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Good morning. It’s a week to go before Christmas so this is the last day for delivering the second class post. This may seem an old-fashioned reminder given the range of electronic media now available to help us keep in touch, but I am more than happy still to send and receive Christmas cards (and to appreciate this year’s second class stamps with their stained glass picture of Madonna and child.) I recognise this will involve keeping a Christmas card list and facing the difficult questions whether we have heard from person x or are still in touch with family y; but it’s also a time to take stock and remember significant friendships, even if from long ago, and to reflect on how these relationships have enriched our lives. I confess that I even enjoy the much derided Christmas letters as a way of staying in touch with how the lives of friends and family are developing – and this year I note it won’t be so much a question of showing off our various travels and achievements as reflecting together on what’s proved impossible because of the pandemic.

Perhaps it’s a result of my boyhood experience of boarding school when I had to write a letter home each week. But equally I think it has something to say about the season we’re celebrating. For the message of the Incarnation is all about a God who comes to dwell among us and share our lives and relationships, and in so doing to enable our lives and relationships to speak of something divine. And if our Christmas cards are only a faint approximation to this, then they still remind us of the humanity of God.

Heavenly Father, In the birth of your Son you come to share this life and our relationships with each other; help us as we seek to stay in touch with those dear to us, to see how deep is your care for the whole human family; in Christ’s name, Amen.