. Joseph and Mary leave their settled life. The birth of the Messiah also brings untold grief to many when Herod, in attempting to destroy Jesus, kills the newborn sons of every family in the region. The birth of the prince of peace brings about death and conflict.

But the Christmas story is not one of despair. The fact that some of us can look with longing towards a world that can be better means that it is possible for us to bring the light of Christ into it. We may not stop oppression but we don’t collude with it. We may not put an end to greed but we refrain from contributing to the increasing difference between rich and poor. And when we put the fact of God dwelling alongside us against the callousness of the world, it shines all the brighter for us, strengthening our resolve to do everything in our power to bring about God’s kingdom.

So with the passing of another Christmas season, let us go into the New Year strengthened by its message and with our hopes renewed for a better world, for a Holy world, where each person knows that God is with them.