One of the great experiences of Christmas has to be the look of surprise on the faces of young children when they open their presents and aren’t disappointed. There is something brilliant about being surprised.

Yet, the Christmas story itself has become so familiar to many of us that it has lost its essential impact. Which is a big shame. Coming to the story afresh can throw up some surprises.

For example, the Gospels present us with a few shocks. It isn’t the great and the good who are invited to meet the baby Jesus in the manger – it is some blokes from up in the hills and several pagan stargazers from abroad. The birth creates a political crisis – which leads to brutality against young children. I realise that this isn’t how the story is usually told...

The greatest surprise, however, is to be found at the heart of the story: God comes among us as one of us and says he is on our side.

This doesn’t sound very exciting, does it?

Surely, if God were to come among us he would do so with demonstrations of power and glory? Well, according to the Gospels, God comes among us as a baby, born in an obscure part of the Roman Empire, vulnerable to all that the world can throw at him. Angels sing to the shepherds, but most of the world just carries on and doesn’t notice. That’s how life is.

In other words, Christmas is about God taking us seriously, coming among us where we are, experiencing the world as we do, opting into the world and not exempting himself from it. And that is why Christians unashamedly call their faith and their message ‘good news’.

And what does this mean for Bradford this Christmas – amid the freezing weather of winter and the cold winds of cuts to funding and services that we face in 2011? What does it mean for our communities where the challenges of the next year or two look formidable? What does it say to those who bear the name of the baby born in Bethlehem: Christians?

Try this.

God is interested in entering into our lives and communities where we are and as we are. The surprising thing is that he doesn’t ask us to smarten ourselves up first or pretend to be someone we are not. God enters into the ordinariness of our lives and doesn’t blast us with power and noise. One of the ways he does this is through the people who bear his name and who celebrate his birth at Christmas.

As he is present among us, so are his people present in our communities, seeking in various ways to reflect something of him.

This is my last Christmas in Croydon before coming to Bradford. I wish those of Christian faith, of other faiths and of no religious faith a surprising Christmas and look forward to facing the future with you in 2011 and beyond.