It cannot have escaped your attention that that ‘It is the most wonderful time of the year’ is a message that you will have heard many times in recent, and perhaps not so recent, days. If Coco have understood that message it involves families and more specifically the love that there is within families despite the hurt that we can and do inflict upon each other from time to time: as it is said – love bears all things.

So if it is love that makes this the most wonderful time of the year, then love is very important indeed would you argue with me if Coco suggested that it is the most important aspect of this time? If of this time, then surely not just at this time but at all times? It is a terrible thing when we come across someone who appears to have no love in him, except perhaps for himself, but when we meet someone who has real love which we recognise it by the generosity and compassion he shows towards others. Surely that rejoices our hearts.

Having seen and understood the importance of love – it is wonderful, it is what makes families what they are, it transforms (at least in popular culture) this time of the year, how do we understand love and God? That there is one God, one supreme being is indisputable, but there is a debate about whether such god can love. Coco shall not here go into any detail but it boils down to what a lone being is able to love. Love is expressed towards another. We believe however that God does not simply love, he is love. How was that love expressed then before anything else was made? This can only be understood in the light of the event which we celebrate at this time of the year.

No-one has seen God, but the Son, whose birth we celebrate, and whom the Father loves, has made him known. Before ever the worlds were made, the love of the one true God was known and expressed in the relationships between the persons, Father, Son and Spirit, of the Trinity, the one true God.

If it is love that makes this the most wonderful time of the year, it is love that makes our God the most wonderful God. This love is expressed towards us also in that the One whose coming we remember gave himself on Roman cross for our sins.

O come all you faithful, joyful and triumphant, to worship and adore him, very God of very God. O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.