'In the Bleak Midwinter, frosty winds made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a

stone . . .'

It's not often we can sing that song with great   conviction in December but this year we certainly can: it's proving a long  hard  cold season.  

Even in the Middle East it can get cold at this time of  year  and I think I am right in saying that Syria, for example, has seen a   considerable amount of snow.  

So imagining baby Jesus wrapped against the cold in a stable, steamy with cattle breath is not so impossible.

At Christmas Christians celebrate what the Bible calls 'The Word made flesh'.  Faith is not just a set of ideas about the nature of the universe:  it  is made real; embodied, in Jesus.  

Here is the maker of the universe wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger.  Here is truth we can touch.

You may not believe that. You may think it is a load of sentimental  hocus  pocus dished out by vicars at Christmas.

But don't turn away too  quickly  because you just might be wrong.  

That first Christmas  Bethlehem was  crowded with people who went to bed on Christmas Eve and woke up  on Christmas day not realising they had missed what was to be the most  celebrated event in  human history.  

Don't make the same mistake.

Keep warm, keep safe and have a really happy Christmas.

Stephen Cook

Rector of Okehampton