The Christmas story is full of surprises. Who would have believed that it would be a group of astrologers who would be led to find baby Jesus? It would have seemed so much more likely that a group of learned and godly Jewish scholars would have cracked it! Who would have thought that the heavenly choir would have announced the news of Jesus coming to a group of despised and ceremonially unclean shepherds? It would have surely been so much more likely that some respectable religious people in Jerusalem would have been honoured with the news. Who would have thought that God would entrust to a young girl the responsibility of bearing the Messiah? Surely it would have been more suitable to use someone with proven spiritual insight and maturity. One surprise follows another.

But Christmas simply prepares us for Jesus’ ministry as one surprise follows another. His audience knew that all Samaritans were theologically dodgy, but Jesus tells a story about a Good Samaritan. He meets faith in a Roman centurion, a senior representative of the hated occupying army, and tells everyone that he has found more faith in this Gentile than in Israel. Ouch! Jesus’ hearers would have had great respect for the amazing religious commitment of the Pharisees, and would have jeered at the monstrosity of a tax collector daring to worship God in the temple – but Jesus pointed out that God only accepted the prayer of the tax collector. Wow! Jesus reached out to the tax collectors, to the lepers, to the prostitutes, to the poor, to the women, to children ... and in fact you would struggle to think of any marginalized group that weren’t embraced by his care and interest.

Christmas continues to give us amazing opportunities for sharing the staggering story of God’s love for everyone. For most of the year we are a little marginal group in society, but for these weeks we are given centre stage. Winterval and other politically correct celebrations seem to have largely bitten the dust, amidst howls of derision. Christmas still gets massive attention and praise God for that. Let’s sing the carols with gusto and invite people to join our celebrations. Let’s make sure that we are true to the story of Christmas. Christmas is nothing less than the celebration of a God whose arms are outstretched to the whole world, and not a little narrow religious part of it. People with dodgy theology or no theology are all welcome. People with morals that they are acquired in the gutter could not be more welcome. People who have spent the whole year ripping off others will find that God has a smile on his face as he welcomes them. Whatever your sin, God’s love longs to welcome you so that he can transform you into the person that he created you to be.

Have a wonderful Christmas ... but don’t you dare think that Christmas belongs to Christians. It either belongs to everyone or we’ve missed the point.