All too often we hear said of the church that it is no longer relevant to today’s world.  Statements along that line conjure up images for us of an archaic system of beliefs that have no place in our modern ‘enlightened’ understanding of the world.  They also make us look at the traditional churches in the same way we tend to look at the monarchy, as a quaint, if not absurd, relic of a bygone age.

Christmas marks the calender like an indelible marker, for as much as you know that its arrival is meaningless nevertheless its passing always registers somehow upon you.  Of course this is understandable when you consider how long you are hounded, night and day, by the merchants anxious to receive your generosity, or more poignantly by various media outlets so overcome with Christmas cheer that they insist on joining with you by orchestrating a mass outpouring of yuletide fervour in carols by candlelight.  What is not understandable is that the world has not allowed this obvious recipe for unbridled nausea and cynicism to put an end to the charade.  There must therefore be, hidden under all the tinsel, some profound need in man that he has fulfilled through Christmas.  Why else would he bother?