December is not the best month for a birthday, believe me, I know. Having a birthday in December has always been a bit of an anti-climax for me, especially when one is a member of the clergy and there’s another carol service to do. Birthday cards get mixed up with Christmas cards and bottle gifts get saved for Christmas itself. Consequently, I’ve never been that bothered to celebrate my birthday and have been happy for it to go largely unnoticed, that is, until coming into this job only to find the date gets published in The Times each year!
And yet, for us all, young and older, the passing of another year is always a milestone, whether we party or deny the passage of time. In December as Christians, our focus is on the greatest birth of all. Advent prepares us and is a useful time of reflection upon true meaning and how the darkness of our world does become shattered by light. Imagine this dark time of year without the coming birthday of Jesus.
And yet, as we celebrate with lights and parties and gifts, our world feels very dark in these days. There is no escaping the terror of war, even if we only watch from afar as the plight of hostage and civilian goes on and on in the lands in which our Saviour was born. The largely comfortable in our world – that’s most of us here – struggle to imagine the plight of the Ukrainian or the Palestinian, the homeless person or the marginalised. And we know, for many, Christmas only exaggerates a time of loss and loneliness.
So the only real focus for us all in December, the only place where present is also presence, is the birth of Jesus Christ. Emmanuel, God with us, the almost unbelievable reality that God chooses to be born among us as one of us, as a human child, and still we tell that true story today. For me, this fact is why I believe. Reality in history means real God in real time. One who knows, one who loves, one who lived for us. The incarnation – the birth of love.
Whenever your birthday is I send you every blessing. In December, we celebrate the birth of the Word made flesh, the Light of the World and the Prince of Peace. To Jesus our Lord, on my birthday and every day, I pray, many happy returns!
The Rt Revd Stephen Lake, Bishop of Salisbury
