Someone saved some Children`s Letters to Father Christmas. Here are just three:-

Dear Father Christmas: Thank you for the robot toy you gave me last Christmas: this Christmas could you give me the batteries?

Dear Father Christmas: I have been a good girl all year except when I forgot to be good which is only once in a while so it shouldn`t count against me.

Dear Father Christmas: What did you do before you became Father Christmas? Were you God?

This last one reminds us that, whatever age we are, we can get confused about the coming of Jesus and all that Christmas means.

Today we remember the ministry of Mary, and the amazing truth that is there in our

Old Testament reading: God with us, the coming of God to earth through the obedience of a simple girl called Mary. That truth, God with us, comes from the words of the prophet Isaiah: `the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel`, which means God with us. St Paul puts it succinctly in our Epistle in Romans 1: `regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead; Jesus Christ our Lord.`

God with us. We say Sunday by Sunday: `We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.`. Do we find it easy to picture God the Father and perhaps Jesus in the Gospels but struggle to imagine the Holy Spirit? Do we, like the children I quoted, sometimes have a distorted picture of God with us, rather akin to Father Christmas?

God with us. For one child, Father Christmas was like a resident policeman. If they were good all year and got good marks at school, they hoped he would be on their side.

As we grow up, we learn to value the voice of conscience but it would be wrong to make conscience our God and turn him into a fist-waving controller. How we feel about God can sometimes be shown in our prayers: we share part of our lives with him but not all. We are anxious about how he would feel about the messy bits in our lives. But the Cross is all about a mess: God promises forgiveness and welcome to us all, whatever we have done or not done.

God with us. Maybe God is sometimes seen as rather like a benevolent old gentleman, ready to give us our heart`s desire, as a child expects of Father Christmas. That`s sometimes why people can give up on prayer. They have imagined God to answer in the way they had expected and when he didn`t, they gave up on him. They felt God wasn`t really of today, not related to modern day society.

Someone once conducted a survey of a mixed group of older teenagers. They were asked to answer, without thinking too much about it, this question: `Do you think God understands radar?` Nearly all the youngsters answered `no`, and then laughed as they realised just how ridiculous their quick answer had been. But it showed that at the back of their minds they held an idea of a God quite inadequate for today. It was as though they thought of God as a great power in his day but who could not possibly be expected to keep pace with modern progress . . . Is our picture of God based on the truths of the bible or on our own ideas?

God with us. We remember Mary and all that she represents: a friendship with God begun on earth, which enabled her to know herself forgiven, loved, set free to serve. That readiness, that obedience, cost her everything. She didn`t know what to expect as the years passed. She relied on the God whom she had served all her life. She was to discover what it meant for God for be fully God and fully Man. She knew God`s perfection but knew also her imperfection as a human being. The prayer at the heart of this service reflects that reality: `we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table but you are the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy`. He loves us as we are.

In the light of all of this, perhaps we need to examine our ideas of God afresh. Faith is not a magic wand, prayer is not a special formula. God calls us to know him as he really is. The greatest friend we could ever have. The only One who can forgive us and give us new life. The One known in the cloak he wears in the baby in the manger, who leads us on into friendship for ever with him. God with us. We celebrate his coming among us, and look forward to the certainty of his coming again.

Amen.

The Rev’d Pat Hopkins