Christmas a Time of Hope.

Christmas is above all a time of hope. It is the darkest, coldest and most miserable time of the year in the northern hemisphere. In ancient times the winter solstice was celebrated as the time when daylight begins to lengthen and the prospect of Spring seems not too far distant. It was this time that the early Christian Church chose to celebrate the birth of Jesus although his actual birth was probably in Spring time. The Church chose wisely for it is at the darkest times that hope means most of all: when all the natural world seems to be cold and dead.
The Star of Bethlehem has, in a sense, only a bit part in the Christmas story it guides the wise men and the shepherds but its significance is much greater than that. The star is a symbol of hope in a dark and brutal world ,as dark then as it is now: a time of the massacre of the Holy Innocents by the brutal Herod. Yet the wise men followed the star in hope and so too did the shepherds. In a time when Christmas can be about so much less, about materialism, gluttony and greed; all that the babe of Bethlehem stood against, it is well to remember the star that shone in hope above the simple stable yard.
There is some cause for hope in that a recent survey by the Institute of Marketing found that hard times have had a major effect upon people's values they are:
1. a profound need for hope;
2. a sense of post-materialism;
3. a focus on people and things closest to us;
4. the comfort of ritual; and
5. the idea of the rewards of practicality, planning and hard work.

So, people want to hope - to believe in a better future, a long term vision of a society where people have common values which focus on each other rather than on 'things'. Help with our communities and kindness and generosity shown to each other and a concern for family and those closest to us which Christmas renews. Even when we are beset by hardship, illness and all the troubles of everyday life we can hope in time, "all will be well and all manner of things shall be well."